[asterisk-biz] ANI

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Mon, 2008-05-12 at 11:56 -0400, Peter Beckman wrote:
> On Fri, 9 May 2008, Steve Totaro wrote:
> 
> > I think you are missing the whole point here. CID and ANI are DIFFERENT.
> >
> > A law concerning passing valid CID should not be passed.  I have used
> > it as a GUID between call centers.
> >

The law in florida, which afaik has not yet passed, the law in NJ which
again as far as I know wasnt directly related to ANI are based against
fraud.  The florida one speaks specifically about fraud and the NJ one
was a conviction of someone doing fraud stuff.  It is not illegal to
specify some arbitrary ANI/CLID in those places when you are the
receiving end (basically using it as a cookie of some type) or when you
have permission from the target.  The florida law as stated on the news
site I read (I havent read the statute, dont care enough) makes it
illegal to spoof when you are calling random people, generally in
pursuit of other fraud.  It was kinda clear on that point, meaning if
you own the receiving end you can authorize people to send anything they
want, its your choice.  Just like the hacking laws let you break into
your own computers, or authorize others to legally break into them.

As for tracability, what lawmakers dont know is that there is a 3rd
number in addition to CLID/ANI that can be used, and generally is not
user settable, for tracking down fraud issues.  That is the BTN, or
billing telephone number.  It may be the same, but usually its different
from your CLID/ANI (even if those match).  This will more often than not
be the ITSP that service was used through.  Even some in the telco
industry dont know about this 3rd number and cant grasp the concept that
someone can place a call from one provider and receive it on another
using the CLID/ANI of the receiving side.  

I think that some of the laws do not consider how the technology works.
For example the service like vonage or broadvoice are what most expect
voip providers to be like, concepts such as one way providers (ie you
can get pstn termination only at some providers) and the fact that some
may be reselling that service make it difficult to know what is and what
is not a valid ANI/CLID.  

With vonage or broadvoice its fairly simple, you order a phone line
replacement, which includes a number, outgoing calls have that number as
the clid/ani (although some of their providers are incapable of doing
ani properly).  

With the wholesale packages its much more difficult since they are not
phone line replacements.  If level3 sells a wholesale package to me, and
I resell it to some itsp who resells it to another itsp, how does level3
know which ANI/CLId are valid?  How do I?  What about international, for
example is Amsterdam area code 312, or is it country code 31 and a city
code that starts with 2 (yeah international is generally done different,
sip doesnt really allow that in most implementations so ...)?  And so
on, it creates problems in that information may not pass quickly enough
(or at all) to know the difference.

The intent as I read the florida stuff was more to slap an extra charge
onto someone rather than anything else.  It doesnt lead to probable
cause in many cases since the government probably does not know how to
trace that call properly (in combination with the phone company doesnt
want to spend more money helping them, or they dont know they can) so
they dont know which provider it came in on, they dont know who really
originated the call, etc.  It does let them after the fact give an extra
conviction to someone though.  In some rare situations it may lead to
probable cause (thus a search warrant), it may lead to a preemptive
arrest, but odds are 99% of the cases it will be a "now that we have you
for all these other crimes we will add this one to it".  

Generally offenses that are all related have to be served at the same
time, which means that it probably wont add much if any jail time to the
people who are doing it to rip someone else off, especially if they are
facing state time, when the states dont want to pay to house anyone but
do it.  

Its a feel good law that, so far, does not do much.  Unless I missed
when someone said the FCC is getting involved and going to do something
insane with it requiring gobs of proof to allow that ANI on that
customers profile, blah blah blah.  And generally break most ITSPs since
they wont be able to immediately comply.  Not to mention administrative
overhead that will raise the costs.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!