Spoofing CallerID is often thought of as a illegal ,or immoral practice, however in reality it is far from it. Caller ID and spoofing has been in the news lately and a major provider of calling cards for spoofing Caller ID systems, SpoofCard, was mentioned in a recent major motion picture, Untraceable. We have all heard about throw away cell phones and blocking our own Caller ID information for our outbound calls, but using a spurious phone number for our regular phones is a rather recent innovation made possible by technology. Caller ID is known as call Identification or CID, but should be known more properly as Calling Number Identification or CNID. It is a service offered by telephone companies that uses the information logged into your account and tied to your phone number (land line, VoIP, or cell phone). The caller’s phone # is transmitted to the recipient’s phone while ringing and if the name that matches the phone number is available and the recipient’s phone has the Caller ID service available the name will show up on the display as well. Caller ID has been used to track down prank phone calls, to avoid collection calls, telemarketers and other intrusions into your home or business life. With the advent of spoofing companies this can lead to callers becoming more evasive in the interest of reaching their intended call recipients. I am aware of instances of credit collection agencies using spoofed caller ID to get people to answer their phones. It is a way to get around a person’s ability to not receive calls from blocked or private numbers. You can choose to block your number on a per call or long term basis with some simple steps. Entering *67 before making a call will block the Caller ID form transmitting your information for that call only. If you want to block your ID for additional calls you will need to enter *67 for each call you make. If that becomes too difficult and you want to block the Caller ID information on all outbound calls you make you will have to make the choice with your phone service carrier. To unblock your Caller ID information for a particular call you will need to type *82 prior to dialing the desired number. With an all call Caller ID block in place you will need to type the *82 prior to each number called that you want to see your Caller ID information. Others wishing to block their Caller ID would include various women’s and children’s shelters, people wishing to report crimes and stay anonymous, and calling a “help” hotline for sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, or mental health to keep the initial call anonymous. Other reasons might be that you have visitors or baby sitters or care givers in your home on a regular basis and when they use the phone you want to keep your private information to your self. There is no way to know that the number you are trying to reach has Caller ID. Also, there are some instances where a Caller ID function will not capture the number calling in. If the line is busy then the Caller ID system can not capture the information, but even if the call is not picked up directly and goes to voice mail the system will record the Caller ID information. As technology increases even services like SpoofCard will no longer be able to guarantee your anonymity. Spoofing Caller ID has been around since Caller ID was invented. Law enforcement officers and private investigators have been using PRI lines to mask their Caller ID info since the late 1990s. As technology has advanced so has the ease in being able to spoof your Caller ID. In most cases spoofing has been done with legitimate reasons. It is easy to see; however, how an unscrupulous person could use the service to harass, embarrass or even cause harm to certain people. Early in 2000 as cell phone use began to soar computer hackers turned to software used by cell phones as means to create havoc and have fun with a new class of victims. There is a technique known as “orange boxing” or using computer software to send tones down a line when a call is first ringing to emulate the Caller ID of another phone with legitimate information. The tones had to be sent at the very beginning of a call or it would not work making the entire system rather unreliable. It appealed to the mentality of the phone hackers or “phreaks” as they became known. The same day a company called Telespoof launched a service to compete with Star38 and offered their service through an 800 number. Shortly after that another company called Covert Call would offer Caller ID spoofing through both a web base and an 800 number. Both Covert Call and Camophone websites had very little information or marketing glitz to set them apart and once their systems were hacked and their user information was published on the internet they shut down in 2005. SpoofCard became the first service to offer recorded calls, and the ability to change your voice, even from male to female and the reverse as well, along with offering service via the web or via an 800 number. In 2007 the House of Representatives passed a “Truth in Caller ID information” bill that was to regulate the Caller ID spoofing industry with notable exceptions in the law enforcement, homeland security and private investigation areas. Once the bill got to the appropriate Senate Committee it promptly bogged down and has never been passed or written into law. You can still purchase calling cards to make as many Caller ID spoofing calls you want from several sites. SpoofCard is the most prominent company with the most features and appears prominently in most computer searches.