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I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

theatlantic.com

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Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#51

Post by djsumdog »

The article mentions VoIP being the issue, but comments here show issues with calling cards as well. It's not VoIP, it's trusting your service provider, the destination service provider and everything in-between.

If you dial via a calling card, everything goes through their proxy before being handed off.

I've run into problems with services like Telegram not accepting my Google Voice number (my own real US number) and the recent NIST recommendations also state not to use SMS as 2-factor verification (citing VoIP concerns).

We have TLS/LetsEncrypt/etc to verify we're talking to who we think we're talking to on the Internet, but phone networks come from a previous era.

I worked for a telcom once in one country where if they no longer held a phone number (it got ported to another network), we just send it to all the other providers. The network that currently held the number would relay it and the others dropped it. I actually wrote the job to actually compare the ported number list and only forward to the right destination. Telecom is janky as shit.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#53

Post by __derek__ »

SixSigma wrote: post #49
Declanomous wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of these services cannot be dialed via some VOIP providers (like Google Talk) for that reason. I always knew this was the case, but I was never really bothered by it. Both the law (see intercarrier compensation[1]) and the subsequent ban make sense. However I've recently run it to a rash of people who I can't call because my carrier and Google Voice block their numbers. Each of them has a Puerto Rican area code…

> Puerto Rico is a part of the United States PR is an unincorporated territory i.e. not part of the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated_territories_of_...

That's a distinction without a difference for the purposes of the comment to which you replied.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#54

Post by samstave »

vbit wrote: post #45
Guest98123 wrote: post #7

I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine. So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went…

How do you know it wasn't just a glitch in the Matrix?

Because they were dogs, not cats!

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#55

Post by Declanomous »

SixSigma wrote: post #49
Declanomous wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of these services cannot be dialed via some VOIP providers (like Google Talk) for that reason. I always knew this was the case, but I was never really bothered by it. Both the law (see intercarrier compensation[1]) and the subsequent ban make sense. However I've recently run it to a rash of people who I can't call because my carrier and Google Voice block their numbers. Each of them has a Puerto Rican area code…

> Puerto Rico is a part of the United States PR is an unincorporated territory i.e. not part of the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated_territories_of_...

I understand the political nuance, but PR phone numbers work just like a phone number from the 50 states for everyone else I know.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#58

Post by z0r »

When i was travelling in italy with a lycamobile sim card, i experienced what i think is something like this - when i tried to call numbers i would often get a busy signal or unavailable phone number message, but repeated attempts after a wait would sometimes go through. It became apparent that not all was on the level when i heard the real versions of those messages and figured out that lycamobile (at least i assume it was them, who else can i blame here?) was part of the time intentionally failing to allow calls to go through and masking that action by making it seem like the telephone number was wrong or unavailable. Often calls that did go through were dropped after 1 - 3 minutes... And that's just the worst part of the experience i had with them (the most charitable interpretation of how far the service fell short of what their website promised would be that they hire solely non-native english writers for all their marketing copy, but i suspect they are actively attempting to deceive prospective customers)

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#60

Post by SixSigma »

__derek__ wrote: post #53
SixSigma wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Puerto Rico is a part of the United States PR is an unincorporated territory i.e. not part of the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated_territories_of_...

That's a distinction without a difference for the purposes of the comment to which you replied.

Not really. As it has its own administration and ergo telecoms system. It makes as much sense as "the UK is part of the US"
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