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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech. I say that

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Speaker 1: a lot, but then I always have to qualify it,

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Speaker 1: and this is gonna be another one of those episodes.

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Speaker 1: So today I thought I would talk a bit about

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Speaker 1: color I D, spoofing and robo calls. Mostly color I

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Speaker 1: D and spoofing robot calls, I think I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: to say for another episode. But here in the United States,

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Speaker 1: the major telecommunications companies, those being Verizon, T Mobile, and

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Speaker 1: A T and T now have to work together to

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Speaker 1: fight spam calls due to a mandate from the Federal

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Speaker 1: Communications Commission or f c C. Now, the too long

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Speaker 1: Didn't Listen message behind this, as opposed to too long

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Speaker 1: Didn't Read is the goal is to eliminate spam robocalls

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Speaker 1: going to your phone, so that you don't act like

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Speaker 1: your phone is a bomb about to go off every

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Speaker 1: time it rings. But to understand why this is necessary

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Speaker 1: and how it all works, we have to go much deeper.

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Speaker 1: So if you, dear listener, are of a certain age,

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Speaker 1: you might remember a time when we didn't all carry

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Speaker 1: smartphones around with us all the time. You might even

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Speaker 1: remember a time before we even carried simple cell phones

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Speaker 1: with us. In fact, some of you might remember being

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Speaker 1: on a telephone handset that was tethered to a phone

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Speaker 1: that was mounted to the wall, or sitting on top

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Speaker 1: of an end table or something. And back in those days,

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Speaker 1: dear friends, if someone called you, you really had no

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Speaker 1: way of knowing who that someone was. I know, it's terrifying,

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Speaker 1: right the phone rings, and there's no way to know

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Speaker 1: who or what is on the other side. Could it

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Speaker 1: be Grandpa Joe and he's found a golden ticket. Could

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Speaker 1: it be the local food bank calling to see if

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Speaker 1: you'll volunteer this year. Could it be a wrong number?

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Speaker 1: The only way to find out was to answer the phone,

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Speaker 1: or if you were a fancy person, you might let

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Speaker 1: the call go to an answering machine. Side note. The

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Speaker 1: answering machine traces its history all the way back to

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, but when I was growing up in

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, they were still relatively uncommon from

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Speaker 1: most of the people I knew. But by the mid

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Speaker 1: eighties that that had totally changed, and we started seeing

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Speaker 1: commercials for like novelty answering machine outgoing messages I used

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Speaker 1: to be a thing. There was this incredible pressure to

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Speaker 1: create the perfect outgoing message to convey to those calling

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Speaker 1: that you had a personality. But I digress, let's get

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Speaker 1: back on track. Many answering machines would play incoming messages

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Speaker 1: out loud on a loudspeaker as someone was making the message,

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Speaker 1: which meant that you could use an answering machine to

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Speaker 1: screen your calls, and a lot of people did so.

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Speaker 1: If you had anxiety about answering the phone, you could

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Speaker 1: just wait for the answering machine to activate and then

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Speaker 1: see if the other person on the other end of

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Speaker 1: the call was going to wait around long enough to

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Speaker 1: actually leave a message after hearing You're hilarious and yet

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Speaker 1: incredibly effective outgoing message. Then, upon recognizing the voice, you

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Speaker 1: could choose to either interrupt the machine by picking up

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Speaker 1: the phone and having the call initiate, or just letting

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Speaker 1: it go. Simpler times really not that color I D

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Speaker 1: wasn't a thing back then. The foundation of color i

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Speaker 1: D technology has a history that dates back to the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties and to really understand all this, we

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Speaker 1: should take get another step back and just talk about

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Speaker 1: phone calls in general, and we'll build from there. So

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Speaker 1: when Alexander Graham Bell made his first call, arguably not

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Speaker 1: the first call, but that's a story for another time,

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Speaker 1: it was a direct line from his station to that

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Speaker 1: of his assistant, Thomas Watts, and there was no need

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Speaker 1: to route that call anywhere. It was a straight road,

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Speaker 1: if you will, from one point to another. Now, let's

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Speaker 1: say we've got a group of four people and we

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Speaker 1: want to connect these four people with phone lines so

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Speaker 1: they can talk to each other on the phone. We

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Speaker 1: could do this directly as well. Right, A simple way

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Speaker 1: to draw this out would be just draw four points

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Speaker 1: as corners of a square. Uh. Those corners represent our

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Speaker 1: four phone friends, and we draw straight lines from each

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Speaker 1: point to each other point. So what you end up

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Speaker 1: with is a square with a couple of diagonal lines

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Speaker 1: crossing through the center, and boom, you've got your four

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Speaker 1: person network. Each person has a direct line to each

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Speaker 1: other person in the network. But as we try to

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Speaker 1: add more people to a system like this, we quickly

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Speaker 1: see the limitations that we face. Each new connection means

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Speaker 1: we have to establish cables between that person and every

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Speaker 1: other person on the network. This gets expensive and complicated

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Speaker 1: and messy and unsustainable. A phone network in which every

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Speaker 1: single person with a phone has a direct line with

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Speaker 1: every single other person with the phone is just impossible.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't even be able to move around because of

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Speaker 1: all the cables everywhere, and so an important development in

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Speaker 1: the history of the telephone system was the creation of

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Speaker 1: the local exchange. The local exchange is a centralized point

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Speaker 1: that you dial into, and then the exchange could switch

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Speaker 1: on a connection between your line and the line of

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Speaker 1: whomever it was who wanted to call. So in the

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Speaker 1: early days of telephones, this was done with actual human

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Speaker 1: beings sitting at a switchboard and manually plugging cables into

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Speaker 1: complete calls from one person to another. So now rather

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Speaker 1: than having direct connections with every other phone in existence,

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Speaker 1: you really just needed a direct connection from your phone

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Speaker 1: to an exchange. This cuts way back on the amount

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Speaker 1: of cables that you needed in order to create a network. Now,

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Speaker 1: this works fine for local calls, like you know, within

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Speaker 1: a city, everyone can connect to that one local exchange,

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Speaker 1: But the word local gives us a hint that there

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Speaker 1: isn't one single exchange for every phone line out there. Now,

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Speaker 1: local exchanges will cover a specific region, but beyond that

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Speaker 1: you have other local exchanges. And to connect these exchanges together,

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Speaker 1: phone companies laid out what we're called trunk lines. These

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Speaker 1: are cables capable of carrying multiple phone signals simultaneously, which

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Speaker 1: is a good thing too. Otherwise a single long distance

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Speaker 1: call would prevent anyone else from making a similar sort

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Speaker 1: of call between you know, those two specific exchanges. The

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Speaker 1: networks grew organically, connecting to one another and forming what

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Speaker 1: we call the public switched Telephone network or p st N.

