Scammers Using Internet Phone Service For The Deaf: Pt 2

Related link: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7903

This is Part 2 of a series on abuse of the IP Relay service for the deaf and speech-impaired. Here are links to the other installments: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4.

The Pranks

While scam calls appear largely to originate overseas, prank calls often come from Americans, especially adolescent males, and including fans and associates of Howard Stern. Pranksters will often use IP Relay to phone a friend in the same room with them, and then make the operator repeat explicit, homophobic or racist comments, as in the following, taken from a transcript stored at StopRelayAbuse.com:

HEY DANTE. I"M USING IP RELAY BUT THIS GIRL IS A BITCH. THE OPERATOR. I THINK SHE IS ADDICTED TO SEX TOO. I BET SHE WANTS TO F*** MY HUGE D***...

Howard Stern plays recordings of prank Relay calls on his show. This is from a summary of the June 20, 2005 episode (see "Stuck In Your Head?"):

"...[Howard] then played a new prank call featuring Sal and Richard's newest favorite discovery--the Internet Relay Operator. In this call, the guys used recorded clips of [KKK member and frequent Stern guest] Daniel Carver, which you can imagine were a bit racy, but the operator kept up with them..."

Operators Rebel

But no matter how obvious it is that a call is illegitimate, a relay operator is usually not allowed to do anything about it. Throughout the call, he or she is supposed to act as an entirely neutral presence, like just another switch or wire in the circuit. That's because IP Relay is intended to provide "functional equivalence", as laid out in FCC regulations mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (See "IP Relay Rules", below). That means that making a phone call should be as convenient--and as private--for someone with a disability as it is for those without. Operators are therefore forbidden to take any role in a phone call beyond facilitating it.

This works well for legitimate users, who want to know they can trust operators simply to relay their words accurately. But some operators find it unbearable to stay in their machine-like role no matter what they have to repeat. A group of them are so angry about having to participate in fraudulent or prank calls that they have become online vigilantes. On a web forum called Nigerian Scams Using IP Relay, relay operators trade tips about how to stop or even bust the scammers, even though such efforts are disallowed by their employers and by federal law. As one Nigerian Scams poster puts it:

"I never signed on for this, none of us did... I am exposing as many fraud calls as I can, I will continue to do my job to put an end to every one that comes through my computer, I will process all regular calls as they are meant to be, but every IP relay call is suspect in my book... I know that what I am doing and what all us are doing is far more valuable than sitting by and doing nothing..."

Posters on Nigerian Scams use aliases for fear of losing their jobs. "Clear-Conscience", one of the site's founders, contributes this tip among many others:

"Got a call that I wasn't sure about then found out it had to do with a flight to you-know-where. Didn't have a whole lot of information from the call...at least not enough to make a decent report. So, I got on relay and called the sugar mamma back. She thought I was the perp the whole time and gave me all the information I asked for. Reported to the credit card company and the airline... In the last week, my reports have saved well over 10,000 dollars in fraudulent activity..."

"Sugar mamma" refers to a US-based intermediary helping an overseas perpetrator. According to operators--as well as the FBI--some of these accomplices are recruited through online dating services, where scammers troll the chat rooms. Often the accomplices are themselves dupes, unaware that they are assisting in fraud.

IP Relay Rules

The following are excerpts from the FCC regulations covering IP Relay calls:

(2) Confidentiality and conversation content.

(i) Except as authorized by section 705 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 605, CAs [Communications Assistants] are prohibited from disclosing the content of any relayed conversation regardless of content, and... from keeping records of the content of any conversation beyond the duration of a call, even if to do so would be inconsistent with state or local law...

(ii) CAs are prohibited from intentionally altering a relayed conversation and, to the extent that it is not inconsistent with federal, state or local law regarding use of telephone company facilities for illegal purposes, must relay all conversation verbatim unless the relay user specifically requests summarization, or if the user requests interpretation of an ASL [American Sign Language] call...

Return to Article

To be continued. Next time: Do The Companies Care? After the last installment is posted, you'll be able to find the completed series at my O'Reilly author's page, under the O'Reilly Weblogs heading.