31 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for January 23, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 20 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne and
the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other
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are definitely unwelcome.
We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because
we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands
against crime. - Geoffrey Welsh
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and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
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Date: 22 Jan 2013 04:55:14 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers
Message-ID: <20130122045514.76865.qmail@joyce.lan>
> If law enforcement were serious about this, there'd be no need to
>trace the call. The whole scheme is futile unless the scammer gets
>paid. Therefore, all that's needed is to follow the money.
The FTC, who are not entirely stupid, have done quite a lot of this,
and put a lot of them out of business.
Unfortunately, as someone else noted, "Rachel" isn't one person or one
gang, but a whole lot of them who've bought the package.
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:36:51 -0600
From: hal-usenet@ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net (Hal Murray)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers
Message-ID: <xsmdnT2yAsHeQWPNnZ2dnUVZ_qOdnZ2d@megapath.net>
In article <20130122045514.76865.qmail@joyce.lan>,
"John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> writes:
>> If law enforcement were serious about this, there'd be no need to
>>trace the call. The whole scheme is futile unless the scammer gets
>>paid. Therefore, all that's needed is to follow the money.
>
>The FTC, who are not entirely stupid, have done quite a lot of this,
>and put a lot of them out of business.
>
>Unfortunately, as someone else noted, "Rachel" isn't one person or one
>gang, but a whole lot of them who've bought the package.
Is selling the package legal?
--
These are my opinions. I hate spam.
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:45:07 -0600
From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers
Message-ID: <kdkufq$rvm$1@dont-email.me>
On 1/21/2013 6:57 PM, Ron wrote:
> dplatt@radagast.org (Dave Platt) wrote:
>> In article <MPG.2b67368eeceb7a78989d96@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>> I'm rather surprised that they haven't nailed the perp on this one yet.
>>> The calls had to originate somewhere.
> --snip--
>> Quite a few phoneslimers either use VoIP call termination (with
>> missing or falsified caller ID information) or call from outside the
>> U.S., or both. They could be "calling" from almost anywhere having
>> good connectivity.
>
> If law enforcement were serious about this, there'd be no need to
> trace the call. The whole scheme is futile unless the scammer gets
> paid. Therefore, all that's needed is to follow the money.
>
> So, agent X gets a phone spam. Agent X plays gullible and pays via
> credit card. At this point, all it takes is one or more subpoenas to
> find where the money goes. Then, prosecute the receiver.
>
Maybe not so easy. I don't know about "Rachel", but similar
operations seem to have the technique down. Some of the "antivirus"
hostageware worked with the pattern: web domain registered in the
Ukraine, web server in Hong Kong, credit card charged in Panama. Hey,
for $4/month you can rent a VPN slot with a vendor who doesn't keep
any records of IP assignments, accepts payment in Bitcoin, and has
servers in Sweden. The perps could be anywhere in the world. Yeah,
it's theoretically traceable, but so long as their nationals aren't
getting victimized, what police department overseas is going to care
very much? Like cops everywhere, they have a backlog of local cases,
and are late for an appointment at the doughnut shop.
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:28:56 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers
Message-ID: <20130122142856.GA31998@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 08:45:07PM -0600, Dave Garland wrote:
> Maybe not so easy. I don't know about "Rachel", but similar
> operations seem to have the technique down. Some of the "antivirus"
> hostageware worked with the pattern: web domain registered in the
> Ukraine, web server in Hong Kong, credit card charged in Panama. Hey,
> for $4/month you can rent a VPN slot with a vendor who doesn't keep
> any records of IP assignments, accepts payment in Bitcoin, and has
> servers in Sweden. The perps could be anywhere in the world.
Neal Stephenson's latest novel, called "REAMDE", is about a similar
scheme: the problem with fraud-by-wire has always been "getting
paid", and Stephenson's villains have found a (pun intented) virtually
untraceable way to get the gold.
IANALB, ISTM that Rachel and her friends have bypassed the problem of
having to hide their booty by providing a very dubious "service" which
their marks have agreed to pay for. Rachel's pitch, when it works,
means Rachel does something for which she is paid, which has been
the weak spot in the consumer's armor ever since Ronald Reagan gutted
the consumer protection laws: if Rachel had a valid list of phone
numbers she could robocall, there would be no violation of the DNC
law. That's why the Federal TRADE Commission is the only agency
involved: violating the DNC isn't a crime that the FBI or other
law-enforcement agencies are willing to prosecute, since annoying
millions of people is a much less serious matter to the FBI than
annoying one person who has millions.
The only remedy I know of for violations of the do-not-call list is to
sue the violator, and (as Rachel has discovered), very few victims are
willing to spend thousands of dollars in legal costs to recover
hundreds in damages. As with tobacco, the perpetrators are too
powerful for anything but a government to stop them.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
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