WEBVTT - Rerun: Spoofing and Caller ID 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.640 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.280 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.240 and how the tech are you? My tech is going 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.639 bananas today. I've been having some issues with the computer 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.080 I used to record episodes, and a little bit of 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.600 issues with my recording equipment, so I've swapped some stuff 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.040 out so that I can quickly do this because I 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:36.160 need to troubleshoot for the rest of the day. Fix 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.159 fix this so I can keep getting episodes out. But 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:41.599 I don't want to ever leave you without an episode 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.760 if I can help it. So what we're gonna do 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.919 is we're actually going to listen to an episode that 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.680 I originally published on July fourteenth, one called Spoofing and 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.680 Color I D. And the reason I picked this is 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.440 because we've had a lot of news recently here in 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.280 the United States about the Federal Communication Commission, or f CC, 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:07.600 going after telecommunications companies for allowing these sorts of activities 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:13.160 to happen, along with the related activity of robocall practices. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:18.959 And of course there's nothing inherently illegal about robo calls, 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:25.480 but there's often use of robo calls to perpetuate scams 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.600 and to defraud people, and that's really a major issue, 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.880 so much so that recently the f c C sent 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:37.560 a cease and desist letter to a telecom as a 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:43.440 service like a communications platform as a service business called Twilio. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.920 Twilio is a big deal, like it does multiple billions 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:51.240 of dollars of business every year. So this is unlike 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.640 those cases where the FCC went after some tiny, little 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.160 regional telecommunications company, which some have pointed out. You know, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.600 when you squash one of those tiny companies, typically the 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:09.360 people behind it will incorporate as a different but similar company, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.560 like in other words, they'll they'll have a new name 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.360 and maybe a new address and everything, but it's the 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.680 same scheme as before. This is not one of those cases. 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.440 This is a much larger company, not on the scale 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.800 of something like a T and T, but a big, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:28.320 big company. And one of the reasons that these companies 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.959 get so much flak is for the allowance of these 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.080 kinds of practices. So to understand what spoofing is and 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.360 how that affects color I D I thought it would 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.120 be good to listen to this episode from a couple 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.440 of years ago, and we'll be back later this week 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.359 with brand new episodes as soon as I figure out 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:54.880 what gremlins are infecting all of my hardware. If it's 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.120 not one thing, it's another. Okay, I'll chat with you 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:04.040 at the end of this episode. So today I thought 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.359 I would talk a bit about Color I D, spoofing 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.760 and robo calls. Mostly color I D and spoofing robot calls, 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:13.959 I think I'm gonna have to say for another episode. 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.799 But here in the United States, the major telecommunications companies, 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.000 those being Verizon, T Mobile, and A T and T 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.919 now have to work together to fight spam calls due 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.120 to a mandate from the Federal Communications Commission, or f 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:34.960 c C. Now, the too Long Didn't Listen message behind this, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.920 as opposed to too Long Didn't Read, is that the 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.440 goal is to eliminate spam robo calls going to your 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.320 phone so that you don't act like your phone is 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.920 a bomb about to go off every time it rings. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.520 But to understand why this is necessary and how it 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.040 all works, we have to go much deeper. So if you, 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.480 dear listener, are of a certain age, you might remember 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.080 a time when we didn't all carry smartphones around with 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.640 us all the time. You might even remember a time 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.920 before we even carried simple cell phones with us. In fact, 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.360 some of you might remember being on a telephone handset 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.040 that was tethered to a phone that was mounted to 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.560 the wall, or sitting on top of an end table 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.120 or something. And back in those days, dear friends, if 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.800 someone called you, you really had no way of knowing 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:27.480 who that someone was. I know, it's terrifying, right the 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:32.000 phone rings, and there's no way to know who or 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.600 what is on the other side. Could it be Grandpa 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.960 Joe and he's found a golden ticket. Could it be 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.040 the local food bank calling to see if you'll volunteer 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.720 this year. Could it be a wrong number? The only 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.080 way to find out was to answer the phone, or 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:51.839 if you were a fancy person, you might let the 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.280 call go to an answering machine. Side note. The answering 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.640 machine traces its history all the way back to the 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.760 nineteen thirties. But when I was going up in the 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.120 seventies and eighties, they were still relatively uncommon from most 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.440 of the people I knew. But by the mid eighties 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.360 that that had totally changed, and we started seeing commercials 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.640 for like novelty answering machine outgoing messages, Yeah, I used 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.880 to be a thing. There was this incredible pressure to 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.520 create the perfect outgoing message to convey to those calling 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.880 that you had a personality. But I digress, let's get 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:30.719 back on track. Many answering machines would play incoming messages 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.360 out loud on a loudspeaker as someone was making the message, 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.360 which meant that you could use an answering machine to 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.200 screen your calls, and a lot of people did so. 