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Speaker 1: You could look at it as a sort of hierarchy

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Speaker 1: as more of the world built out phone systems. At

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Speaker 1: the very body him of this hierarchy, you had your

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Speaker 1: individual landline phones the stuff, and homes and offices and

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Speaker 1: phone booths and stuff like that. We used to have

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Speaker 1: these things called phone booths, Superman, which change in them

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter. One level up from this level, and you

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Speaker 1: have your local exchanges, right, These are the ones that

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Speaker 1: connect local calls to each other. And as I said,

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Speaker 1: in the old days, this was done with human operators

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Speaker 1: moving physical plugs into physical outlets to complete circuits and

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Speaker 1: switch on a phone call, but didn't take long before

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Speaker 1: the complexity of phone systems necessitated innovation to create automated

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Speaker 1: ways of handling this. One level up from local exchanges

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Speaker 1: are your trunk exchanges. The trunk exchange is to local exchanges,

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Speaker 1: as local exchanges are two individual land lines. The trunk

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Speaker 1: exchanges allow the various local exchanges within a country to

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Speaker 1: connect to one another. A level above the trunk exchanges,

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Speaker 1: you have international gateways, which interconnect the phone system of

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Speaker 1: one kind tree with other countries. Often you end up

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Speaker 1: having super long cables connecting these, including cables that run

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Speaker 1: under the ocean. You know, there's cables under the Atlantic

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Speaker 1: that connect Europe to North America, for example. All right,

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Speaker 1: so now let's get a bit more complicated by throwing

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Speaker 1: cellular phones into the mix. Cell phones communicate to sell towers,

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Speaker 1: which you can think of as being kind of similar

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Speaker 1: to the local exchange I was talking about earlier. So

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Speaker 1: cell towers are essentially antenna, and the cell phones communicate

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Speaker 1: with cell towers through electromagnetic radiation, specifically radiation that falls

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Speaker 1: into the microwave frequency range. But they're not the same

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Speaker 1: microwaves that we use to zap our popcorn and microwave ovens.

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Speaker 1: It's not that level of frequency. It's also a very

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Speaker 1: low wattage that we use for cell phones now. The

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Speaker 1: microwave acts as a carrier wave, and I've talked a

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Speaker 1: bit about carrier waves in the past with stuff like

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Speaker 1: radio signals. Each phone is using a slightly different frequency,

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Speaker 1: otherwise you would run into issues with phones interfering with

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Speaker 1: one another. All right, So cell phone towers are at

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Speaker 1: the heart of the cells that make up a service area.

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Speaker 1: One really clever thing about this approach is the handshake

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Speaker 1: that happens as you move across a region. So you

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Speaker 1: can be on a phone call and you can be

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Speaker 1: let's say, in a car, and you pass out of

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Speaker 1: the range of one cell phone or cell tower rather

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Speaker 1: and you enter into the range of another, and your

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Speaker 1: call continues on as if you had a solid connection

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Speaker 1: on a single cell tower the entire time. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: leave it at that, because getting into the tech of

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Speaker 1: all that would really get us off course. This episode

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Speaker 1: would end up being like three hours long. But maybe

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Speaker 1: I'll do a full episode about how cell towers work.

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Speaker 1: It is really fascinating because they have to be very

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Speaker 1: careful with the frequencies they use in order to both

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Speaker 1: service everyone who's within range of a specific cell tower

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Speaker 1: and not interfere with anyone who's at a neighboring cell tower. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Connecting the towers is the Mobile Telephone Switching Office or

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Speaker 1: mt s O. Each service provider has its own mpt

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Speaker 1: s O in regions, So if the person you're talking

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Speaker 1: with is in the same region, such as like in

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Speaker 1: the same city as you, and they happen to be

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Speaker 1: on the same carrier, one mt s O pretty much

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Speaker 1: handles everything. The call signals go through the cell towers

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Speaker 1: to one another through the m t s O, but

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Speaker 1: the calls are not made directly phone to phone. It's

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Speaker 1: not like your phone is acting like a radio directly

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Speaker 1: with the other phone. Now, if you're calling someone who's

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Speaker 1: on the other side of the country, it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit different. Typically, your call would go from your phone

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Speaker 1: to a cell tower, and from the cell tower to

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Speaker 1: the local mt s O of your carrier, then from

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Speaker 1: there to the p s t N that big public

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Speaker 1: switching telephone network, and that would then route your call

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Speaker 1: to the mt s O relevant to whomever it was

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Speaker 1: your calling on the other end. So even cell calls

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Speaker 1: can rely upon the old phone system. Getting back to

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Speaker 1: color I D. Back in the nineteen sixties, there was

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Speaker 1: an engineer named Theodore Paris Cavacos it still is, I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's still alive today. He developed a way to send

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Speaker 1: electronic data over telephone lines. In v he filed and

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Speaker 1: received a patent for a quote decoding and display apparatus

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Speaker 1: for groups of pulse trains end quote. This would become

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Speaker 1: the basis of color I D, in which the telephone

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Speaker 1: of the person making the call will send data relating

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Speaker 1: to the phone number of that originating call along with

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Speaker 1: the call itself, and a device on the other end

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Speaker 1: on the receiving end could get this information, decode it

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Speaker 1: and display the incoming phone number and thus identify the

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Speaker 1: incoming call. Other engineers around the same time period began

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Speaker 1: to develop similar technologies and approaches, and so the early

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Speaker 1: days of color I D are a bit muddled, as

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Speaker 1: there are numerous patents assigned to different inventors, some of

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Speaker 1: which acknowledged the existence of other inventions as prior art.

