Re: [OT] phone spam

Michael R N Dolbear wrote:
> Tim McGraw <[email protected]> wrote 
>> 
>> I predict this will become a more prevalent way of spamming in the 
>> not-too-distant future as spam filtering becomes more aggressive and 
>> accurate.
> 
> Not really. Just as a Spam could say "as you requested on our web site"
> so can a attempt to get round the Do Not Call list. If the evidnce is
> missing or all the requests are from the same IP the owner of the
> outgoing call centre will have to drop his cleint with prejudice or be
> cut off. If the client generates a new company name and tries again the
> weak point is still the need to convince a call centre and the local
> phone company. 

I take it you are in Europe?

Having hired phone centers in the US for legitimate marketing purposes 
many times, I can assure you that there is no shortage of call centers 
who will take on suspect clients so long as the check clears. Much the 
same way blackhat ISPs will take spammers' checks so long as they clear.

I can't say for certain, but personally I don't believe a US call center 
has ever been "cut off" from the national phone system because they have 
a couple of suspect clients.

And in the US, as long as the phone center's check clears, the phone 
company is going to provide them their connection so long as there is no 
evidence of overtly criminal activity (phishing by phone or making 
threats of bodily harm, for instance, and that's assuming those things 
are reported to the phone company; on criminal activity such as threats 
they will take action in the US, but most all other complaints will be 
ignored).

In this case 1) the outbound message was automated (meaning a call 
center's warm bodies aren't really necessary) and 2) the caller ID was 
blocked. I could set up such a system in my home that would do this for 
me for <$5k US, and it is incredibly simple to do.

> Now if you could sign up with a VOIP provider with a
> throwaway account and run the whole thing from your PC that would be
> closer to the spam situation. Note however that the access to the PSTN
> to connect the call would still be a choke and observation point that
> the existance of zombies means Spam no longer has. 

The real choke here is the VOIP provider. The primary choices are 1) 
Vonage and 2) skype. There are others for businesses. If you were making 
"illegal marketing calls" and the VOIP provider got wind of it they 
would cut you off, but if you could tunnel through from another IP# and 
had a second credit card or PayPal account you could be back on the 
trunk in less than 15 min. (with skype, anyway).

> BTW, I assume all the above was within the US ? 

Who knows where the call came from? But the site it was pitching is 
hosted in the US.

> The FCC apparently has no interest in automated Spam calls from Florida
> to Europe so you would have problems in such a case (Florida State
> government kindly took an interest) or if the call was to the US from
> anywhere outside. The EU requires every member to have a DNCL but
> hasn't considered what to do about transnational calls and thus there
> is no one to regulate calls anywhere to the UK or for that matter to
> Estonia.

That's the downside of having a 20th century communications grid in the 
21st century.

BTW, the FCC tried to initiate the DNCL in the US and were immediately 
shot down over "freedom of speech" issues IIRC. The FTC (Federal Trade 
Commission) picked up the ball and administers the list.