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.120 If you had anxiety about answering the phone, you could 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.719 just wait for the answering machine to activate and then 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.039 see if the other person on the other end of 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.280 the call was going to wait around long enough to 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.880 actually leave a message after hearing You're hilarious and yet 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.320 incredibly effective outgoing message. Then upon recognizing the voice, you 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.720 could choose to either interrupt the machine by picking up 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.799 the phone and having the call initiate, or just letting 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:08.160 it go. Simpler times, really not that color I D 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:13.240 wasn't a thing back then. The foundation of color i 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.600 D technology has a history that dates back to the 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.039 late nineteen sixties, and to really understand all this, we 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.640 should take get another step back and just talk about 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.760 phone calls in general, and we'll build from there. So 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.920 when Alexander Graham Bell made his first call, arguably not 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.560 the first call, but that's a story for another time, 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.840 it was a direct line from his station to that 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:39.599 of his assistant, Thomas Watson. There was no need to 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.720 route that call anywhere. It was a straight road, if 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.760 you will, from one point to another. Now, let's say 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.200 we've got a group of four people, and we want 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.600 to connect these four people with phone lines so they 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.200 can talk to each other on the phone. We could 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.479 do this directly as well. Right, A simple way to 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.760 draw this out would be just draw four points as 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:06.360 corners of a square. Uh. Those corners represent our four 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.520 phone friends, and we draw straight lines from each point 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.120 to each other point. So what you end up with 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.640 is a square with a couple of diagonal lines crossing 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.640 through the center, and boom, you've got your four person network. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.160 Each person has a direct line to each other person 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.000 in the network. But as we try to add more 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.960 people to a system like this, we quickly see the 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.520 limitations that we face. Each new connection means we have 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.640 to establish cables between that person and every other person 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.840 on the network. This gets expensive and complicated and messy 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.040 and unsustainable. A phone network in which every single person 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.600 with a phone has a direct line with every single 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.280 other person with the phone is just impossible. You wouldn't 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.520 even be able to move around because of all the 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.480 cables everywhere, and so an important development in the history 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.400 of the telephone system was the creation of the local exchange. 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.800 The local exchange is a centralized point that you dial 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.480 into and then the exchange could switch on a connection 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.200 between your line and the line of whomever it was 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.360 you wanted to call. So in the early days of telephones, 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.200 this was done with actual human beings sitting at a 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.640 switchboard and manually plugging cables into complete calls from one 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:27.080 person to another. So now rather than having direct connections 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.440 with every other phone in existence, you really just needed 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:35.360 a direct connection from your phone to an exchange. This 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.520 cuts way back on the amount of cables that you 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.480 need in order to create a network. Now, this works 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.600 fine for local calls, like you know, within a city, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.360 everyone can connect to that one local exchange, but the 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.760 word local gives us a hint that there isn't one 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.360 single exchange for every phone line out there. Now local 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.240 exchanges will cover a specific region, but beyond that you 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:04.440 have other local exchanges. And to connect these exchanges together, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.120 phone companies laid out what we're called trunk lines. These 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.560 are cables capable of carrying multiple phone signals simultaneously, which 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.240 is a good thing too. Otherwise a single long distance 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:17.960 call would prevent anyone else from making a similar sort 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.360 of call between you know, those two specific exchanges. The 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.840 networks grew organically, connecting to one another and forming what 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.319 we call the public switched Telephone network or p s 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.280 t N. You could look at it as a sort 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:36.520 of hierarchy as more of the world built out phone systems. 