Revenge - Careful there

[Kenneth Loafman]

It would not matter whether they had ANI or Caller ID, the 800-spammer
number would only get 1 call from any one individual as a protest call. 
The trick would be that that over a few thousand individual protest
calls, eventually they would shut down or be costed out of profit.  No
one individual would ever be guilty (under current law) of harassment
since they only called spammer-X once and made a polite request to cease
and desist.  Kind of an automated "We protest your activity." calling
plan.

...Ken

SPAMFIGHTER wrote:
> 
> Careful, again.
>  ANI is not like Caller-ID where the data is transmitted as an
> ascii 1200 bps modem tone between the first and second rings, in
> most cases.  With ANI, the identification is known BEFORE the
> phone at the other end rings.  A short call won't stop the trace
> if it rings the far end as it is grabbed (I forget how many
> milliseconds) prior to the application of the ring burst.
> Actually, even a lot of the more recent Caller ID implementations
> now connect to the called end and send the data while that phone
> is still on-hook, so the data gets there before that phone rings,
> too.  It depends on the Central Office and the version of
> software they are using and the CID box the subscriber has.  So,
> ground starts have always been covered, and now the residential
> loop starts are becoming covered, too, as the updated software
> becomes more common in digital (not analog) central offices.
> 
> Tom
> 
> "Kenneth Loafman" <ken at lt.com> wrote in message
> news:3A9BFE1D.B94F6AA5 at lt.com...
> | Matt Dragonfly Drury wrote:
> | >
> | > Many toll-free numbers use ANI for tracking inbound numbers,
> not Caller ID,
> | > which isn't affected by the star-code to disable the
> transmission of one's
> | > number. The argument being that since the company is
> effectively paying for
> | > a collect call, they've the right to know who is calling.
> | >
> | > For that matter, I recall a case a while back where someone
> phone-spammed a
> | > televangelist he didn't like, and was held liable for the
> costs of the
> | > hundreds of short calls his modem demon-dialed for him. Not
> the most
> | > discreet method, obviously.
> | >
> | > That being said, were such a tactic to be distributed - a
> telephone-like
> | > "DDoS attack" - I'm sure it'd be harder for accused spammers
> to pin it down
> | > to one person.
> | >
> | > I wonder what kind of tracing and identification is in place
> for
> | > Internet-telephony calls? I'm sure it depends on the
> provider.
> | >
> | > I've mused in the past on keeping a list of toll-free numbers
> handy whose
> | > companies I find distasteful, and giving them a piece of my
> mind on their
> | > dime when I happen to be near a phone some distance from my
> residence.
> |
> | All this discussion leads me to another interesting idea.  If I
> | *mistakenly* call a spammer and hang up, then no charge can be
> made.
> | What we need to do is apply that 1000's of times, all across
> the world.
> | A lot of us have multiple modems that we no longer use that
> could be put
> | to good use.  We could set up a Seti-like system where a work
> block is a
> | list of spammer's 800-numbers.  You would run a dialing program
> to dial
> | that number *exactly one* time, then step to the next number.
> Lots of
> | individual calls.  No single point of harassment, and the work
> block
> | would only be executed once per client system so that no single
> number
> | ever called more than once.
> |
> | Of course, we'd need to run the server somewhere outside the
> US, but
> | that's not hard to set up.  This could be fun.
> |
> | Think about it.  The ultimate revenge, especially if we could
> | incorportate telemarketers phone numbers into the mix as well.
> Those
> | would be limited to calls between 6 and 8pm to catch them at
> supper.
> | Totally distributed, just like they do to us.
> |
> | OK, some days I'm totally evil, but I'm getting tired of spam
> and
> | telemarketing, actually marketing in general.  Do unto others
> as they've
> | done unto you.
> |
> | ...Ken