Camophone - who the heck is calling me now?

Ring-Ring, you get a call and look at the Caller ID - "Who the heck is this calling me?" Now, I don't know about you. but I have done this a number of times, and if I am not familiar with the number, I ususally answer the call. Odd, but I usually reject if I know the person, not when I don't know who the calling party is.

Now comes a hum-dinger - www.camophone.com. These guys permit you to input any caller ID you want. The initial premise was to fool your buddies/friends/enemies into thinking they were getting a call from the police or something. It's one thing to state verbally that you are the police, but when the caller ID substantiates the verbal claim - then it's gospel to some folks.

So what are the implications of something like this. Firstly, it proves that you can't judge a call by it's callerID. Secondly, some systems use calling party information for call routing, or identification purposes. For instance, when I activate my Credit Card, I am required to place the call from my home phone. There's no security in that!! It will be important to note how this issue, and issues like these are addressed by the authorities, if they can. It's only become easier with VoIP, and that can only mean abuse of the technology.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac