Using Spoof Card Could Get You Time

Phone pranks have finally arrived in the 21s t century and they're called "spoofing." Thanks to a new service called SpoofCard, which allows people to make calls via the Internet, subscribers can change the phone number callees see on their caller ID display, they can change their voice so that they sound like someone else and they can record phone calls.

In last few days, Ali Wise, publicity director for Dolce and Gabbana, has gotten into a bunch of trouble (and has gotten fired) for using SpoofCard to access the voice-mail accounts of girlfriends/finaces of ex-lovers. It was easy enough to do. She changed her own number to match the number she was calling. Not realizing the call was an imposter, the voice-mail service automatically granted access to the voice-mail accounts.

"If she’s trying to appear as if she’s someone else, this could be evidence of fraud," said professor Tracy Mitrano, director of IT policy at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

I called up Mitrano to ask her whether a service such as SpoofCard is even legal and what could happen to people using it.

"I don’t think there’s anything wrong having a mechanism to have an identifier blocked," said Mitrano.

She pointed out that for decades, it's been possible to accomplish some of the same actions in an analog manner that SpoofCard allows in the digital realm. We talked about how it's possible to block (not change) the number that shows up on a person's caller ID display by keying in *67 before dialing the number. Certainly devices have been available to change a person's voice on a phone call and it is possible to record a phone conversation.

So SpoofCard is legal. But using the service to defraud is illegal.

She cited the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, which makes it unlawful to access a computer without authorization, among other things.

She also cited trespassing laws, which apply to the digital space as they do to the physical space (think: private property).

She also cited the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which prohibits a person from intercepting any "wire, oral, or electronic communication."

So there are plenty of laws out there. Furthermore, it isn't legal in every state to record a telephone conversation without informing the person that the call is being recorded.