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Speaker 1: One of those inventors was Katsuo Hashimoto for a quote

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Speaker 1: Telephone Information displaying device end quote. The abstract of that

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Speaker 1: patent essentially lays out what we think of as color

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Speaker 1: I D. So I'm going to read to you the

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Speaker 1: abstract of this patent. Here he goes a calling parties

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Speaker 1: telephone number displaying device, in which, while the telephone set

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Speaker 1: of a subscriber is ringing in response to calling signals

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Speaker 1: from a telephone exchange office, the telephone number of a

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Speaker 1: calling party and information are displayed on digital display units

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Speaker 1: at high speed before lifting the handset. Accordingly, the subscriber

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Speaker 1: can determine whether or not he should answer the call

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Speaker 1: before picking up the handset. Thus his privacy can be

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Speaker 1: protected from a variety of telephone troubles such as wrong

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Speaker 1: number and nuisance calls. The display is maintained as it

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Speaker 1: is even if the handset is put back after the talk,

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Speaker 1: but it will be cleared automatically upon reception of the

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Speaker 1: next call to display the telephone number of the next

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Speaker 1: calling party. When the subscriber picks up the handset to

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Speaker 1: make a call, the internal circuit is automatically changed to

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Speaker 1: display a telephone number dialed by him. That's it. So

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Speaker 1: that patent pretty much explains that the invention would allow

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Speaker 1: telephones to send and receive signals between successive ringing signals.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, when the phone company isn't sending

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Speaker 1: the signal to make the receiving phone ring, it could

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Speaker 1: send the signal containing information about the origin of that call.

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Speaker 1: And that's why if you're using a landline and you

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Speaker 1: get a phone call with a system that had caller

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Speaker 1: I D, you would only see the I D stuff

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Speaker 1: pop up after the first ring happened. The method for

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Speaker 1: sending the information was a type of frequency modulation that's

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Speaker 1: changing the frequency of a signal in order to encode

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Speaker 1: information on it, called frequency shift keying or f s K.

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Speaker 1: Applying f s K to a carrier signal alters that

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Speaker 1: carrier signal in a way that can be interpreted on

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Speaker 1: the other side in some manner. So in the case

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Speaker 1: of color I D, that some manner is that the

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Speaker 1: transmitting side can encode the phone number in that carrier wave,

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Speaker 1: and the receiving side can decode that carrier wave and

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Speaker 1: get back at that number. FSK is used in lots

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Speaker 1: of applications, not just Color I D. But for our purposes,

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Speaker 1: it's just important that we know that this is the

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Speaker 1: methodology that the phone company is used to transmit the

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Speaker 1: info of Hey, this is the phone number that just

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Speaker 1: dialed you. But this wasn't going to be a service

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Speaker 1: that phone companies were going to throw in for free. No,

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Speaker 1: this would be something that companies would charge for on

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Speaker 1: top of the normal phone bill. Now, the story goes

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Speaker 1: that the phone companies at first planned to offer this

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Speaker 1: service as an audio one. So, in other words, you

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Speaker 1: could opt into this service and you would get a

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Speaker 1: verbal alert when you picked up the phone telling you

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Speaker 1: the phone number that the call originated from. UH. And

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Speaker 1: the phone companies were hoping to charge on a per

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Speaker 1: use basis, so every time you did this you get

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Speaker 1: charged a little amount. That's not how things eventually turned out.

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Speaker 1: We'll get into color I D a little bit more

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Speaker 1: after the break, and then we'll talk about the systems

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Speaker 1: that enable spoofing. But first let's take that quick break. So,

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Speaker 1: phone companies were licensing technologies to enable color I D

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, but it wasn't until the mid

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties that we saw the first pilot program of

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Speaker 1: color I D here in the United States. That took

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Speaker 1: place in Orlando, Florida, where you know, the characters from

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Speaker 1: Book of Mormon really wanted to go, and that happened.

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Speaker 1: Back in four Bell South offered a service call touch Star,

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Speaker 1: and Color i D was one of the features that

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Speaker 1: you could opt into with Touch Star. It was called

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Speaker 1: Custom Local Area Signaling Service, but it would become known

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Speaker 1: as Color i D. Now, if you weren't around in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, you might be surprised to hear that

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Speaker 1: the emergence of color i D was viewed with suspicion

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Speaker 1: from multiple fronts. In the US. Politicians were asking if

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Speaker 1: perhaps Color i D would violate wire tapping laws, and

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Speaker 1: others were likening it to tracing a phone call, kind

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Speaker 1: of like what you see in movies, where you know,

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Speaker 1: the police are trying to track a specific criminal as

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Speaker 1: they talk on the phone. But in fact, it was

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Speaker 1: such a controversial subject that it took more than a

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Speaker 1: decade for all fifty states in the US to actually

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Speaker 1: adopt the technology. California held out the longest. California only

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Speaker 1: incorporated color i D in nineteen nine, six twelve years

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Speaker 1: after Orlando, Florida got in on it. And by the

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Speaker 1: mid nineties, there was another big con learned to think about,

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Speaker 1: and that was privacy. We weren't quite at the same

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Speaker 1: level that we are now, not by a long shot,

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Speaker 1: where the average medicine has generated tons of information about

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Speaker 1: themselves that can link back to them. But we were

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Speaker 1: entering into an era in which certain companies were building

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Speaker 1: out comprehensive databases about consumers, and so you started to

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Speaker 1: see companies building out profiles or even dossiers on people. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you want to be charitable, you could argue this

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Speaker 1: helped those companies serve their customers more effectively. But if

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Speaker 1: you want to be cynical, you could say that this

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00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,359
Speaker 1: gave companies more information to leverage while trying to sell

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Speaker 1: goods or services to a potential customer. The truth is

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00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:50,159
Speaker 1: probably somewhere in the middle. But what concerned privacy advocates

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Speaker 1: is that a business could theoretically rely on caller I D.

