This 'spoofing' is no fun

Vishing: Spoofing a call to trick someone into providing personal, financial or other confidential information for the purpose of financial reward. The scam relies on VoIP to hide the true number.

Spoofing means placing a phone call using simple software to hide the identity of a caller. The number that shows up in the receiving phone's Caller ID, if one shows up at all, could be phony, or it could be a real number belonging to an unsuspecting third party. Spoofing allows salespeople and scammers to violate do-not-call lists and other telemarketing restrictions with impunity.

In Minnesota, it's illegal for telephone solicitors to spoof their calls. Earlier this year, both houses of Congress passed bills making spoofing illegal if done with "intent to defraud or deceive."

In 2008, the state Department of Commerce asked the Public Utilities Commission to do something about the problem. The commission regulates telephone companies, which typically charge customers more to get Caller ID.

"It is clear from state law and the Commission's orders that the Commission did not intend to require or even allow telephone companies to provide and charge for a service that is misleadingly inaccurate and that, in fact, can be deliberately exploited to harm subscribers," the Commerce Department wrote to the commission last year.

Earlier this month, Waterman wrote to the commission. "It is unfair business practice for any telephone company to offer a caller ID service to a paying customer and then give an invalid number," she said in her letter.

But telephone companies have argued they can't stop spoofing. What once required technical knowledge is now available to millions, thanks to the advent of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which allows telephone calls to be placed over the Internet. Numerous websites now offer applications to spoof from your cell phone -- in one case for $9.95 an hour.

The Public Utilities Commission wasn't entirely convinced by the companies' arguments, said Kevin O'Grady, a telecommunications analyst for the commission. O'Grady is organizing a workshop to explore technical fixes to spoofing.