More Creative Scams

[phb]

@syncretic

How do you know this?

Telstra can do it (parents), AussieBB (friend) and there is no reason why others can’t as well.

It won’t block all calls as many will originate within Australia via a VOIP gateway. But it will block some. Some is better than none.

[marie.belcredi]

Yeah I got one from a number only different from my own by one number. I didn’t know you could spoof a mobile number

[syncretic]

@phb

It won’t block all calls as many will originate within Australia via a VOIP gateway.

So the block is easily circumvented - which puts us back to where we started, there is no effective way to deal with this problem.

[phb]

@syncretic

So the block is easily circumvented - which puts us back to where we started,

Yes, I raised that in an earlier post.

@syncretic

there is no effective way to deal with this problem

Only way I can see, as outlined above, is for no one to succumb to the scam…they will go away. How do we achieve this…maybe impossible as the scammers exploit human weaknesses to be successful. Somehow these weaknesses need to be strengthen or be resilient to have any success.

[syncretic]

@phb

Telstra can do it (parents)

I asked Telstra via Facebook saying:

“If I move my NBN internet service and VOIP phone service to you can you block all phone calls originating from overseas?”

The reply from Telstra was:

We do not have service that blocks all calls like you are looking for, however we do have a nuisance calls team to block any unwanted callers. You could also look at purchasing our Telstra Call Guardian handset, that allows you to block up to 1000 numbers directly from the phone handset yourself - https://tel.st/wd8g5p.

• Tom

CHECKOUT.TELSTRA.COM.AU

Online Shop Checkout

[phb]

@syncretic

Telstra via Facebook saying

I’ll ask my parents and friend about when they did it. I wonder if they did it when the had copper land line and assume it occurs with NBN lines.

[phb]

@phb

I’ll ask my parents…I wonder if they did it when the had copper land line and assume it occurs with NBN lines.

Yes, that now appears to be the case. The block occurred about 12 months ago…they got NBN connection shortly thereafter. Looks like it may have only been a copper landline (old technology) option.

[vombatis]

@syncretic

VOIP

The significance of VOIP is that the scammers are using VOIP for the origin of the call.

Makes no difference if you are receiving the call via mobile network, FTTP, FTTN, HFC, satellite, etc, etc, etc.

Internet Service Providers in Australia get allocated a SIP hub for their customers to initiate VOIP calls through. My ISP has several of these, and when the one for my state was congested they gave me the modem setting to alter to point to one they had in another state.
To the best of my knowledge for a VOIP call originating from location X to arrive displaying CallerID of a telephone number that looks to be Australian, it will have to come through a SIP in Australia.

[vombatis]

@syncretic

can you block all phone calls originating from overseas

Australia established the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) in 1998, a centralised database containing records of all Australian telephone numbers.
The critical users are: the emergency call services (ECS), the emergency warning system (EWS) and national security and law enforcement agencies.
There are also non-critical users of IPND information.
In 2015 Telstra was the manager of the IPND. Today it looks like ACMA is.

It should be a simple matter for an Australian provider of services for receiving phone calls to meet someone’s need to “accept only Australian calls” to exclude any incoming numbers that are not in the IPND (would only need to look at phone number, no need to look at any details connected to the number)

IPND contains the record of each telephone number issued by Carriage Service Providers (CSPs) to their customers in Australia. Each IPND (or Public Number Customer Data) record includes the customer’s phone number, name, service and directory addresses, the type of service, whether the service is listed or unlisted and details about the CSP who provides the service. The types of services recorded in the IPND include:

• fixed telephone services;
• mobile phone services;
• VoIP services associated with a telephone number;
• freecall and local rate numbers (including 13 and 1800 numbers); and
• payphone services.

[syncretic]

@vombatis

It should be a simple matter for an Australian provider of services for receiving phone calls to meet someone’s need to “accept only Australian calls” to exclude any incoming numbers that are not in the IPND (would only need to look at phone number, no need to look at any details connected to the number)

So you are saying international origin blocking can be done, that this method is immune to spoofing and using a local VOIP gateway. Is that right?

If so why is it not done?

[phb]

@syncretic

that this method is immune to spoofing and using a local VOIP gateway. Is that right?

I agree with @vombatis, BUT, if all local calls are registered and can be used as a whitelist for a filter, I suspect that if possible, scammers will try and spoof or acquire local numbers/hack to use local numbers.

[PhilT]

I have a ‘3rd party’ US VOIP number. I can insert any number I want into the CallerID field that gets sent. When I ring Australia with it, ‘our’ CallerID shows it as a Private Number.

If I set my account to Australia I can still put in any number, manage it from anywhere there is internet, ring from anywhere in the world, and the number I insert shows as the CallerID.

