Posted on 08/27/2004 10:46:20 PM PDT by freedom44
Overdue debtors beware: You may not be able to rely on Caller I.D. to screen out those annoying bill collectors much longer. A California entrepreneur has a plan to bring the hacker technique of Caller I.D. spoofing to the business world, beginning with collection agencies and private investigators.
Slated for launch next week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller I.D. spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose. "It creates an extra avenue for them to have someone pick up the phone," says founder Jason Jepson.
Caller I.D. spoofing has for years been within the reach of businesses with certain types of digital connections to their local phone company, and more recently has become the plaything of hackers and pranksters exploiting permissive voice over IP systems. But Star38.com appears to be the first stab at turning Caller I.D. spoofing into a commercial venture. Jepson claims the service will charge a twenty-five cent connection fee for each call, and seven to fourteen cents per minute.
SecurityFocus took the site for a test drive, and found it worked as advertised. The user fills out a simple Web form with his phone number, the number he wants to call, and the number he wants to appear to be calling from. Within two seconds, the system rings back, and patches the user through to the destination. The recipient sees only the spoofed number displayed on Caller I.D. Any number works, from nonsense phone numbers like "123 4567" to the number for the White House switchboard.
Jepson says the backend system doesn't rely on the most common methods of Caller I.D. spoofing -- PRI lines and VoIP -- but otherwise declined to comment on how it operates, for fear that competitors will launch copycat sites.
Legal Issues Star38.com claims it will screen subscribers, and initially make the service available only to licensed private investigators and collection agencies. Jepson and his partners believe that collection agencies in particular will find the service invaluable for getting recalcitrant debtors to answer the phone.
"If [collection agencies] have access to the loan application, they have the references," says Jepson. "Now they can call John Doe, and the number that he used as a reference on his loan application pops up on his or her Caller I.D." When debtor answers the call, instead of being greeting by Uncle Joe from back east, he finds himself on the line with a stern gentleman who wants to discuss some missed car payments.
The service does not appear to violate any federal criminal law, says Orin Kerr, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School, and a former Justice Department computer crime lawyer. "It doesn't violate the Wiretap Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or anything like that," say Kerr.
But Rozanne Andersen, general counsel at the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, believes collection agencies would be barred from using Star38.com under two federal civil laws: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which prohibits false or misleading representations and unfair practices in collecting debts, and the FTC Act, which outlaws deceptive trade practices in general.
"I would say that the concept would be very attractive to the industry, but the practice would be prohibited," says Andersen. "If that consumer calls that number, and does not reach the collector, that's a very serious problem. Certainly the use of what I'll call a 'dummy number' or a 'substitute number' would be a prohibited practice, because it is deceptive in its nature."
Jepson says his own attorney has advised him that the practice is permissible. He plans on launching Star38.com on September 1st.
Now if they can invent a device that will stop the callee from saying "sorry, you have a wrong number" the telemarketers and bill collectors will be in heaven.
There is a simple answer: Answering Machine.
Just monitor your calls, let your friends know to not hang up, but start talking, and if you are at home you will pick up.
Besides being illegal, having a business plan bound to fail, and not actually providing any service that can't be performed free and leaves a paper trail stating one is buying a service that is explicitly illegal under federal law, this guy sounds like he's got a real winner on his hands.
What he's going to need is a plan to get out of the country when he gets charged as an accessory to wire fraud.
It's illegal for a collection agent to assume a false identity, and they have no legitimate use for this technology (the latter fact puts the provider on the hot seat along with the user).
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