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Speaker 1: So if someone were to call in, let's say that

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Speaker 1: someone needs to talk to a customer service rep, then

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00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,360
Speaker 1: that rep could do a reverse phone number, look up

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Speaker 1: on that call, and pull up a full profile of

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Speaker 1: the person calling. And there were a lot of privacy

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Speaker 1: implications that were concerning actually kind of seems quaint in

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Speaker 1: comparison to what we deal with today. At least if

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Speaker 1: you look into how private information gets handled these days.

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Speaker 1: For that reason, Telephone Company is introduced an option to

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Speaker 1: allow customers to opt into color I D blocking. Now,

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00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,359
Speaker 1: if you did this, it meant that your number would

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Speaker 1: not be displayed when you called someone else. You were

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Speaker 1: effectively blacklisted for color I D. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: if I opted into this and I called you, you

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Speaker 1: would probably see some sort of message like color unknown

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Speaker 1: or something similar to that, which probably means you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: likely pick up my call. To be fair, you probably

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Speaker 1: wouldn't anyway, I'm kind of a drag to speak to

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Speaker 1: on the phone. It took time for attitudes around color

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Speaker 1: I D to change, but we did on viously see

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Speaker 1: that happen today For many people, including myself, we don't

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Speaker 1: pick up the phone if we don't recognize the number

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Speaker 1: that's displayed on our phone screen, and that means that

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Speaker 1: if the call comes up is unknown or something along

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Speaker 1: those lines, we're not likely to answer it. We'll probably

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Speaker 1: let it go to voicemail. In fact, these days, I

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Speaker 1: feel a sense of anxiety even if I do recognize

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Speaker 1: the number, which is weird because I was one of

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Speaker 1: those folks who back in the eighties and nineties. I

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Speaker 1: love to talk on the phone. Now it seems kind

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Speaker 1: of odd. I have a small group of friends and

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Speaker 1: family with whom I'll chat with on the phone, but

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00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:41,600
Speaker 1: they are truly the exception and not the rule. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Color I D made the transition from being viewed as

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00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:49,200
Speaker 1: being invasive or creepy as to being necessary in order

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Speaker 1: to function as a human being in the modern technical age.

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Speaker 1: And there's a related thing I should talk about quickly

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Speaker 1: for folks in the United States, and that's the calling

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Speaker 1: name President Haitian. That's c NAP or Color Name Delivery,

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00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 1: that's c NAM systems. These are systems that can provide

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00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:11,199
Speaker 1: a name to go with a phone number. So with

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Speaker 1: these systems, you don't just get a telephone number. You

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Speaker 1: get a person or business name that is associated with

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Speaker 1: that phone number. So here's how it works. In the

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Speaker 1: United States. I'd say we've got two people. We've got

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Speaker 1: Max and Chris. And Max is in New York and

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Speaker 1: Chris is in California. What's more, Max is a T

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Speaker 1: mobile customer and Chriss carrier is a T and T.

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Speaker 1: And both Max and Chris are using smartphones, so they're

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Speaker 1: on cellular networks. So Max calls Chris. Max's smartphone is

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Speaker 1: connected to a nearby cell tower, nearby T Mobile cell tower,

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Speaker 1: and that routes the call through T Mobiles MT s

359
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:56,520
Speaker 1: O in that particular region, and the empty s O

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00:20:56,680 --> 00:20:59,679
Speaker 1: then routes the call through the psd N, the Public

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Speaker 1: swim Ching Telephone network, and that then routes the call

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Speaker 1: to the A T and T M T s O

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Speaker 1: all the way out in California. That connects to a

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Speaker 1: cell tower that's in Chris's area, and it sends the

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Speaker 1: call to Chris's smartphone. Now it's at this stage, the

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00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: A T and T stage, where we see the system

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Speaker 1: call up the name. So, in other words, the name

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00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:28,439
Speaker 1: look up is on the receiver's end. It doesn't originate

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Speaker 1: from the phone that's making the call. It's all down

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Speaker 1: to whichever carrier is in operation on the receiving end,

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00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:41,160
Speaker 1: and A T and T sees that Max's phone number

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Speaker 1: is coming in, so it recognizes the number. But to

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Speaker 1: associate that number with Max as a person that requires

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Speaker 1: a database look up. And because Max is a T

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Speaker 1: Mobile customer not an a T and T customer, a

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Speaker 1: T and T technically has to pay a very small

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Speaker 1: fee called a dip fee to look up the information

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00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,840
Speaker 1: and then to send that on to Chris. Then Chris

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Speaker 1: sees that Max is calling and picks up, or Chris

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00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:10,399
Speaker 1: ghosts Max. I don't know what their friendship looks like,

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00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 1: to be honest, my point being that the name associated

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Speaker 1: with a phone number isn't magically connected to that number. Rather,

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Speaker 1: there are these massive databases of phone customers out there,

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Speaker 1: typically at the local level, and these databases match numbers

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Speaker 1: two names. There's no universal database out there that has

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Speaker 1: every name and every number, So phone companies have these

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00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,880
Speaker 1: ongoing agreements to charge these small dip fees to dip

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Speaker 1: into the databases and retrieve relevant information. All right, So

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00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 1: that's Color I D and I think it's pretty easy

390
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:46,159
Speaker 1: to understand from a high level how it works. But

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00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: then what about spoofing. Well, spoofing is a practice in

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Speaker 1: which the number that pops up on a color I

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00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:56,040
Speaker 1: D system is not the same as the actual number

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00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: making the call, And there are legitimate reasons to do

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00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:02,720
Speaker 1: this that have nothing to do with scams or crimes.

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00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: So spoofing as it stands is not illegal on its own.