[syncretic]

@phb

BUT, if all local calls are registered and can be used as a whitelist for a filter,

Comparing a caller’s number against the official list of numbers issued in Oz is only of any value at all if you can be sure that the putative number of the caller is genuine. So far nobody has established that can be done so for lack of evidence I find the matter still an open question.

Incidentally, I just heard back from Aussie Broadband. I asked them the same question that I asked Telstra and they gave me the same answer, no they cannot reliably block all overseas numbers.

[grahroll]

There is the ability for all numbers that are Australian to only be allocated to Australian based or Australian linked people and businesses but the Australian Govt allow our numbers to be sold Worldwide as it is a source of foreign income. I have written about this before

Hounded by nuisance callers?

Pretty much yes, a VOIP call through say Skype (or any other Cloud platform) that has an exit in Australia would appear as an Australian based phone call even if the caller was actually in China or Russia or some other location other than Australia. Currently these callers buy a range of Australian numbers (they are generally bulk acquired by the VOIP platform and sold to the users of their services but you can also have your number ported to them). There is a fee the VOIP providers (they are …

Caller ID Spoofing

If using Skype or similar VOIP services you can pay to get a number or numbers from various parts of the world and use which one you want at any time. I have included some info from Skype on the numbers/countries available through them and as you will see Australia is available through all types of accounts without restriction, some countries do restrict this facility to only residents of their country though if a registered company in that country they can also register : "How do I set up a S…

Scamwatch: NBN & Telstra Optus Technical Department Scams

Simply put MONEY. Foreign income as small as it might be is easy takings to help offset import costs (Balance of Trade). While people complain about the calls you don’t see much of the same irate voicing about changing legislation to stop the selling of Australian numbers to Overseas users who have no actual Australian affiliation. Telstra call centres or similar based overseas are still bound by the DNC and Spam legislation and so you can easily make a complaint and Telstra or whomever wil…

[syncretic]

@grahroll

There is the ability for all numbers that are Australian to only be allocated to Australian based or Australian linked people and businesses

Which is not relevant if bad actors have the ability to appear to be any number they choose. They will not bother obtaining a real Oz number they will just make one up that looks real or copy that of a real Oz establishment.

[grahroll]

It won’t pass an Australian SIP portal usually which it has to do to be treated as an Australian call.

Currently it is identified as an international call but as we don’t care if it is an OS faked number it is allowed, if Govt legislates that it must be Australian linked Providers would have to reject it or ID it as a non Australian number.

[syncretic]

@grahroll

It won’t pass an Australian SIP portal usually which it has to do to be treated as an Australian call

This is quite mysterious.

I presume “it” is an overseas generated spoofed call that is not from the number that it bears.

What is this SIP portal? Who operates it and how does it identify spoofed calls?

Why does the portal not eliminate this overseas traffic?

[grahroll]

SIP is what most VOIP products use to transmit calls. Session Initiation Protocol. There are provider specific details that must be input to use your provider’s VOIP network. They, the providers, know where the call initiated from, but you can change your details such as a fake number that a receiver sees.

A provider can have several places where the VOIP traffic internally goes to the rest of the web, but there must be at least one to accept and send the traffic over the Australian network in Australia. It is mostly software and can use already present Internet hardware to support it eg Cloud servers.

Why not eliminated? There is no legislation that bans OS users from having Australian numbers, instead we encourage it by selling them to OS users.

[syncretic]

@grahroll

but you can change your details such as a fake number that a receiver sees.

So can such a portal reliably detect false identities?

@grahroll

SIP is what most VOIP products use to transmit calls

So the bad actor can get calls into the system some other way.

@grahroll

There is no legislation that bans OS users from having Australian numbers,

So are you saying all the scam calls are using legally obtained Oz numbers. I though they just made up a number that was the right format and changed it daily to avoid black lists.

[grahroll]

Q1 Yes as they know where the call originated from as they have to establish the connection for the call just like with web pages or if the calling OS users use a VPN again they can determine that VPNs are being used and block them just as Netflix etc can do for Geo blocking OS users, Netfix learn the common VPN addresses and just block them.

Q2 Yes but limiting numbers to Geographic locales can avoid a lot of this. Skype for example sometimes uses P2P to allow us to call our known friends by using their email addresses as identifiers and they must be on the Skype system to establish these calls, but for ‘telephone’ calls they use the SIP system.

Q3 No they fake numbers but we allow OS calls to fake Australian numbers, if we only allow Australian located or Australian linked to use the numbers then Providers would be obliged to either block the faked numbers or they would have to identify them as faked/international callers. As we allow others to use our numbers even though they are international we allow faked numbers to appear as Australian ones, the SIP exchange/portal just lets them through. This is why most ISPs/RSPs legally can’t universally block them, Telstra have a team that will block them but a user must request the block or use the *92# code.

If other providers don’t support the Telstra type methods that may be something a user can take up with their provider to try and get them to put similar options in place.