security
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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article this week in which they excoriated a spam operation that has been taking advantage of the local community in Milwaukee. According to the article, the illegal operation has been calling Milwaukee residents claiming to represent a local law firm by the name of “Anderson and Thompson.”
You’ve been tapped. Well, that’s the plan at least. Your VoIP phone calls might soon fall into new, broader surveillance laws if the FBI is successful in their new wiretapping proposals.
Privacy advocacy groups and Internet companies are both concerned with the latest news that the FBI wants to overhaul the current surveillance laws to include more forms of Internet communication. However, the FBI and other government agencies see the matter as a national security issue, and a necessity to keep civilians safe.
As of Friday September 29, 2012, California’s Governor Gerry Brown has officially signed Bill 1161 into law. The bill prevents the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) from monitoring VoIP communication services.
This bill has recently garnered a lot of attention in the telecom world. Telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon strongly support the bill, but critics have expressed their concerns that the bill does not provide adequate protection to the consumer.
Some City Governments Shifting to VoIP Phone Systems Experience Severe Growing Pains
Many city governments are finding that there are a lot of advantages to VoIP phone systems, primarily cost savings. In tough times such as these, with so many cities declaring bankruptcy, that's a particularly salient point in favor of civil government adopting VoIP PBX systems.
The FBI has listed VoIP as one of the new technologies it's desperately trying to keep pace with, and has petitioned the industry to allow backdoor access to spy on Americans who might be up to no good.
We have an update on our VoIP scams blog this week. According to Huffington Post, scammers have used outsourced call centers to "defraud Americans out of more than $5 million over the past two years." If this doesn't startle you, perhaps it should.
Like most technology, VoIP can be used for evil. VoIP users aren't more likely to be scammed than any other consumer but there are specific scams that seem to plague the VoIP community.
Different Types of VoIP Scams
- SPIT (Spam over Internet Telephony)
- Vishing (VoIP phishing)
- Account Fraud
- Pyramid MLMs
Technology can always be used for either good or bad. VoIP is not immune to users with ill intentions. Just as the Internet is prone to hackers, VoIP can fall prey to call tappers, with the use of a program that extracts the data sent and received by your phone. With it, anyone can eavesdrop on your phone calls and gather sensitive information. You may not be a high profile figure or a celebrity that people would be extremely interested in your phone conversations but it understandably can leave you worried about your personal and professional security.
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