CAT Tracks for February 10, 2010
CELL PHONE SPOOFING

A favorite adage takes a beating...

    Seeing is believing.

But, of course, in the land of adages, we are never at a loss for, uh, adages...

    Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.

The final sage advice on this topic shall be a favorite saying of former President Ronald Reagan, who almost always presented it as a translation of the Russian proverb "doveryai, no proveryai"...

    Trust, but verify.


Okay, I lied...

Then, again, IF you believed that I would give the "final word" on this subject to anyone but me, it just reinforces the above adages!


I could end this missive with yet another adage...

    Foretold is forewarned.

However, this former (CAT) "President Ronald" shall, instead, remind readers of my favorite Reagan quote...from a rowdy incident just prior to a 1980 Republican President Primary debate in Nashua, New Hampshire...


I've said it before and I'll say it again...

I pay ten bucks a month outta my own pocket for the right to blah, blah, blog!

So...

The Devil made me do it!

There is another "link" between the two "President Ronalds"...

For a certain "lunatic fringe" of critics, the motivations of RONALD WILSON REAGAN were suspect...the origin of his plans attributed to a, well, lower power. If you count the letters in President Reagan's names, 6-6-6, the infamous "sign of the beast".

It is at this point that "truth in reporting" prompts me to reveal my full name to the viewing public...RONALD EUGENE NEWELL!

Hey, do the math...

From the KFVS TV Channel 12 Website...

Link to Original Story

Cell phone spoofing: You can't trust your caller I.D.

By Mika Highsmith

posted by Lindsay Edwards, WTOL Intern

TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - While many use caller I.D. to protect privacy and screen phone calls, that option is being taken away by an activity called spoofing.

Spoofem.com owner Greg Evans says spoofing is simple. The user enters the number they want to appear on the caller I.D. It can be any number, from the White House to your grandmother's house.

"You can masquerade an email, a telephone number, or a text message and make it look like it came from someone else," Evans said.

In addition to faking an email or text message, spoofing includes features like voice disguising and call recording.

Spoofing can be dangerous because it can be used for such nefarious purposes as checking someone's unprotected voicemail and calling from a local bank asking for sensitive information.

If that isn't scary enough, spoofing helps scam artists cheat millions of Americans.

One scam victim received a phone call, supposedly from her grandson asking for $5,000 because he'd been injured. The caller I.D. read "Toronto Hospital."

These scammers make big bucks for a small price, spending only $10 for 60 minutes of spoofing. And as the economy goes down, the number of victims will only go up, says Dick Eppstein of Toledo's Better Business Bureau.

"Understand this exists, and you can not trust your caller I.D.," Eppstein warned. He says catching scam artists isn't easy. "You find out the guys who's doing it is in Madrid, what do you do then?"

Though spoofing is proven to have a level of danger, it is still easily accessible. A bill was proposed to Congress in 2007 that would have prohibited the sale of caller I.D. spoofing services, but it never passed.

Senator Sherrod Brown says banning it all together would be unconstitutional and others argue there are good uses for it. Legitimate bounty hunters, private investigators and collection agencies, for example, use spoofing to help catch criminals.

"You have to reach a balance, draw a line here where you want legitimate free speech and legitimate profit making activities to be allowed," Brown said.

However, Brown admits the laws aren't keeping up with technology, and to remedy that, the U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would make fraudulent use of spoofing illegal.

But crooks don't abide by laws, so you must protect yourself.