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I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

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

#91

Post by lozf »

razakel wrote: post #23
at-fates-hands wrote: post #8

Interesting to note that Phreaking is still very much alive and kicking. Most of the hackers I know gave up on Phreaking once hacking became popular in their circles. To me, there will always be something more fascinating about the telephone infrastructure.

>Interesting to note that Phreaking is still very much alive and kicking. Any sites you'd suggest?

Phil Lapsley's book "Exploding The Phone" [0] gives a well written overview for anyone interested.

[0] http://explodingthephone.com/ (AudioBook also available)

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

#92

Post by chris_wot »

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…

If that's an Australian number, we actually have a reasonably decent enforcement regime. If you post the number then I'll have it reported to the ACCC, who I suspect would dearly love to actually catch an Australian fraudster given most of their reports are from India or Pakistan and somewhat untouchable.

Incidentally, a friend once got "Microsoft" on the line and they gave a return number. Curious, I called it. "Microsoft" answered. Quick as a flash I said "I don't have much time, they're on to us!"

They were unphased. Until I abruptly disconnected, then called Crime Stoppers and then conference called them in. Crime Stoppers were very unhappy with me for doing so, but after that call I waited 5 minutes then called the original number. It was disconnected!

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

#93

Post by rsync »

falsedan wrote: post #66
eric_h wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not VoIP I'm not convinced that this is the case - I'd imagine there are a number of calling cards that terminate a POTS line to a voip device in the US and then VOIP out for vastly cheaper international calling.

I used to work for a company which wrote & sold telco switch management software. Mostly is was for automatically calculating the Least Cost Route, given a list of carrier price sheets and rates for prefix bands. We had a few local clients with slightly complicated setups, so we got to implement some matching logic for Call Data Records. Their local end had three switches attached to external trunks (to other carrier…

"The trick is (and we never asked or found out) is that most of the time the remote digi-box is actually a carousel of SIM cards with unlimited local calls. The carousel is used to automatically distribute the calls over the SIMs to impede fraud detection by the mobile carrier."

I have seen this in action ... I was working late at night in our (rsync.net) Zurich datacenter and there was a man who had a very tall stack of SIM cards that he was punching out and inserting into these long PCI cards ... I couldn't not ask him what he was doing.

He was a little cagey about it, but I got the general idea (thanks, Swiss folks, for all speaking english!).

The thing I don't understand is, to whatever degree running all those cards through a single SIM is a fraud alert, then I would think running all of those calls through a single tower would be an even bigger fraud alert. And yet, that doesn't seem to be a problem.

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

#94

Post by Spooky23 »

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 not really accurate. That status was developed for the transitional period after the Spanish American War, and subsequent legislation and court cases evolved that initial state.

It's really a colony, unlike US States it isn't a sovereign entity unto itself, and is essentially at the mercy of congress with respect to self-governance and other things.

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

#95

Post by Guest98123 »

chris_wot wrote: post #92
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…

If that's an Australian number, we actually have a reasonably decent enforcement regime. If you post the number then I'll have it reported to the ACCC, who I suspect would dearly love to actually catch an Australian fraudster given most of their reports are from India or Pakistan and somewhat untouchable. Incidentally, a friend once got "Microsoft" on the line and they gave a return number. Curious, I called it. "Mic…

It was using a calling card, so I needed to dial the local calling card number, type in my prepaid ID, and then the destination number. So, although the destination number was Australia, the issue occurred somewhere en route before then.

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

#96

Post by bbcbasic »

exolymph wrote: post #78
bbcbasic wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame that global capitalism doesn't abhor US dev salaries being double Aussie or European ones. :-[

Reason: place is still important to productivity. https://smile.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B...

I doubt it is to do with productivity. More like supply and demand.

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

#97

Post by metilda »

rsync wrote: post #93
falsedan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for a company which wrote & sold telco switch management software. Mostly is was for automatically calculating the Least Cost Route, given a list of carrier price sheets and rates for prefix bands. We had a few local clients with slightly complicated setups, so we got to implement some matching logic for Call Data Records. Their local end had three switches attached to external trunks (to other carrier…

"The trick is (and we never asked or found out) is that most of the time the remote digi-box is actually a carousel of SIM cards with unlimited local calls. The carousel is used to automatically distribute the calls over the SIMs to impede fraud detection by the mobile carrier." I have seen this in action ... I was working late at night in our (rsync.net) Zurich datacenter and there was a man who had a very tall stac…

Yeah, the thing is telecom and especially cellular fraud detection is often a manual process when you get to that cell or tower level. Carrier backends are not friendly toward it for the fraud detection employees, thus it rarely is done.

Specifically in Switzerland and Germany, call termination costs are a great deal higher, where I'm paying .0014min avg in North America, I am paying a few multiples of that minimum in either country.

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

#98

Post by metilda »

toast0 wrote: post #21
acveilleux wrote: post #13

The "free" phone conference service work in a somewhat similar way. There's a fee charged for long distance call even in the US/Canada. The fee is low enough that most people now get free long distance. The free phone conference services are terminated at tiny little telcos that charge a much higher than normal fee for a north american long distance and the fee is split between the conference service operator and the…

There is a regulatory push in the US to end intercarrier usage billing, which should lead to the end of the blocking and may lead to the end of the free conferences (maybe not, I imagine costs are fairly low, but they'll need new revenue). It's already reduced the amount of mostly free VoIP offerings.

Yeah, carriers offering free DIDs are rapidly disappearing, first ipkall and recently I had another one up and close their doors on me.

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

#99

Post by metilda »

chrischen wrote: post #85

So is it that easy to establish as a call operator? Considering how much secure stuff we do over the phone, this seems highly insecure.

Yeah, lots of businesses will use greyroutes from "Freddy's Swiss SIM Bank" cause it's 1 cent a minute versus 2.7 cents directly.

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

#100

Post by exolymph »

bbcbasic wrote: post #96
exolymph wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reason: place is still important to productivity. https://smile.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B...

I doubt it is to do with productivity. More like supply and demand.

Supply and demand aren't disconnected from productivity.
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