I could actually imagine things being better if proof-of-identity was required for a phone number.
I really don't want IP access to run by the same scheme though.
How do these swatters fake phone numbers?
I really don't want IP access to run by the same scheme though.
How do these swatters fake phone numbers?
Reacting as though they are credible enough to warrant deadly force is not.
Both issues need to be addressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing#Technology_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing#Legal_consi...
I'm so confused right now.
Does the US not have a central agency that allocates phone numbers and operators? Does that agency not have the ability to shutdown operators who don't follow the rules?
> Does that agency not have the ability to shutdown operators who don't follow the rules?
Long story. TL;DR Spoofing DIDs isn't illegal. See my Wikipedia link above what is and isn't considered illegal.
> Edit: Ah, after reading more from that link you provided; the issue is stuck in your dysfunctional government.
Yes.
Ah, well, Jingoism is an american word. I guess I just thougt the crowd here could agree that it's retarded to not have a political policy against fake VOIP numbers.
And fascism is a European one.
The level of overarching government control popular in Europe leads to people being killed by millions, rather than in ones and twos.
"not wanting outsiders telling them how to solve problems they know they should have solved a long time ago by themselves."
Perhaps we don't believe that people who were still running fascist slave states until the 1970s and communist slave states until the 1990s are in any kind of moral position to be lecturing us on our "problems".
Since giving you many benefits of the doubt has failed to persuade you to use this site as intended, I've banned your account.
EDIT: Am I incorrect in this statement? I'd love more feedback.
/s
Not to mention the caller chose to call a line which would normally not have a lot of need for those protections, in comparison to 911.
That is just policy decision. It would, for example, be possible to declare that no single IP should be used for more than two customers during a single X hour block.
IPv4 space is also quite limited, and new devices are popping onto networks all the time. I'm not even sure a IP time window is feasible without a full move to IPv6 - something that policy makers have been trying to push on for years without success.
By your government?
> Specifically, how do you do this when IP spaces are controlled by various unfriendly countries around the world
You begin a "911-certified program" that requires your local ISPs to register their IP ranges with some central authority. The rest is a bunch of detailed but solvable details.
Your idealism when it comes to making this seem more complicatated that it really is seems misplaced.
If we started today, we might get such a law in action sometime in the mid-2020's, at which point ISPs would have switched to IPv6 just to avoid the legislation. You know, maybe it would be a good idea after all /s
My "idealism" is probably better called "pessimism", and is based off a couple of decades watching well-meaning legislation be mangled beyond repair by politicians and corporations, at the city level.
People are complicated and irrational. People in politics are even more complicated and seemingly irrational, since even the best politicians have to balance the wants and needs of thousands of people and the businesses who employ those people. Politicians at the federal level are even more complicated, since they have 50 states, a number of territories, and gigantic corporations to consider.
Even influencing a completely honest political group to do what everyone agrees is the right thing takes a significant amount of time, money, and effort. And if we're honest, they aren't all completely devoted to their constituents, and won't agree that it's the right thing to do.
But then the question shifts to: maybe your country is too large to govern effectively - if you can't make changes like this quickly, something is wrong, I think.
Take any smart phone. No SIM card. Connect it to someone's wifi network, like a coffee shop. Now you can abuse 911 world wide in a completely untraceable manner.
What can possibly be done to prevent this that won't screw people desperately in need of help? It doesn't matter if your government is responsible for a town of 100 people or a country of 1.2 billion. It can't put an owner to each of the billions of smart phones floating around and that's not going to change any time soon.
a) I already answered a very similar question of yours in a separate thread
b) you hijacked a subthread that was particularly talking about the politics involved
Ultimately none of the providers involved can know where either end of the call is. We can't even know their IP address for certain, let alone their physical location. What we have for 911 is a form where the customer declares their physical address and a disclaimer warning the customer that should they move then emergency calls will not be routed to the most appropriate call center and the operator will get the wrong address.
There's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent malicious people from abusing it. Any attempt to do so would result in honest users being unable to call for help in emergencies causing far more harm than the abuse we're trying to prevent.
So, I do take issue when you say things like:
> There's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent malicious people from abusing it.