Possible VoIP abuse

Just as VoIP use is picking up, there is a concern that certain parties will exploit this technology just as they did the e-mail by mass sending unwanted advertising messages known as spam. In the VoIP version, these unwanted junks are referred to as SPIT. VoIP lines being not only a telephone number but an IP address as well can be harvested in a large amount with a recorded advertising message being sent to all of their voice mail boxes as a bulk. Not only that, this problem also overflows into the public switched network as VoIP can be used to call these lines as well and at a lower price at that.

This is the least of the problems, as the origin of the calls made on VoIP calls cannot be tracked. This leaves scammers at large and even allows them to pose as a different caller with the help of fake caller ID services available on numerous websites.

The only good news is that it is likely that SPIT can be dealt with similar to spam in e-mail where a pattern is tracked and recognized by the system to be filtered out. This also allows calls from specific numbers or IP Address to be blocked. This however is not a solution for spoof calling.

• From : ZDNET