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00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: It's only illegal if you're using spoofing to purposefully mislead

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00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: or scam people, then you can face a pretty big

399
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: fine in the United States. But spoofing is just a thing,

400
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 1: not illegal. So let me give you a scenario where

401
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:25,719
Speaker 1: it's it's allowed. Let's say that you work at an

402
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,679
Speaker 1: accounting firm and you're in charge of making some follow

403
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:32,199
Speaker 1: up calls relating to a specific account. Now, you have

404
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:36,000
Speaker 1: your own phone at your desk. But and your own

405
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 1: phone actually has its own extension, You can make calls

406
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,959
Speaker 1: within your department, you know two, directly to your coworkers,

407
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: no problem. But chances are you would rather have your

408
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: outgoing calls, the ones you make outside of your company,

409
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 1: map not to your desks phone number, but to the

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00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: number for the accounting firm as a whole. That way,

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Speaker 1: anyone on the receiving end would see that it's a

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00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: call coming from this big accounting company, not some unknown

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00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: desk phone. You would need a way to replace your

414
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,679
Speaker 1: desk phone's number with the overall company's phone number. This

415
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: happens all the time with big companies and doctor's offices

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00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, So you can probably think of

417
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,959
Speaker 1: lots of legitimate uses where the call going out seems

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00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 1: to be coming from a very large known entity rather

419
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: than an individual phone located within that entity. But to

420
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: make this happen, you have to have some sort of

421
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,360
Speaker 1: technology that does the old switcherou with the phone numbers. Now,

422
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, color I D in the old

423
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: phone system involves using f s K or frequency shift keying,

424
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: to alter a carrier signal in a specific way to

425
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: transmit information about a phone number in between the signals

426
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: that cause the receiving phone to ring. And it turned

427
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: out that if you could figure out the f s

428
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: K process and build the right technology, you could build

429
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: out a system that would use FSK to transmit false information,

430
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 1: allowing you to mask the true originating number of a

431
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: call and substitute in something else will let you spoof

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00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: a phone number in other words, And this again was

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00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: was made on purpose eventually, like when once we got

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00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: to the point where we had big companies with these

435
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: kind of phone systems, it was sort of a necessity.

436
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: So it's not like this was an oversight or or

437
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: rather it wasn't a vulnerability. It ended up being an opportunity.

438
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to take advantage of it, it

439
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: wasn't really easy to do. Back in the early two thousands,

440
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 1: for example, it was actually pretty challenging. With the right

441
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 1: hardware and software, and with a digital phone line, you

442
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: could manage it, but it was beyond most people. Some

443
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: big businesses used it for the purposes I mentioned earlier,

444
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: but that was kind of the extent of it. Now,

445
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: part of what makes this possible is a system called

446
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: a private branch exchange or p b X, So this

447
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:07,159
Speaker 1: doesn't fit neatly into that hierarchy I mentioned earlier. A

448
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: p b X is a telephone system that's typically within

449
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: a really big organization, like a big business, And essentially

450
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: what it does is it allows for an internal telephone system,

451
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: that is, one that connects all the internal phones with

452
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: each other, but it keeps a limited number of external

453
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: phone lines that connect outward to the general you know,

454
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:33,640
Speaker 1: public switching telephone network or PSTN. So let's say we're

455
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: looking at a corporation with like five thousand employees. Rather

456
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: than making sure every single employee has a direct phone

457
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: line to the outside world, the business chooses to set

458
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 1: up a p b X while there's a phone at

459
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 1: every employee's desk, and these phones can make direct calls

460
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: to one another within the businesses local network. To make

461
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: a call to the outside world, first, you might have

462
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,919
Speaker 1: to do something like dial A nine and that actually

463
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: opens up one of the business is limited external phone lines.

464
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: So let's say that this particular business has one hundred

465
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: dedicated external phone lines, which sounds like a lot, but

466
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: it's way fewer than the five thousand you would need

467
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: for every single employee to have their own personal external line.

468
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: As long as fewer than one hundred employees are making

469
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: calls to the outside world at any given time, there's

470
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: not really a problem here. There are different flavors of

471
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: p b X, and they date back even to when

472
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 1: the phone system was purely running on analog signals and

473
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: there were no digital signal phone lines. Today, p b

474
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: X has include technologies like voice over Internet Protocol or

475
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: void an I p p b X or Internet Protocol.

476
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: Private branch exchange can sometimes include the ability to spoof

477
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: a phone number. It can be built into the system.

478
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's got a very easy way to access and

479
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: make these changes. You'll just have like a little online

480
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: form and you can go in and you can select

481
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: what you want the outgoing call number to look like.

482
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: But you know, it's really handy if you want everything

483
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: to look like it's coming from a major office phone number.

484
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: But it's also opened up the opportunity to start a

485
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 1: new kind of fraudulent business. One early company that tried

486
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: to create a business out of spoofing was founded by

487
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: a dude named Jason Jepson, who launched a service called

488
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: Star thirty eight dot com. With Star thirty eight customers,

489
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 1: who from the beginning, we're supposed to be limited to

490
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: people like licensed private investigators, law enforcement and debt collectors,

491
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: would be allowed to pay a fee, and that would

492
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: let them make phone calls while disguising the phone number

493
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: that they were using as you know, something else. Now

494
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: that the thinking was that the average person isn't keen

495
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: to pick up the phone own if they happen to

496
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: know that there's a private investigator on the line or

497
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: a debt collection agency, you know, they would rather ghost

498
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: that call. So the thinking was, it sure would be

499
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: useful to be able to hide that information and convince

500
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: the person on the other end of that that line

501
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: to actually pick up the phone. So the best way

502
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: to do that is to hide who you are. Start

503
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: three eight dot Com didn't have a long and illustrious

504
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: history in its original form. Three days after he launched

505
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: the service, Jepson announced he was looking to sell the business.

506
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: He had received numerous threats and harassing calls and felt

507
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: it was just, you know, not the right line of

508
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: work for him. Other services like one called Camo Phone.

