The $2,000 Phones That Let Anyone Make Robocalls (404media.co) 24
An anonymous reader writes: Videos collected by 404 Media over months give a peek into the world of spoofing numbers, automated call scripts, and a specific seller of the phones. From the report: "Alright lads," a man sitting in the passenger seat of a moving car says in a heavy British accent. In his left hand he holds a special phone he is showing off to his clients, while with the other he films his demonstration which was later uploaded to Telegram. "I'm only going to say it once, yeah. You swipe, and it's gone," he continues, demonstrating one app installed that can instantly destroy data stored on the device. The phone in question is one from "Russiancoms," an underground outfit that sells the devices for just under $2,000 each. For that price, customers get a laundry list of features: the ability to spoof phone numbers, play hold music, and have a computerized voice read pre-determined scripts. While Russiancoms does not acknowledge in its Telegram channel what the phones might really be for, those are features well suited to committing fraud.
The Russiancoms Telegram channel periodically deletes its videos and other messages, but 404 Media has been archiving many of them for months. They provide insight into a little known industry of fraud phones, ones that make it easy for anyone to enter the world of robocalling or other scams. While much of the underground phone industry has been focused on providing secure communications to criminals -- companies like Phantom Secure, Encrochat, and Sky for example -- Russiancoms and similar companies appear to cater to a different use case: enabling people to make calls that fraudulently appear to come from someone else. A common tool in the underground is also so-called Russian SIMs, which can spoof numbers in some cases. Russiancoms' phones, however, are more fully featured.
The Russiancoms Telegram channel periodically deletes its videos and other messages, but 404 Media has been archiving many of them for months. They provide insight into a little known industry of fraud phones, ones that make it easy for anyone to enter the world of robocalling or other scams. While much of the underground phone industry has been focused on providing secure communications to criminals -- companies like Phantom Secure, Encrochat, and Sky for example -- Russiancoms and similar companies appear to cater to a different use case: enabling people to make calls that fraudulently appear to come from someone else. A common tool in the underground is also so-called Russian SIMs, which can spoof numbers in some cases. Russiancoms' phones, however, are more fully featured.
so 2K for an Asterisk box? (Score:2)
so 2K for an Asterisk box?
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I was thinking the same thing.
Basically, recreating VICIdial or similar on a smaller scale.
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you cant just do this with asterisk, you have to also have a peer that is itself peered with the international telecom network willing to facilitate your traffic. so it sounds like there's a misbehaving peer that should be banned from the network facilitating fraudulent sim activity
Re:so 2K for an Asterisk box? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, as of the past couple weeks if you make a call that terminates in the United States, your CID number has to match at least one of your DID numbers at your provider. If it does not then you won't be able to complete your call. I am super bummed about this because I had an Asterisk system that would keep out spammers AND forward calls made to my landline to my cell phone AND it'd show who was calling so nobody ever knew if I wasn't home and I always knew who was calling but now I gotta find another solution and there doesn't seem to be much of an option after this.
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I'm tired of robocalls (Score:2)
...I want to see spammers and scammers splattered all over the pavement mob-style. Kick some ass to make a statement to the others! We need Spam Force, not Space Force.
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We could sell the privilege to splatter them and use the revenue to reimburse their victims.
Re: I'm tired of robocalls (Score:2)
Why is stopping spoofing rocket science? (Score:1)
I don't understand why it's so easy to spoof the caller? Can't encryption etc. be used to make that very hard? I don't geddit! Junk calls/texts are friggen annoying as hell. Heads need to roll!
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Because the basic messaging system between telecom providers that is commonly still used was simply not designed with the bad actors in mind. Combine that with the low interest in fixing it as there is no money in fixing it...
Re:Why is stopping spoofing rocket science? (Score:5, Informative)
Because the underlying tech of telephones is old, really old, like the late 1800s
Caller ID, or ANI (Automatic Number Information) was a crude hack, retrofitted onto ancient analog tech
ISDN was an attempt to add a digital data layer to telephones, but it was not widely adopted and is now obsolete
Modern mobile phones are digital, but still must interoperate with the old systems where remnants of old tech still persist
Like the QWERTY keyboard, bad ideas never die once established
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And why does it work over here in Europe? It's not like we have much more modern technology in place.
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And why does it work over here in Europe?
Because many if not most European governments still see themselves as providing services to their citizens, whereas here in the US our government views the average citizen as an impediment to corporate profit.
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Is it me or is it weird that of all the citizens in what's commonly called the free world, the US are the best armed, with the alleged reason that this would allow the population to defend itself against a government that works against its people, yet at the same time they also have one of the least citizen-oriented government of that portion of the world?
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And why does it work over here in Europe? It's not like we have much more modern technology in place.
Because we punish telcos who permit spammers. Amazing that once an incentive to block the spammers is in place, telcos will get off their arses and do it.
I get 3-4 spam calls on my UK numbers per year, I worked for an American company with a US dial in line that was supposed to be for vendors only and we got 5 odd spam calls a day on that one. If I were bored I'd put on my plummiest British accent and play along with the insurance/car accident scams. Especially since my car was never sold in the US.
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> Because the underlying tech of telephones is old, really old, like the late 1800s
Then it's time for an upgrade. Spammers and robo-callers are making phones useless.
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Addendum:
> Like the QWERTY keyboard, bad ideas never die once established
One can plug in an alternative keyboard. However, you still need to know some QWERTY to walk into a random office and do work.
And QWERTY may be only a slight drag for those not into speed-typing. Regular typing and speed-typing tend to be different things. It's somewhat like a regular car vs. a race car. If you want to outrun cops, then a race-car is clearly better, but not for driving to work.
What's an example of something that out
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We are going to need ... (Score:2)
They provide insight into a little known industry of fraud phones, ones that make it easy for anyone to enter the world of robocalling or other scams.
"if you accept my apology... (Score:1)
...send one dollar to, Sorry Guy"