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.480 At the very bottom of this hierarchy, you had your 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.800 individual landline phones the stuff and homes and offices and 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.840 phone booths and stuff like that. We used to have 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.319 these things called phone booths, Superman, which change in them 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.920 doesn't matter. One level up from this level and you 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.240 have your local exchanges, right, These are the ones that 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.400 connect local calls to each other. And as I said, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.760 in the old day, this was done with human operators 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.920 moving physical plugs into physical outlets to complete circuits and 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.600 switch on a phone call. But didn't take long before 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.880 the complexity of phone systems necessitated innovation to create automated 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.040 ways of handling this. One level up from local exchanges 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:22.079 are your trunk exchanges. The trunk exchange is to local exchanges, 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:26.880 as local exchanges are too individual landlines. The trunk exchanges 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.200 allow the various local exchanges within a country to connect 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.800 to one another. A level above the trunk exchanges, you 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.600 have international gateways, which interconnect the phone system of one 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.600 country with other countries. Often you end up having super 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:46.280 long cables connecting these, including cables that run under the ocean. 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.360 You know, there's cables under the Atlantic that connect Europe 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:54.680 to North America, for example. All right, so now let's 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.640 get a bit more complicated by throwing cellular phones into 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.800 the mix. Sell phones communicate to cell towers, which you 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.800 can think of as being kind of similar to the 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.720 local exchange I was talking about earlier. So cell towers 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.640 are essentially antenna, and the cell phones communicate with cell 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:16.719 towers through electromagnetic radiation, specifically radiation that falls into the 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.240 microwave frequency range. But they're not the same microwaves that 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.280 we use to zap our popcorn and microwave ovens. It's 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.720 not that level of frequency. It's also a very low 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.760 wattage that we use for cell phones now. The microwave 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.560 acts as a carrier wave, and I've talked a bit 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.760 about carrier waves in the past with stuff like radio signals. 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.559 Each phone is using a slightly different frequency, otherwise you 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.800 would run into issues with phones interfering with one another. 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.880 All right, So cell phone towers are at the heart 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.840 of the cells that make up a service area. One 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.520 really clever thing about this approach is the handshake that 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.600 happens as you move across a region. So you can 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.400 be on a phone call, and you can be let's say, 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.000 in a car, and you pass out of the range 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.600 of one cell phone or cell tower rather and you 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.720 enter into the range of another, and your call continues 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.880 on as if you had a solid connection on a 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.440 single cell tower the entire time. I'm gonna leave it 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.480 at that, because getting into the tech of all that 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.800 would really get us off course. This episode would end 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.720 up being like three hours long. But maybe I'll do 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.280 a full episode about how cell towers work. It is 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.080 really fascinating because they have to be very careful with 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.560 the frequencies they use in order to both service everyone 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.480 who's within range of a specific cell tower and not 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:39.079 interfere with anyone who's at a neighboring cell tower anyway. 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.280 Connecting the towers is the Mobile Telephone Switching Office or 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.440 mt s O. Each service provider has its own empty 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.000 s O in regions, So if the person you're talking 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.640 with is in the same region, such as like in 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.040 the same city as you, and they happen to be 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.240 on the same carrier, one MT s O pretty much 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.040 handles every thing. The call signals go through the cell 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.640 towers to one another through the m t s O, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.400 but the calls are not made directly phone to phone. 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.360 It's not like your phone is acting like a radio 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.959 directly with the other phone. Now, if you're calling someone 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.280 who's on the other side of the country, it's a 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.959 little bit different. Typically, your call would go from your 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.559 phone to a cell tower, and from the cell tower 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.080 to the local MT s O of your carrier, then 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.640 from there to the ps TN, that big public switching 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.160 telephone network, and that would then route your call to 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.320 the MT s O relevant to whomever it was your 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.640 calling on the other end. So even cell calls can 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.600 rely upon the old phone system. Getting back to call 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.319 or I D. Back in the nineteen sixties, there was 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.040 an engineer named Theodore Paris Cavacos. It still is, I mean, 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.040 he's still alive today. He developed a way to send 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:58.840 electronic data over telephone lines. In one he filed and 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.640 received a patent for are a quote decoding and display 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.440 apparatus for groups of pulse trains end quote. This would 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.440 become the basis of color i D, in which the 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.640 telephone of the person making the call will send data 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:18.520 relating to the phone number of that originating call along 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.200 with the call itself, and a device on the other 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:26.200 end on the receiveing end could get this information, decode it, 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.680 and display the incoming phone number and thus identify the 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:35.560 incoming call. Other engineers around the same time period began 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.880 to develop similar technologies and approaches, and so the early 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.360 days of color I D are a bit muddled, as 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.680 there are numerous patents assigned to different inventors, some of 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.240 which acknowledged the existence of other inventions as prior art. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.120 One of those inventors was Katsuo Hashimoto for a quote 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.880 Telephone Information Displaying Device end quote. The abstract of that 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.840 patent essentially lays out what we think go as color 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.760 I D. So I'm going to read to you the 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.880 abstract of this patent. Here he goes a calling parties 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.680 telephone number displaying device, in which, while the telephone set 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.080 of a subscriber is ringing in response to calling signals 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.120 from a telephone exchange office, the telephone number of a 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.160 calling party and information are displayed on digital display units 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.320 at high speed before lifting the handset. Accordingly, the subscriber 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.760 can determine whether or not he should answer the call 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.280 before picking up the handset. Thus his privacy can be 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.720 protected from a variety of telephone troubles such as wrong 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.280 number and nuisance calls. The display is maintained as it 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.520 is even if the handset is put back after the talk, 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.480 but it will be cleared automatically upon reception of the 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.120 next call to display the telephone number of the next 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.080 calling party. When the subscriber picks up the handset to 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.440 make a call, the internal circuit is automatically changed to 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:00.880 display a telephone number dialed by him. That's it. So 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.200 that patent pretty much explains that the invention would allow 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:09.000 telephones to send and receive signals between successive ringing signals. 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.080 So In other words, when the phone company isn't sending 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.680 the signal to make the receiving phone ring, it could 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.680 send the signal containing information about the origin of that call. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.200 And that's why if you're using a landline and you 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:25.960 get a phone call with a system that had color 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.440 I D, you would only see the I D stuff 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.880 pop up after the first ring happened. The method for 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:36.240 sending the information was a type of frequency modulation that's 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.280 changing the frequency of a signal in order to encode 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.280 information on it, called frequency shift keying or f s K. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.880 Applying f s K to a carrier signal alters that 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.400 carrier signal in a way that can be interpreted on 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.880 the other side in some manner. So in the case 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.680 of color I D, that some manner is that the 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.360 transmitting side can encode the phone number in that carrier way, 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.119 and the receiving side can decode that carrier wave and 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.359 get back at that number. FSK is used in lots 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.800 of applications, not just Color I D. But for our purposes, 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.040 it's just important that we know that this is the 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.960 methodology that the phone companies used to transmit the info 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.280 of Hey, this is the phone number that just dialed you. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.080 But this wasn't going to be a service that phone 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.719 companies were going to throw in for free. No, this 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.399 would be something that companies would charge for on top 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.360 of the normal phone bill. Now, the story goes that 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.840 the phone companies at first planned to offer this service 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.720 as an audio one. So in other words, you could 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.479 opt into this service and you would get a verbal 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.919 alert when you picked up the phone telling you the 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.520 phone number that the call originated from. UH and the 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.680 phone companies were hoping to charge on a per use basis, 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.679 so every time you did this you get charged a 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.600 little amount. That's not how things eventually turned out. We'll 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.960 get into color I D a little bit more after 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.159 the break, and then we'll talk about the systems that 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:13.480 enable spoofing. But first let's take that quick break. So, 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.760 phone companies were licensing technologies to enable color I D 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.359 in the nineteen seventies, but it wasn't until the mid 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.919 nineteen eighties that we saw the first pilot program of 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.960 color I D here in the United States. That took 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:31.200 place in Orlando, Florida, where you know, the characters from 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.080 Book of Mormon really wanted to go. And that happened 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.920 back In nine four, Bell South offered a service called 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.920 Touch Star, and Color i D was one of the 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.440 features that you could opt into with Touch Star. It 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.359 was called Custom Local Area Signaling Service, but it would 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.399 become known as Color i D. Now, if you weren't 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.919 around in the nineteen eighties, you might be surprised to 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.359 hear that the emergence of color i D was viewed 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.440 with suspicion from multiple fronts in the US. Paul piticians 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.800 were asking if perhaps Color i D would violate wire 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.600 tapping laws, and others were likening it to tracing a 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.000 phone call, kind of like what you see in movies, 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.520 where you know, the police are trying to track a 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.840 specific criminal as they talk on the phone. But in fact, 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.200 it was such a controversial subject that it took more 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.520 than a decade for all fifty states in the US 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.480 to actually adopt the technology. California held out the longest. 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:32.520 California only incorporated color i D in nineteen twelve years 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.359 after Orlando, Florida got in on it. And by the 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.600 mid nineties, there was another big concern to think about, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.920 and that was privacy. We weren't quite at the same 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.399 level that we are now, not by a long shot, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:49.200 where the average medicine has generated tons of information about 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.040 themselves that can link back to them. But we were 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.080 entering into an era in which certain companies were building 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.720 out comprehensive databases about consumers, and so you started to 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:06.040 see companies building out profiles or even dossiers on people. Now, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.879 if you want to be charitable, you could argue this 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.320 helped those companies serve their customers more effectively. But if 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.760 you want to be cynical, you could say that this 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.160 gave companies more information to leverage while trying to sell 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.879 goods or services to a potential customer. The truth is 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.960 probably somewhere in the middle. But what concerned privacy advocates 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.680 is that a business could theoretically rely on caller I D. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.479 So if someone were to call in, let's say that 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.240 someone needs to talk to a customer service rep, then 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.160 that rep could do a reverse phone number, look up 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.120 on that call, and pull up a full profile of 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.280 the person calling. And there were a lot of privacy 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.879 implications that we're concerning. Actually kind of seems quaint in 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.359 comparison to what we deal with today, at least if 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.879 you look into how private information gets handled. These days. 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.600 For that reason, tell A phone companies introduced an option 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.960 to allow customers to opt into color I D blocking. Now, 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.120 if you did this, it meant that your number would 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.760 not be displayed when you called someone else. You were 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.800 effectively blacklisted for color I D. And so you know, 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.240 if I opted into this and I called you, you 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.440 would probably see some sort of message like color unknown 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:25.960 or something similar to that, which probably means you wouldn't 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.000 likely pick up my call. To be fair, you probably 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.720 wouldn't anyway, I'm kind of a drag to speak to 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.240 on the phone. It took time for attitudes around color 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.479 I D to change, but we did obviously see that 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:43.720 happen today. For many people, including myself, we don't pick 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.480 up the phone if we don't recognize the number that's 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:50.160 displayed on our phone screen, and that means that if 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.359 the call comes up as unknown or something along those lines, 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.439 we're not likely to answer it. We'll probably let it 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.080 go to voicemail. In fact, these days, I feel a 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.400 sense of anxiety even if I do recognize the number, 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.159 which is weird because I was one of those folks 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:07.399 who back in the eighties and nineties I love to 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.240 talk on the phone now it seems kind of odd. 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:12.840 I have a small group of friends and family with 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.520 whom I'll chat with on the phone, but they are 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:20.080 truly the exception and not the rule. Anyway, Color I 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.440 D made the transition from being viewed as being invasive 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:27.640 or creepy as to being necessary in order to function 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.280 as a human being in the modern technical age. And 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:34.040 there's a related thing I should talk about quickly for 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:38.200 folks in the United States, and that's the Calling Name presentation. 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:43.440 That's c NAP or Color Name Delivery, that's c NAM systems. 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.080 These are systems that can provide a name to go 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:50.120 with a phone number. So with these systems, you don't 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.240 just get a telephone number, you get a person or 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:58.480 business name that is associated with that phone number. So 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.120 here's how it works. In the United States. I'd say 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.639 we've got two people. We've got Max and Chris. And 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.160 Max is in New York and Chris is in California. 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.400 What's more, Max is a T mobile customer and Chriss 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.439 carrier is a T and T. And both Max and 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.160 Chris are using smartphones, so they're on cellular networks. So 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:24.320 Max calls Chris. Max's smartphone is connected to a nearby 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.320 cell tower, nearby T Mobile cell tower, and that routes 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.199 the call through T Mobiles M T s O in 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:35.000 that particular region, and the empty s O then routes 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:38.080 the call through the ps t N, the Public Switching 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:42.399