509
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: You know, like camouflage, but Camo Phone, those kind of surfaced,

510
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: and Star thirty eight actually did come back as a

511
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: service marketed as being exclusive to law enforcement agencies, and

512
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: that was really the beginning of spoofing. But when we

513
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: come back, we'll talk about how spoofing really proliferated as

514
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: VOIPE systems grew in popularity, and how the FCC is

515
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 1: responding to the issue today. But first let's take another

516
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: quick break. The emergence of voice over Internet protocol was

517
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: one of those truly disruptive technologies. In this case, it

518
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: was disrupting the telecommunications business that got you know, totally

519
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: turned on its head. Because of this, voice would allow

520
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: people to make phone calls using the Internet as the

521
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: transmission system, essentially bypassing the phone companies in the process

522
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: at least and on one end of the call, possibly

523
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: both voice phones can connect to one another. Over the

524
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: Internet and not even touch the phone system, at least

525
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: not the way that normal telephone calls do. But what

526
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: if someone were to use a voice of them to

527
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: call someone in a with a phone that's connected to

528
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: the old public Switching Telephone network or ps t N. Well,

529
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: any void call connecting to the ps t N has

530
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 1: to go through what's called a void gateway, which serves

531
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: as a bridge between the two systems. See voice traffic

532
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 1: over the Internet protocol. Uh. That that's using packet switching protocols.

533
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: That's what the Internet at large uses in order to

534
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: send data. It divides up files into packets of information

535
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: and then sends them across the network to be essentially

536
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: reassembled on the other side. But this is incompatible with

537
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: how phone calls are transmitted across the ps t N.

538
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: It's two totally different systems. So the gateway has to

539
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: decompress the digital packets from the voice call and turn

540
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: it into a digital signal that then can be converted

541
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: into an analog signal to cross the ps t N,

542
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: which is pretty wild, right. Eight ways also come in

543
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: different flavors. There are standalone gateways, uh, then there are

544
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: gateway functions that can be built into specific types of routers. Uh.

545
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: There's also the I p p b X that I

546
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. Those can act as gateways. The important part

547
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: for our discussion is that many of these voice services

548
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: allow users to take advantage of p b X features

549
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: that traditionally only big companies could use, including spoofing the

550
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: phone number. So as voice technology proliferated and as more

551
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: providers began to offer up spoofing services, including ones that

552
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: just they allow you to start up an account and

553
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: you pay a certain amount and then from that point

554
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: forward you get just have your account deducted whenever you're

555
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: making calls using spoofing. This kind of of technology really

556
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: allowed bad actors to see potential for spoofing numbers for

557
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: malicious purposes. The goal is always to convinced someone to

558
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: pick up the ding dang phone, and one of the

559
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: popular approaches centered around spoofing is to create a number

560
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: that is similar to the target number you're calling, so

561
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: in other words, trying to get something within the same

562
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: area code, maybe even the same phone prefix. I get

563
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: this all the time with with spoofed numbers. So the

564
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 1: idea is that if you see a number pop up

565
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: on caller I D. And it appears to be a

566
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: local number, You're more likely to pick up the phone

567
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: because you're more likely to feel that the person on

568
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: the other end of that call is someone you know,

569
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: or at least it's something relevant to you. Ask how

570
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: they get you, Well, it's one way. Another way is

571
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: to use databases of personal information to create spear phishing attempts,

572
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 1: though not every scammer goes to that kind of trouble,

573
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: but they could attempt to spoof specific numbers that you

574
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: might know, so you might think, oh, it's my auntie calling.

575
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: I wonder what's up, and you answer and you find

576
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: out it's not your auntie, it's a scammer. Uh. A

577
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: lot of these hackers and scammers just sort of cast

578
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: a very wide net to see if they catch anything.

579
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,760
Speaker 1: If you pick up a phone that is a catch.

580
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: At that point, you might be prompted to say press

581
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: a number in response to a specific direction, you know,

582
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: like press two to speak with a representative. Don't do it,

583
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: it's a bad idea. A lot of these are actually

584
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: worked into systems where if you do a button press,

585
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: it gets interpreted as an authorization for a charge, and

586
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,399
Speaker 1: the scammers are making money off of this, and you're

587
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 1: getting charged through your phone company and you get these,

588
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,439
Speaker 1: you know, fraudulent charges on your account, So don't fall

589
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 1: for that. Um Uh, this is essentially illegal. I mean,

590
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 1: it is illegal, but it doesn't stop people from doing

591
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 1: it because it's kind of hard to catch them. Uh.

592
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: You might also get someone who's on the other end

593
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: of the call and they're looking to get valuable information

594
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: from you, like a bank account number or something. Obviously,

595
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: is a bad idea to engage in this sort of stuff.

596
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: In fact, it's bad enough that some phone companies and

597
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: the f c C have argued that if you don't

598
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: recognize a number, don't answer it. Think about that for

599
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: a moment. This you have companies like phone companies, their

600
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: business is charging customers for this inner connectivity, this ability

601
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 1: to have communication channels open. And then they're saying, by

602
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: the way, if you don't recognize the number, don't use

603
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: our services, which we are charging you for. It's kind

604
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: of wild, right, because you would think, if this is

605
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: that big of a problem, surely there has to be

606
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:46,240
Speaker 1: some measure you can take to kind of curtail this problem.

607
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: Because what you're telling me, right, now is that your

608
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: service isn't good enough for me to rely upon all

609
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: the time because there are people who are leveraging it

610
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: to try and take advantage of me. That's not a

611
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: great marketing message right now. The use of numbers that

612
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: are similar to your own typically gets called neighbor spoofing

613
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 1: or neighborhood spoofing, and it's a pretty irritating tactic. Uh.

614
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: It's also possible that someone could spoof your phone number

615
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 1: while they are calling someone else. So for them, it's

616
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 1: going to come up on color I D that you're

617
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: the person making the call. Right, it's gonna be your

618
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: phone number, even though you're not the one doing it.

