[asterisk-biz] ANI

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Mon, 2008-05-12 at 16:18 -0700, Nitzan Kon wrote:
> Yep. True.
> 
> So the issue is not needing more regulation - but just how to be able to enforce existing regulation. Not something that more regulation by itself will resolve!
> 

agree not just on this issue but many many others.  Laws only make more
criminals, enforcement of existing laws is what actually has an impact
on crime, and as long as criminals know that laws are not properly
enforced they will continue to do all the things they used to (some will
do other things that are enforced anyway).  Take speeding, its often not
enforced yet its illegal, and how many speed knowing that they wont get
a ticket?


> Of course for all these cases, there WILL be records allowing law enforcement officials (***who know what they're doing***) to trace back the calls. Even if you spoof ANI/CID - your call has to come from somewhere.
> 
well there may be records, but often and unfortunately they include only
the false data :(  


> Let's take your 3AM campaign suggestion for example: the way the call will go is:
> 
> Culprit -> VoIP carrier who lets set CID/ANI -> ILEC or CLEC -> terminated to PSTN.
> 
> Tracing it back should not be a problem if you have the proper court orders, just find out with the terminating party which ILEC/CLEC they got the call from, then find out with the ILEC/CLEC which VoIP carrier they got the call from - and then finally get the customer records from the VoIP carrier.
> 

tracing it back requires that the information for the call be recorded,
some of which usually isnt in a way that makes it to the police.  Often
the ani is logged and that is about it.  Yes if they log the circuit it
comes in on, all of the other information, tracing back could be a lot
easier, but um yeah for some reason the phone companies generally dont
log all that data.

This was the situation I ran into when both the FCC and a state
prosecutor on separate occasions and for separate customers wanted
information from me.  Both instances it was over calls placed to the
PSTN, a service I never offered, but because the phone number went to me
they wrongfully assumed that the only way the calls could have been
placed was through my servers.

The only people that tried to argue that point (the govt accepted that
was the case without question) were other phone companies who couldnt
fathom that calls were placed by some other provider somewhere.  

this doesnt give me a lot of faith in the call being properly traced,
and since we do not yet live in a police state, the government cant just
go in and take over the telephone company to trace it.  So even if there
is a law enforcement agent that knows what they are doing, they would
still have to deal with the phone company that may not.

-- 
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!