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posted by martyb on Monday June 26 2017, @06:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the Betteridge-says-No? dept.

World-wide, credit card fraud and other scams cost the public billions of dollars. While credit card fraud is the clear leader in sheer volume of money lost, "regular scams" still result in a significant amount of money being lost each year. Globally, credit card fraud resulted in losses of US$21.84 billion in 2015. The so-called "Nigerian scam", usually perpetrated via email, totalled US$12.7 billion in 2013. Overall losses are likely to be much larger however, as many scams go unreported.

While scams that come in over email are increasingly being picked up by spam filters, around 45% of scams in Australia (and likely other countries) are by phone and text message.

Email spam filters are using machine learning techniques to get better at identifying the wide range of scams that can arrive in inboxes. This is by far the most effective way of dealing with scams, as the average member of the public has been shown to be remarkably susceptible. However, very little has been done about phone and text scams. This is surprising given scammers have quite brazenly stuck to using the same number or area codes over significant periods of time.

[...] Google and Apple should, however, be able to do more independently of these agencies. With the advent of machine learning techniques being used to analyse emails, it will be also possible to apply the same technology to phone calls.

[...] The list of other scam types is fairly consistent, and so is identifiable by software interpreting the conversation in real time. Governments should apply pressure on companies like Apple and Google to tackle this problem. Until then however, it is worth using one of the third party apps (like: TrueCaller, Hiya ) to ward off scams.

https://theconversation.com/phone-scams-cost-billions-why-isnt-technology-being-used-to-stop-them-80049

Do you have suggestions on how these scams could be stopped ?


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:48PM

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:48PM (#532038)

    No, it isn't. In the U.S, only Mississippi makes Caller ID spoofing illegal in that way. Right now I could call someone spoofing the numbers to my heart's delight.

    If it was illegal in every state, I could be starting investigations on each and every telemarketer call that comes into my network. I can't. There is nobody to call, no departments in the upstream carriers, no desk in the local police to complain to, etc. Technically, for some people, I AM the telephone company. They are paying me for telephone service, and call me for support. Heck, I'm even the operator :) As the telephone company, I doubt even the Attorney General for the State of California would give a shit about a faked Caller ID on on a call that came through on my network.

    I've been through this once before. I acted as a telephone company and for three days dealt with upstream carriers, and even the local police, and nothing got done. I was basically told that tracing the line (like the movies) was practically impossible. Unless the FBI got interested or something, the chances of me tracking it down were NIL. I got no's in every single direction I turned. This was with a formal complaint of harassment that I was trying to handle.

    That's what needs to change. I can do everything correct on my end, and I already limit the Caller ID to only the numbers that have proof of ownership. Really easy when I know all of my customers. On the other end though, there are VoIP companies that are NOT as stringent with what can be passed. There are no agencies, no websites, no support of any kind to track down the carrier that was involved, much less the paying customer. That's with/without a legal subpoena.

    To my knowledge, the only people truly capable of tracing a line are the FBI/NSA. That's only because of the mediation switches that are picking up all telephone traffic for DCSNet. At the carrier level, we have ANI which is sparsely and unreliably populated.

    Step One: Make Caller ID spoofing illegal
    Step Two: Actually enforce it, and allow VoIP companies to file complaints.

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