UK's first caller ID-spoofing service shuttered after five days

"there has to be some technical measure that can be implimented to prevent this"

Yeh, course there is. The bills always go to the right place, after all, don't they? Check the difference between CLI and ANI. One is spoofable, the other is used for billing.

Maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad idea to let this service run, after all - all the muppets who'd use it would be eminently traceable...

Amazing

How come Ofcom can be so fast due to spoofing CLID's, yet still nothing regarding Phorm.....?

Shame they've already shut down

Royce Brisbane (great name, incidentally) might have answered a call apparently coming from his wife's mobile number.

Spookcall Launch

I must have missed that party... Who was there? Yvette Fielding and the rest of the ghost hunter crew?

Anyway I digress, CLID spoofing is pretty easy, anyone with direct access to a phone switch or even an asterix/SIP based phone system can set their own caller ID number. Hours of fun can be had with prank phonecalls to mobiles as the phone resolves the incorrect number from its internal directory...

But I wouldn't have thought that a service such as this would have generated much revenue anyway...

Can't it still be used from the US anyway?

If I read the instructions right, you call SpookCall and your access number, then the number you want to appear as and the number you want to call.

Assuming you're happy to pay and their systems allow it, you could call +1 555 spookcall and then the "from" number as whoever you want (i.e. it could look like a UK number it doesn't have to be in US format) and the "to" number as +44...(i.e. a valid UK phone number with international code).

I don't know anything about how international phone calls work, but I'm assuming if the call ID in the US is spoofed, it carries over to the UK. It's probably an expensive method to "have a joke" though.

@Steve

Suggestions why ofcom has done bugger all about phorm:

1) The telephony infrastructure is a critical service for life in general (for doing business, people calling emergency services etc) so this kind of service would undermine confidence in it and so lead to people cancelling lines and ofcom losing its biggest cash cow, BT and lives being put at risk, an internet connection is not yet viewed as critical.

2) ISPs and phorm have convinced ofcom that the user is in control of whether they want to be tracked (whether its true or not) but the called party has no control over this, that is why Phorm will be allowed to exist.

I would defect to another ISP if mine started to use phorm and that is what people should do, there is nothing more powerful than market democracy, vote with your credit card.

Am glad to see that this service has closed, lets hope the git lost everything.

what a jape....

"It's probably an expensive method to "have a joke" though."

a good joke would be worht the expense....

Bong hits 4 Spookcall

Spookcall died for our sins

Here ya go

http://www.onewhois.com "spookcall.com" Look Up

@max allan

CLID doesn't work internationally. Display usually just says 'International'

Strangely, so does Skypein on my landline phone..I wish they'd fix that.

The Mighty Reg

Once again the Register triumphs over the forces of evil!

Don't suppose you fancy a go at the Home Office do you?

@this

> CLID doesn't work internationally. Display usually just says 'International'

It can work, just as sometimes 1471 will return an international number.

Just not always.

Seems Odd to Me

To spoof caller ID means one has to interfere in the signalling protocols of the telephone system. Whether one does so for the purpose of dialing long-distance without paying, or to affect the results of Caller ID, or for any other purpose whatsoever, since the telephone network is the property of the telephone company, I would have thought that tampering with it in any way has been a criminal offence all along. If it isn't, someone is asleep in Parliament.

re: "there has to be some technical measure that can be implimented to prevent this"

It's hard to stop. There are valid products that use a different Presentation number to the real calling number - for instance a call centre that presents the number that a user would need to ring back rather than the real calling number - which could be part of an ISDN-30 DDI range.

Some companies block international CLI because it can't be trusted, but within the UK it gets passed between operators. It only takes one operator to allow spoofed CLIs onto their switches from a user for it to be possible to propagate it nationwide.

I think to stop this it needs Ofcom to rule that it's not allowable or for legislation to be passed.

@Can't it still be used from the US anyway

nope . Telcos' can be fined for knowing displaying a DID that is not on the account

And what

happened to all that cash people splashed out for their calling credit before the plug was pulled?

Where else ... in Spookcall's pocket of course. Try and get a refund - go on, I dare you!

Why phorm can fly with ofcom (satirical post, maybe?)

There's very high chances that some people who work within Ofcom have worked in other parts telecommunications industry.

In turn there are chances that there are people pretty high up in Ofcom that have worked at BT, or its previous incarnations, right back to the GPO.

It is possible that some of those people have a vested interest in BT's business success, as they may have recieved share options when at BT, or have just purchased them anyway.

BT is also a huge organisation that many other telecoms companies rely on, contractors and the like. Former employees of these companies may end up at Ofcom too, still with an interest in how BT does.

Then of course there's the fact that people that have worked in one industry for a long time will have friends who have also worked in the same industry for a long time. Sometimes these friends end up at the top of major players in an industry.... or worse, at an industry major player and the industry regulator.

Spookcall were new into the industry. Even if the old-guard did like the idea of selling forged-CLID to people (which their bean-counters would - it "monetizes" something else the telecoms networks can do), they are not going to let a new whipper-snapper into their industry.

PS Yeah, this comment may have a libelous twist to it... so please double check the title/subject before deploying the attack-lawyers!

PPS Does anyone else just totally ignore a comment where the poster has used the Paris Hilton icon?

So does that mean

that the orange envelope with the spoof "spook" files I left on he 6.47 to Waterloo last week ,which didn't contain any "TOP SECRET" information is illegal ?

@ Jeff Rowse

I've had those sort of calls in the past Standard reply is,do you know what the telephone prefferance service is? CLUNK In other words you want WHAT if you can't tell me your company's phone number then piss off!

Money paid for this service

Frankly they deserve to lose their money.

He's probably done a bunk with it.