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p0w3n3dyesterday at 10:19 PM5 repliesview on HN

TBH phones in Poland allow to call you "from" an arbitrary number (i.e. display it on your phone). Also send SMS with arbitrary source.

This is being used by scammers who call you and tell they are from police bank etc


Replies

alfanicktoday at 11:35 AM

A) How is it related? B) I cannot just in my phone select caller ID I want, "phones in Poland allow to call you 'from'" is not true. It's just spoofing as in anywhere else and requires non-trivial technical knowledge.

lxgryesterday at 10:23 PM

This works in many countries, since the signalling protocols historically assumed a trusted small set of participants, not unlike email – with similar consequences once those assumptions became less and less true.

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allthetimetoday at 2:30 AM

I constantly get scam calls from numbers that are very similar to my own in Canada. I assume this is an attempt to look like a normal trustworthy number.

baconhightoday at 1:10 AM

it’s common for cheap esim providers to route data etc through cheaper data exits, i imagine this is partly why.

(I recently purchased an esim and was surprised to see it exiting poland instead of the country the mobile provider (Bell) resides in)

kakacikyesterday at 10:56 PM

I've worked a bit on the app which calls major telco provider directly. It was a basic web service call, and sender could be entered as anything. This is basic property of cellular networks, no more safety than say standard email.