Fake Police Calls

[K7CAR]

Some background, several weeks ago I was watching Dateline and there was a segment on the rise of internet websites that are dedicated to making spoof calls. Calling up a motel room and saying there's a bomb or fire. Telling the person(s) that they must throw a tv through the window, or trigger the sprinkler system. You can imagine being woken up in the middle of the night and going through that kind of panic. Thousands of $$$ in damage has happened all over the USA. It was reported that a website and person in Canada was responsible and has been shut down. While doing a frequency search last week I ran across several websites that brag about making spoof calls and having some good ol fun!.......

Well, 2 nights ago near Seattle I was listening to our local trunked system and a call came in with several hostages locked in a bathroom at a large apartment complex. Person heavily armed with assault rifles and C-4 explosive. It was reported earlier in the day that a call came in that warned officers would be killed. We've had 6 officers killed locally in the line of duty, so you can imagine the response. Roads were blocked off every PD and FD unit scrambled to the location. The initial address was wrong, so it was about 30 mins of frantic search.

When the correct address was found the response moved to the site and found little going on. One officer reported that it might be a SpoofCard call. Yes it was. The guy came walking out with his hands up and was reported that he was in a chat room and had heard about the Spoofcard. Not knowing what a spoofcard was I did a Google search and was blown away with what I found. What I had seen on Dateline clicked right then. This is software you install on your computer that fakes your phone #, so the person can't identify who is calling. There's built in voice changing and a recording program. You buy minutes like a phone card, so it must be routed through some ones server. There are websites promoting this and posting the good ol fun!.....

I think everyone has done the phone pranks when we were kids, but these are teens and adults. There are people that think this is funny! The guy had a wife and 2 kids. Some one needs to smack some heads with a baseball bat. If there's a scanner equivalent to the Darwin Award then this guy is in serious contention! I hope he gets 20 years, but will probably play stupid and get a slap on the wrist. I hope there's some serious effort to shut this stuff down. Anyone hear about this happening in your neck of the woods?

 

[hoser147]

Interesting thread, I have a guy up the street who used something similar to this to get a neighbor fired from his job and to hassle other people. Things got quite heated on my street over it. Finally one morning two black suburbans and units from the local PD and Sheriffs office came up the street and hit his house in full raid gear. He had called the one ladies house with the caller Id showing a Coroners office and wanted her to come Id her daughters remains. It was really great to see them carryout all his computer and electronic gear and camera's. Im sure once the evidence is confirmed they will be back to get him. The civil suits are in the process also.....

 

[K7CAR]

That's just sick. I hope they lock him up and throw away the key!

 

[hoser147]

The bad part is they can type in what they want the Caller ID to show as the caller. In the case above, he had entered Mont. Co Coroners office, which is 60 mi away where the ladies daughters both live.

 

[K7CAR]

I see you can buy a program that will defeat the Spoofcard advertised on the same website! Stupid is as stupid does I guess.

 

[kd7rto]

I think the two of you are misguided.

The solution to people doing irresponsible things should be to hold them accountable for their actions.

Prohibiting an item because might enable someone to do something malicious, and prosecuting anyone caught in possession, whether or not they have actually done anything bad with it, is the unreasonable mindset that people who would like to see scanners made illegal are operating under. Didn't we learn anything from alcohol prohibition?

 

[dabeave]

The bad part is they can type in what they want the Caller ID to show as the caller. In the case above, he had entered Mont. Co Coroners office, which is 60 mi away where the ladies daughters both live.

Working in the network security field and having authored a couple of books
on VoIP (Voice over IP), I figured I would chime in.

Caller ID spoofing is not terribly new. When you call 911, EMS doesn't
go by the caller ID, but rather the ANI. In many cases where you can
spoof the caller ID, you can't spoof the ANI. However, this isn't
always the case. There are VoIP providers which will set your ANI to
your caller ID. So, when some moron decides to pull one of these
"pranks" EMS will see the spoofed ANI and respond as you'd expect
them to.

In the "phreaking" community, this is known as "swatting". Fortunately,
in the "phreaking scene" it's considered really "lame" and highly frowned
upon. Of course, there are still idiots that'll do it, but the
majority of "phreaks" I know keep a good distance from these idiots.

About the Caller ID "text" spoofing. As you describe it is not really
the case. For example, let's say I set my caller ID to

202-456-1414 (The "White house")

When my friend receives the call, it'll show the number and, if his
phone receives CNAME, "White house". It's not because I've set the
text as "White House", but rather, at the telco a CNAME lookup
is preformed. That is, at the telco, it says "what CNAME should
be populated for 202-456-1414" and sends that to the person
receiving the call.

Here's another little interesting thought. Assume I have found a phone number,
but I'm not 100% sure who's number it is. For techincal sake, let's
say it's a land line. Any who.....

I can "spoof" the caller ID of the "unknown" phone number can call myself.
When I get the call, it'll display not only the phone number, but
the CNAME - thus telling me "who" owns that line. This is known
as "backspoofing". I have friends that use this trick, thousands
of times, to find interesting phone number.

This doesn't work so well with cell phones, btw.