The Legacy of Caller ID Spoofing
It is very strange that Caller ID Spoofing has been around ever since Caller ID was created. Yet, even today, many people are aware of this amazing technology that helps people to break the barriers of technology affecting their personal time and lives. Originally this technology was used only by business houses as the services were quite expensive and also it was not thought to be legal by the common man. But with the advent of Spoofcard, all such stumbling blocks have been put out of the way. Today a spoofcard costs you only $10 and it can help you to fake your identity without any kind of professional help.
For over a decade, a specialized digital connection to the telephone company (ISDN PRI circuit) was used for spoofing. This was used on a limited scale by big companies, collection agencies, law enforcement officials and also private investigators. Businesses got up to 23 telephone lines with unique phone numbers from telephone providers on a PRI line. In those times, Caller ID Spoofing was used to display a single main telephone number on all outgoing calls. This helped the receivers to note just one number down even though they used to get calls from all these numbers at random. This service was referred to as “blind lines” at that time.
Some of the earliest providers of Caller ID Spoofing service included IISNet, Universal Communications, Skip Tracey and US Tracers. The technology made huge ground and even the ‘orange boxing’ concept introduced in 2000’s did not find such popularity. The first mainstream Caller ID Spoofing service that allowed spoofed calls to be placed from the web interface was Star38.com launched in September 2004. However, this service was withdrawn in 2005, when many new entrants in the market started giving it a tough competition. Today the technology has advanced to provide users with Spoofcards and leading websites providing these instant spoofing service at the most cheap rates are Spoofrod.com and Spoofcard.com.
History of Spoofing records many instances of pranks being played on people using the spoofing technology. Making prank calls, breaking into voicemail system, purchase scams are some of such examples. However, on a more important note, Caller ID spoofing has helped business houses to use their business phone numbers, no matter where they are and which phone they use. This helps to minimize confusions. Also now spoofcards allow them to record important conversations that can be used to record transactions like verbal orders.
Caller ID Spoofing is done through various methods and technologies. Some of them are:
- Use of VoIP or PRI lines is the most method of spoofing used today.
- Another method is emulating the Bell 202 FSK signal. This is also known as orange boxing.
- Switch access to SS7 Network.
- VXML Method. This method however did not attain much popularity after VoIP took its place.
Time has set the ball rolling in favor of technological advances and similarly ID Spoofing has seen a lot of progress. This evolution of spoofcard has helped to overcome the odds like beating the cost factor and also making the whole telephony equipment use easy and convenient. The open source software helps one to use spoof calls at minimal costs and efforts. It has opened up new opportunities for more and better technological innovations!