More on Scammers Abusing TTY Services 192
edward ericson writes "A more comprehensive look at IP Relay scams and their effect on relay operators, the deaf, US business and the relay providers like Sprint, AT&T and MCI. Unlike a previous piece in the AZ Star, this one shows that the problem is at least a year old, and estimates that the companies have earned at least $23 million by facilitating scams. Anyone here care to discuss IP blocking techniques?" See our previous story for more.
No authentication leads to abuse (Score:2, Insightful)
No government in the USA hands out handcapped parking permits to everyone who asks. There's a documentation process to certify that one is entitled to it. Sure, that process sometimes gets fooled into giving a permit to somebody not entitled to it, but as least there's a paper trail created by such a fraud that can be followed once it is discovered.
Free TTY services be allowed to issue usernames and passwords to their customers, keep text logs of the conversations, and able to revoke the access of those who abuse their accounts. Basically, the laws that are requiring them to be open are also regulating this service to its death. This needs to be fixed quick.
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay. We should also suspend email, then, right? Because it is implmented very poorly, there is no system of authentication, and it is subject to MASSIVE abuse?
Oh, wait. You want to suspend other people's means of communication, but not your own. My bad.
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
TTY translation service existed just fine before IP connections were accepted, so it'll be just fine after. I'm not cutting off the old way, just cutting off the new way so that the old way can continue to operate without the public distrusting it...
Wow, Insightful... (Score:2, Insightful)
What's bugging me is reading this Clarke book, in particular the lack of information awareness of the FBI. It's small wonder that more of the clowns spamming and scamming aren't getting busted. It would seem a fairly minor effort to look these people up, gather some evidence and send an agent over to bust their chops (or pass the stuff along to local athorities.)
That I'm still getting piles of spam states very clearly that tracking and apprehension are sorely lacking. That much effort is now put onto tracking terrorists rather than domestic criminals and they budgets for intelligence and law enforcement have taken some big hits under the current administration is a fairly clear message to perpetrators, "We will pass laws, but we A) Wont't enforce them OR B) Can't enforce them.
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't they block IP's? (Score:3, Insightful)
While the addresses are not tied to geography, generally speaking you can tell which IP's are from inside the US and which are from outside. This is supposed to be a system used by deaf Americans, right? Just block all foreign IP addresses. It won't stop all of the false calls, but it will stop a lot of them.
That seems the only solution, unless you come up with some kind of authentication.
Of course, as the article states, the phone companies don't really have an incentive to stop the calls since they are paid either way. This may be one time that legislation is required.
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Dir you read the article? Legit deaf people can't order things via TTY anymore because store owners won't accept the calls. That's a broken service for sure...
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you missed a teensy little point: the IP relay service is funded by TAX DOLLARS and MANDATORY FEES on all phone bills. The big telcos are making profit at our expense -- they get paid BY THE MINUTE handling phone calls for scammers.
Can you hear me now?
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No authentication leads to abuse (Score:2, Insightful)
"You recently mentioned to your mother that you're thinking of moving. Contact Local Realtors Inc for a free consulation!", etc.
To say nothing of the legal implications; a warrentless wiretap on thousands of American phones, always running, in plain-text, east-to-search format.
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No authentication leads to abuse (Score:1, Insightful)
As I recall my sign language instructor explaining, the TTY Relay Service operator (and, I suppose, anything they might keep a hypothetical log with) is legally considered to be part of the telephone. They are NOT allowed to discuss anthing they hear; and any testimony they give about anything they have heard prior to a wiretap warrant being issued is legally inadmissable. You can be planning a murder, and the operator just has to relay the messages back and forth. It's a condition of legal privilege similar to those of spouses, doctors, lawyers, and the Secret Service.
Allowing mandatory logging would effectively put a bug into the phone of every deaf person who has need of this service. Any regulation or legislation permitting this would be struck down in court as a violation of the equal protection and reasonable search clauses.
As for the phone companies doing it themselves, they are under what is called "common carrier protection"-- they make no judgements over what to carry, they just send the voices back and forth, whether it's a call to mom or a death threat. Yes, harrassing calls are illegal, but the phone company only can take action AFTER the recipient complains. Logging, and revoking access based on use, would remove the Telco common carrier protection, and they REALLY don't want to do that. Not to mention the incidental that this might get them sued for civil rights violations under that pesky equal protection clause again.
This report does lead me to wonder, however. I recall being informed by a professor who specializes in history of computing that the phone phreak community back in the 1970's to 1990s was had a very large blind community. While speculations on the cause of that are moot to the matter at hand, there might actually be a group of deaf/hard-of-hearing folk who are gathering around this new (and even less moral) illegal activity. If so, it would be depressing.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I just argue with one.
Re:No authentication leads to abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
So why don't the vendors who have received these fraudulent calls complain to the phone company?
Get them tied up dealing with the complaints, explaining why they are unable to ID the caller, and they'll start losing money instead of earning it from the scams.
Then they'll lobby for some protection to be put in place.
Re:No authentication leads to abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot blows up whenever there is a minor privacy issue but if it concerns deaf people, oh screw them. Keep logs of all their conversation and to hell with their privacy.
Government does not hand out handicapped permits to everyone who asks... but neither do they record the actual usage (location, time, etc) of those permits.
If you really want think text logs of conversations are ok then you are perfectly fine with the government also transcribing hearing people's phone conversations. After all, we want to make sure you are not planning terrorist attacks using your cell phone.
Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like how WTO punishments can often be handed out to unrelated industries... the point is just to get the violation to stop.
Re:I was almost a victim of this scam (Score:2, Insightful)
Relay calls are inherently slower than direct calls - this is simply due to having a third party translator. But an hour??! Something else was going on - he was probably using some web based translator to translate Nigerian to English and vice versa.