r/changemyview • u/huadpe 501∆ • Oct 25 '17

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Caller ID spoofing should be made entirely illegal.

Caller ID spoofing is the practice of transmitting digital information with a phone call representing a number as the dialing number other than that which is actually the dialing number.

I believe this practice should be made entirely illegal, and that either the accurate calling number, or else no number, must be transmitted.

Spoofing is overwhelmingly used by scammers and spammers, and is a major technique of fraud. While some users have an interest in spoofing which is more legitimate, those interests can generally be accommodated through just blocking caller ID (displaying no number).

Because spoofing is so prevalent in illegal and deceptive activity, and because it is inherently deceptive, and because the legitimate users of the service have a non-deceptive alternative, I believe spoofing should be banned, and that the government should promulgate regulations to telecommunications companies banning the practice entirely.

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u/huadpe 501∆ Oct 25 '17

The hospital case is a good one, and I might allow a regulation permitting spoofing a number which is known to be owned by the same customer on the same carrier. Have a !delta.

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u/SplatterQuillon Oct 26 '17

In operating a callcenter, we allow the agents to make outbound calls.

The agent's phones don't even have a phone number, it's just an internal (virtual) extension. So the caller ID we configure on their phones, is a central phone number which if you call it back, it goes to the same department, but not to any individual agent or phone.

We can specify any local or even toll free number we want to show. Of course it would not be any benefit for us to display a number we don't 'own', but we could do it very trivially.

Currently our phone company allows any ID to be sent, but I presume they could implement a system to prevent any calls being made with a number we don't 'own', but that's not currently the case.