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The Telecom Digest for January 23, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 20 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers (John Levine)
Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers (Hal Murray)
Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers (Dave Garland)
Re: "Rachel" in the funny papers (Bill Horne)

====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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 journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using any name or email address included herein for any reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to that person, or email address owner.
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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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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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