619
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: It's because it's been spoofed. So the question is what

620
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: do you do if that happens to you. You are

621
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: not going to like the answer, because there's not much

622
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: you can do other than try to explain to anyone

623
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 1: who's calling you up angry that you're making these calls

624
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: that you're not the one making the calls that are

625
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:49,280
Speaker 1: upsetting them. That's kind of difficult to get across because

626
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: people are looking at their color I D and saying, no,

627
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 1: I see on my I D that you are the

628
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: one calling me. I'm telling you to stop and your

629
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: might Meanwhile you're trying to say no, no, I promise

630
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: it's not me. Someone is spoofing my phone number. Depending

631
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: upon the person on the other end of the line,

632
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: they might not have any idea of what that means

633
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: or even know that that's possible. Now, I've had this

634
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 1: happened to me in the past, however, not on my

635
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: personal phone. So many years ago, I was working at

636
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: a consulting firm and I was getting calls from a

637
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 1: woman who was angry that I was calling her and

638
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,760
Speaker 1: I was making these crazy machine noises into her phone.

639
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: Now I figured out that what was happening was that

640
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: some fax machine was calling her landline as if it

641
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 1: were another fax machine, and since her phone is not

642
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: a fax machine, she was just getting that garbled electronic

643
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,839
Speaker 1: mass of sounds whenever she picked up the receiver. And

644
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: she said that the number that was associated on color

645
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: I D belonged to the company I worked for. So

646
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,879
Speaker 1: I had her read me the number, and sure enough,

647
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:02,439
Speaker 1: it was our offices main phone number, but it wasn't

648
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: our facts number. It wasn't the number for the fax

649
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 1: machine we had. And I even went over to our

650
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: fax machine, and I used a report to generate a

651
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: report that told me about all the outgoing calls that

652
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: had been made, every single facts that had been sent.

653
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: And this was in a day where we still facts

654
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: occasionally anyway, And I checked it against this woman's number,

655
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,839
Speaker 1: and I saw there was no call from our fax

656
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: machine going out to her number. There was nothing coming

657
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: out from our office that was going to her. But

658
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: it appeared as though someone had been spoofing our offices

659
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: phone number for facts no less, and was sending out

660
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: stuff to people like this woman. And there wasn't anything

661
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: I could do about it, because we had nothing to

662
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:51,839
Speaker 1: do with the situation in the first place. We were

663
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,479
Speaker 1: victims just as she was. Someone else had picked our

664
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: number to use a mask for some reason, and because

665
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: the voice system they were using allowed for this kind

666
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: of thing, there was really no way for us to

667
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: even know who was doing it, much less stop them.

668
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: It was frustrating for the woman, and it was not

669
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: super great for me either, because I genuinely wanted to

670
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: help her. I don't want anyone to be, you know,

671
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,879
Speaker 1: aggravated and harassed in this way, and that really stinks, right,

672
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: I mean, if someone makes use of your number and

673
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: then harasses another person. You could be left holding the

674
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: bag and your defenses it wasn't me. Someone spoofed my

675
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: phone number. That is pretty hard to prove to someone

676
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,799
Speaker 1: unless you can actually show them that your phone did

677
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 1: not make those outgoing calls by just showing them a

678
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: record of every call you've made over you know, whatever

679
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: length of time. But more frequently we find ourselves on

680
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 1: the receiving end of these calls, which I guess we

681
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: should be thankful for because it's irritating, but not as

682
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: irritating as being blamed for them. And the frequency of

683
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 1: these calls have picked up the pace over the years.

684
00:39:57,480 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 1: Now twenty twenty was actually a bit of an outlier.

685
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: We saw a dip and spoofed robo calls in but

686
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 1: in June there were more than four billion robo calls.

687
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:10,959
Speaker 1: So it's not like that's a problem that's gonna go away.

688
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:13,800
Speaker 1: I mean, that's nearly a hundred fifty million robo calls

689
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: per day. That being said, the FCC and major phone

690
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: carriers are trying to fight back a bit. The f

691
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:25,720
Speaker 1: c C passed a mandate, actually Congress passed the law

692
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: that requires all the major carriers in the US, those

693
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,720
Speaker 1: being A, T and T, Verizon Anti Mobile, to comply

694
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: with the rule that requires them to incorporate a technology

695
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: called stir slash shaken, which is very James Bondish, you know. Now.

696
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: The idea behind this is that stir slash shaken is

697
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: supposed to verify that a number that pops up on

698
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: Color I D is in fact the number that belongs

699
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: to the line that's making that phone call in the

700
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:58,320
Speaker 1: first place. In other words, it's supposed to help detect spoofing.

701
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: It would mean that phone company as could filter calls

702
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 1: and potentially block some of them, or at least label

703
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 1: them as spam before they get to your your phone. Now,

704
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: those three carriers have said that they have all enabled

705
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: this technology on their own networks, which is good because

706
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: the deadline for doing so was this past June. To

707
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: be precise, Smaller regional carriers in the United States currently

708
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: have a deadline of June three to implement this technology,

709
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 1: though that could change. The FCC might step up that deadline.

710
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: So what's going on with this technology? Well, first let's

711
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: talk about what these names stand for. Though I suspect

712
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: there's some backronym shenanigans going on here. That is that

713
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:45,919
Speaker 1: you know, they came up with the names and then

714
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: tried to figure out what they stood for, as opposed

715
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: to the other way around. Anyway, STIR stands for Secure

716
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: Telephony Identity revisited and SHAKEN stands for secure handling of

717
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: a sorted information using tokens. So the Ken part of

718
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: SHAKEN comes from tokens. And you cannot convince me that

719
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 1: this wasn't some crazy backronym thing. Anyway, these two technologies

720
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: work in tandem. SHAKEN is honestly just sort of a

721
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,839
Speaker 1: broader thing. We'll get to it. So STIR comes out

722
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: of a working group of the organization i e. T

723
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: F that stands for Internet Engineering Task Force. The group

724
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: figured out a way to append digital signatures on a

725
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,439
Speaker 1: call as a means of authenticating that a call comes

726
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: from a specific phone number for real zes. SHAKEN refers

727
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: to the standards that service providers are supposed to follow

728
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: while they're deploying STIR in their networks. So SHAKEN really is,

729
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: here's how you use this technology that is STIR. The

730
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: protocols give three levels of attestation that carriers can assign

731
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: to a call or serve providers, I think is how

732
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: they were. The service providers can assign to a call,

733
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: so full attestation means that the service provider has a

734
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: call originating out of their service and they say that

735
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: that call is in fact coming from a number that

736
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: this particular customer is authorized to use, so in other words,

737
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: it's legit. Then you have partial atestation, and that means

738
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: that the carrier has authenticated the customer making the call.

