Today the weirdest thing happened to me.
I got accused of calling someone whose phone number or last name I do not know. (It's a long story.) It's been bothering me all day. I looked at my statement online (I only have a cell phone and it lists every call I make): nothing. So I'm wracking (also, while we're having silly little asides, is that the right wracking? doesn't anyone know?) my brain all day trying to figure out how my name and number wound up on this person's Caller ID.
I come home and Google "Caller ID". I thought, "I'm going to get a thousand ads for the service." I paused, tried to thing of what to add that might give me some insight into my problem and NOT the ads. Didn't come up with anything so I pushed search.
The first thing that came up was a link to this Wikipedia article:
Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to display a number on the recipient's caller ID display which is not that of the actual originating station; the term is commonly used to describe situations in which the motivation is considered nefarious by the speaker. Just as e-mail spoofing can make it appear that a message came from any e-mail address the sender chooses, caller ID spoofing can make a call appear to have come from any phone number the caller wishes. Because people are prone to assume a call is coming from the number (and hence, the associated person, or persons), this can call the service's value into question.
Has anyone even heard of this? I'm so behind the times. Apparently there's legislation that's passed some Senate committee this year to make it illegal. And I didn't even know it existed. You KNOW if Congress is taking up the issue, it's like so 20 years ago.
The thing is, I can't think of anyone who would spoof my phone number. Do I have any enemies? I don't think so. Now I feel all paranoid. Like I need to move out my apartment and into a bunker and start printing newsletters about alien conspiracies.
Any similar stories? Thoughts? Government conspiracy theories.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Whoa! Caller ID spoofing? That's new for me.... How do you do it? And maybe your accuser didn't actually have your name and number come up, they just wanted to hear your voice? Can anyone say "secret admirer"?
Or possibly "secret stalker?"
And on a completely different note, how was the wedding cake?
it was wonderful! beautiful *and* tasty.... Once i actually get around to updating my blog, there will be pictures.
I've never heard of this either. Maybe it's because the presumed caller rarely knows that his/her number has been spoofed?
Post a Comment