TECHNOLOGY
March,23 Friday 2007

Thieves' New Tool: Caller ID (1/2)
What was supposed to help can now hurt us

Caller ID isn't what it used to be. Revered for years by persnickety * consumers who like to screen their telephone calls, the premium service is now being appropriated* by identity thieves. Such scams are made possible by technology that enables con artists to manipulate the phone number and even the name that shows up on the unsuspecting recipient's caller ID, allowing them to masquerade as officials of churches, banks and courthouses.

Known as "spoofing," the end game is to persuade consumers to reveal their Social Security numbers or other sensitive information. Spoofing is the phone industry's version of phishing *, in which criminals use fake e-mails to fool computer users into divulging* personal information.

Spoofing isn't very expensive, and there are a number of companies that specialize in it. With its motto of "Be who you want to be," SpoofCard.com,for instance, sells calling cards for as $10 for 60 minutes of talk time.

Masking caller ID
This is how it works: SpoofCard has a dedicated toll-free number where a user enters a PIN* , their desired caller ID and the number they'd like to call. SpoofCard users also have the ability to selected a male or female voice. Although the caller speaks normally, the person on the other end hears the altered voice.

In particular, scams in which caller ID indicates the call is coming from a court official have been flourishing, said Sid Kirchheimer, author of Scam Proof Your Life. But it's not just courthouses whose phone numbers and names are being purloined* . In Fairlawn, Ohio, St. Thomas Orthodox Church received hundreds of calls from August 2005 until January 2006 from people saying it's phone number was popping up on their caller ID. The caller would say he was owed money and would ask for a bank account number.

Vocabulary Focus
persnickety (adj) --- giving too much attention to small, unimportant details in a way that annoys other people
appropriate (v) --- to take something for your own use, usually without permission
divulge (v) --- to make something secret known
purloin (v) --- to steal something

Specialized Terms
phishing (n) --- 网络钓鱼 a type of identity theft using e-mails that appear to come from trustworthy websites in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from the recipient
PIN (n) --- 个人识别码 abbreviation for "personal identification number": a secret number which a person uses together with a special card to obtain money from their bank account through a machine outside the bank