funsec mailing list archives
Re: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams
From: aborg () mca org mt
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:43:32 +0100
Ireland has already done this ... a few months back IIRC. It's drastic but it is very effective and beats having to educate users who have no concept of spyware/modems/ISPs/dialling out. I work for a regulatory authority and we've had numerous debates as to who should be liable for this problem. On the one hand, there's the consumer with a huge bill that he is unable/unwilling to pay (rightly so). On the other hand there is the telco with the "any calls you make you have to pay for" clause in their user agreement. Both are unwilling to pay but IMHO, the telcos don't do enough to help prevent this problem. Having a regulator impose such a remedy forces the telco to increase his costs (through the operator assisted calling to foreign countries) and therefore take a closer look at the problem. Antoine Borg Network & IS Administrator Malta Communications Authority Suite 43/44, "Il-Piazzetta" Tower Road Sliema SLM 16 Malta G.C. Tel: +356 21 336840 Fax: +356 21 336846 ---------- "Of all manifestations of power, that which most impresses men is restraint" Thucydides funsec-bounces () linuxbox org wrote on 30/10/2005 18:29:25:
This sounds rather drastic...
An AFP newswire article, via Yahoo! News, reports that:
[snip]
Sri Lanka will cut international direct dialling to 13 countries next week in a bid to stop "modem hijacking" and Internet porn scams.
The main international gateway operator, Sri Lanka Telecom, was asked to halt direct dialling to the 13 nations on Tuesday after complaints that subscribers were billed for long-distance calls they never made.
Aruna Amarasekara, director-general of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, said the blockage will be in force for three months but subscribers could still make operator- assisted calls if necessary.
[snip]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051030/tc_afp/srilankatelecomscam
- ferg
-- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
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Current thread:
- Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams Fergie (Oct 30)
- RE: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams Aditya Deshmukh (Oct 30)
- Re: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams aborg (Oct 31)
- Re: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams Nick FitzGerald (Oct 31)
- Re: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams Richard Cox (Oct 31)