739
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: They're saying, we know who is making the call. However,

740
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: we cannot verify that this customer is actually authorized to

741
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 1: use the number in question. Then there's gateway at a

742
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: station means that the service provider can authenticate where it

743
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: received a call, but can't authenticate the source, can't say

744
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: who for certain sent it. The information is meant to

745
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 1: be shared between carriers, so that one carrier can essentially

746
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: say to another, hey, here's this call that needs to

747
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: go over your network to get to your customer, But

748
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,359
Speaker 1: I totes can't verify that the call is legit, so

749
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: it maybe suss just a heads up, and then your

750
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:08,560
Speaker 1: carrier might block the call or appenda label, alerting you

751
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: the d customer that the call could be spam. The

752
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: way this works in practice is you've got someone making

753
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: a call. Let's say it's Scuzzy scumbag who's posing as

754
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 1: a member of the Internal Revenue Service, but Scuzzy really

755
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: just wants to phish personal information out of you. Scuzzy

756
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: picks up the phone or more likely uses an automated

757
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: robo dialer and calls your number and spoofs their own

758
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 1: number in the process to make it seem as if

759
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,479
Speaker 1: it's the I r S calling you. The call goes

760
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: out over scuzzies service provider, whomever that may be. The

761
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 1: service provider takes a look at the originating number and

762
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: the source of the call to determine what level of

763
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: attestation to assign to that call. Then it makes use

764
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: of an authentication service to create a digital certificate that

765
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: holds onto this information, then passes both the call and

766
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: the certificate on so that it ultimately ends at the

767
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: terminating service provider. This would be whatever service provider you use.

768
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 1: So let's say it's like a T and T, So

769
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: now it gets sent to a T and T. So

770
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: a T and T. Your service provider, upon receiving this

771
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: signal and digital certificate, sends the certificate to a verification

772
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: service which attempts to verify if the originating source of

773
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: the call is authorized to make calls from that number

774
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: it claims to be calling from. Then it returns this

775
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: information to a T and T and then a T

776
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 1: and T can either block the call or label it

777
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: or pass it on to you. So this approach is

778
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: not like a catch all for all robo calls and

779
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: spam or even for spoofing. It's not going to put

780
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: an end to it, but it is meant to help

781
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: cut back on those practices. There are other companies trying

782
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: to address this issue in other ways. There are companies

783
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: that have blocking services that you can use, there's the

784
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: Do Not Call registry that you can be part of,

785
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: and then companies like Verizon are trying something different. Like

786
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: Verizon has introduced an updated call filter app that will

787
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: send suspected spam calls that appear to have phone numbers

788
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,760
Speaker 1: from your area straight to voicemail. So, in other words,

789
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,839
Speaker 1: those neighborhoods spoofing calls would never even make your phone ring,

790
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 1: it would go straight to your voicemail. Of course, this

791
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: means that if there is someone from your region who

792
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: is actually trying to call you, for real z s,

793
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: they might end up going straight to voicemail too. Now

794
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 1: you can go into the apps filter settings and turn

795
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: those off for specific numbers, so it's not like, you know,

796
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: it's an all or nothing, but it does mean that

797
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: at least in some cases, there might be more hands

798
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: on work for the consumer to get everything to work

799
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: out properly. Now, I think we will continue to see

800
00:46:56,680 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: companies and governments really try to crack down on this

801
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: practice because it's so irritating. Like the people in charge

802
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:08,880
Speaker 1: don't like it either, right, Politicians do not like robo

803
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: calls and spam because it affects them too, and so

804
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: we're likely to see more strides taken to try and

805
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 1: combat it. At the same time, we'll see the people

806
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,280
Speaker 1: who are making use of it try and find ways

807
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 1: around the system. So it's going to be a c

808
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:28,839
Speaker 1: saw kind of approach, and it's certainly an irritating one.

809
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 1: So if like me, you treat your phone like it's

810
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 1: a way to send email and text and that's it,

811
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: or maybe occasionally, you know, look at pictures of cats,

812
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:43,399
Speaker 1: then you're in good company. Because this approach of robo

813
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: calls and spoofing has really created a an environment of

814
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: distrust with our communication devices, so much so that the

815
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 1: companies in charge of providing those services are saying, yeah,

816
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: kind of stinks, dotting it and saying like, yeah, you

817
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 1: should probably not pick up the phone. And again, they're

818
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: the ones providing the service to allow you to get

819
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 1: calls in the first place. It's not great, but that's

820
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 1: kind of you know how technology can be, right, It's

821
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: we can create these amazing tools that open up incredible

822
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:20,759
Speaker 1: potential possibilities. But it also means that people who are

823
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,280
Speaker 1: looking at the system from a different perspective may find

824
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: ways to twist it to benefit themselves at the expense

825
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: of the rest of us, which again kind of stinks.

826
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:34,879
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is one of those topics where while

827
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: I say I love all things tech, I don't love spoofing.

828
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: I think it's uh. At best, it's misleading, and at

829
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 1: worst it is it is a predating upon vulnerable populations,

830
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: which I don't think is cool at all. But that

831
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:56,760
Speaker 1: wraps up this episode. If you have suggestions for topics

832
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach

833
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:01,360
Speaker 1: out to me. The best way to do that is

834
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 1: over on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff,

835
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:08,720
Speaker 1: H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.

836
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: Y tex Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For

837
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart

838
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,879
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

839
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 1: favorite shows.