Caller ID

[redpoint5]

One thing I've always wondered is why someone has the ability to hide their caller ID? I mean, if someone's calling me, it's similar to them visiting my home, and that means they have no right to anonymity. Why would law protect the right of a caller to remain anonymous considering the person they are calling would be known by the caller?

That brings me to my next question of why number spoofing is legal and broadly supported for analog, Cellular, digital, and VOIP phones? If the network(s) hosting the connection knows the true identity of both endpoints, why would they be complicit in transmitting fake information?

Anyhow, just wondering aloud as someone/something has been spoofing my number for no apparent reason, and it's facilitated by the networks for no apparent reason.

[oil pan 4]

If it's a blocked or private number I assume it's at best unsolicited sales person, at worse a scam.
Either way I don't answer.

[freebeard]

One thing I've always wondered is why caller ID is a service I have to pay for.

The originating network offers the information and my network provider charges for it. If it weren't an additional recurring charge I might spring $20 for an inline display.

[Xist]

Whoever allows it profits from it?

Support coordinators show up as Unavailable. Police, too.

I have a family that I have seen eight times in nine months. They have actually canceled (or not responded when I attempted to confirm) thirty times. My supervisor dropped them, but the mom said "No," and they were immediately put back on my caseload. What is even better is that they are on probation. They were told they were on probation. If they canceled just one time they would be dropped.

They keep canceling.

Wish me luck dropping them!

The mom keeps demanding unusual things. She actually called her support coordinator to tell my boss to not let me contact her at 8pm because it is too late.

Anyway, during my last infrequent visit she apparently called her support coordinator, put her phone in my face, and said "Talk to her."

The woman never identified herself and she told me I needed to do things that I am confident that I do not need to do.

I understand not being able to reach the police unless they want us to--kind of. I doubt that harassing the police is a good idea. Sure, you have a First Amendment, but why invite them to pay more attention to you?

I do not understand support coordinators having blocked numbers--their work phone numbers are probably publicly available.

Mom threatened to get rid of her landline during the 2016 dumpster fire, but we offered to pay for it just because we worried when our old mother in poor health left her phone in the car or the other room or forgot to charge it. However, we receive ten or twenty phone calls a day from local numbers with foreign accents.

The Federal No-Call List is not much good, either.

[redpoint5]

Maybe there are reasonable arguments as to why blocking Caller ID is not malicious. Cops shouldn't get a pass on this though. If you're calling me, you know who I am and I do not necessarily know who you are. Cops should identify themselves as readily as anyone else, if not more.

There is zero argument (that I can think of) that lying about what number is calling is beneficial to society.

I compare number spoofing to using a proxy. At least when using a proxy, a real IP address is known, if only the proxy address. With number spoofing, there is no real number associated with the call. The spoofer assumes the identity of any number they want. Why this isn't illegal is beyond me, as that would imply there is some legitimate reason to lie about who is calling (impersonate other legitimate numbers). Why telco companies would facilitate the practice is beyond me, because it begs regulation and fines for non-compliance.

[rmay635703]

Because money, no further explanation needed

Every time you pick up the phone someone makes a connection fee
Profit motive extends into fraud quite organically in this case.

This isn’t much different than providing Chinese redpoint your social security number because a company that doesn’t need your information to begin with keeps it in a mostly public database (that doesn’t need to have online connectivity) using 20 year old encryption

Even the most secure online financial transactions are like throwing a baseball nude in a crowded stadium to your bank, most of the security is via obscurity the only reason it works at all is because the bank has gotten really good at identifying fraud and blocking transactions, has nothing to do with real security

[Shaneajanderson]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Maybe there are reasonable arguments as to why blocking Caller ID is not malicious. Cops shouldn't get a pass on this though. If you're calling me, you know who I am and I do not necessarily know who you are. Cops should identify themselves as readily as anyone else, if not more.

There is zero argument (that I can think of) that lying about what number is calling is beneficial to society.

I compare number spoofing to using a proxy. At least when using a proxy, a real IP address is known, if only the proxy address. With number spoofing, there is no real number associated with the call. The spoofer assumes the identity of any number they want. Why this isn't illegal is beyond me, as that would imply there is some legitimate reason to lie about who is calling (impersonate other legitimate numbers). Why telco companies would facilitate the practice is beyond me, because it begs regulation and fines for non-compliance.

I see this a lot lately. People calling about how I've been accepted for student loan forgiveness (I have no student loans) from oddball small towns in North Dakota. A couple times I've called the numbers back and gotten an actual person in that town that had never called me. This is happening primarily with landlines, but I've seen some with cell phone numbers lately too.

[Xist]

My mom gets calls about her credit cards and car warranty. She has a credit card, but it does not have a balance. Her beautiful 2006 Camry ran out of warranty many years ago.

I do not answer anyone with an out-of-state number, but weirdly, most random numbers that call me have the same first three digits that I do.

They are always spammers, so I stopped answering a long time ago.

I cannot imagine the police or a support coordinator calling me, but I would not answer.

[redpoint5]

I don't answer blocked numbers and usually don't answer unknown numbers. If it's important they will call back.

What prompted this thread is that I kept getting calls at all hours from "No Caller ID". At some point I answered to see if I could get the calls to stop. When I answered, the other person asked why I had called...

As best as I can tell (because the other person won't have a reasonable conversation to figure this out), someone/something spoofed their actual number, probably somewhat randomly, and ended up using my number. They have been calling the other random person at all hours using my number as the ID. That person gets mad at me and calls back, but blocks their number. They've called about a dozen times, and I've answered twice. Both times they asked why I called them, which is confusing as they are clearly initiating the call.

[Xist]

Around 2005 I started receiving wrong numbers in the middle of the night.

I started turning off my ringer before going to bed, but I gave away their number to various websites requesting information first.

I do not know if people currently call me in the middle of the night. If I did not silence my phone it would go off while I am trying to sleep to inform me that Harbor Freight is having a sale.