caller id not always giving the right number

I wasn't sure where to put this but I wanted to warn you all about it. I guess there's a service where you can pay to have a different number show up in the caller id for the person your calling. I bolded a couple important parts.

http://www.onlypunjab.com/tech/fullstory-newsID-478.html

Software Service Aims to Outfox Caller ID
Publish Date : 9/2/2004 2:54:00 PM Source : Technology News Onlypunjab.com

Like most bill collectors, Marvin Smith is always seeking ways to get chronic debtors to pay up. When he calls the first time, he typically hears excuses and requests for more time.

When Mr. Smith calls again, the debtors often block his calls using ordinary caller ID technology from the phone company.

That means he then visits in person, a time-consuming and sometimes dangerous task. But Mr. Smith, who runs a collection agency in Austin, Tex., says he may have found a solution: a new computerized service enabling him to create false outbound phone numbers with a click of a mouse, so he can skirt the call blockers.

The service, the first commercial version of a technology known mainly among software programmers and the computer-hacker underground until now, was introduced nationwide on Wednesday by a California company called Star38.

For $19.99 a month and as little as 7 cents a minute, customers can go to the company's Web site (www.star38.com), log in and then type the number that they want to call and the number that they want to appear on the caller ID screen of the recipient's phone.

For an additional fee, they can also specify names that can appear along with their telephone numbers.

"This product would be beneficial," Mr. Smith, the bill collector, remarked. "I'm going to look into it."

Star38 says that others with reason to mask their telephone identities, including private detectives and law enforcement officials, are looking into it, too.

But some privacy-rights advocates and consumer groups wonder whether angry former spouses, stalkers or fraud artists might not be far behind.

"Some people see caller ID as an invasion of their privacy, while others see it as a protection of their privacy," said Robert Atkinson, director of policy research at the Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University. "It's spy versus spy."

Officials at the Federal Communications Commission indicate that there is nothing illegal, per se, in the Star38 system.

And to some extent, it is merely the latest step in the continual cat-and-mouse game played since caller ID was introduced in the 1980's.

But the new service goes beyond past techniques like withholding the caller's number or masking it with a series of meaningless digits (calls from the main office of The New York Times, for example, regularly appear on the called party's screen as 111-111-1111). With Star38, for the first time it will be possible for vast numbers of people to place calls masquerading as someone else.

"My concern is that private investigators will find out your mother's number so their number will pop up on your telephone as 'Mom,' " said Loretta M. Lynch, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees the telecommunications industry in the state. "People will not trust what their phones tell them. It will spell the end of caller ID as a way for people to protect their privacy."

The developers of Star38, who say they required only 65 lines of computer code and $3,000 to create their service, insist that they will take steps to ensure that it is not used maliciously. They plan to spend up to 10 days checking the business licenses of all applicants and will ask subscribers to agree not to use Star38 to commit fraud, and to accept legal liability if they violate state or federal laws.

The company also plans to cooperate with police forces, if asked, to provide records of what numbers customers dialed to and from, and what numbers they chose to show the recipients of their calls.

"Law enforcement will have complete access to search our database," said Jason Jepson, the chief executive of Star38, of Newport Beach, Calif. "We don't want the insinuation that they can sign up, use it temporarily and then run off."

Mr. Jepson, 30 - who says he got the idea for his service after speaking to his aunt, a bounty hunter, about the best ways to get in touch with people - said Star38 had no immediate plans to sell its service to ordinary consumers because of the potential for misuse. "There are too many things that can go wrong," Mr. Jepson said.

But industry experts say that the caller ID spoofing, as it is known, is simple enough to develop that it is only a matter of time before other service providers make it available to anyone.