Spam… spit

Me pasaron el otro día un enlace a un artículo en New Scientist que hablaba sobre el problema inminente del spam sobre VoIP: Move over spam, make way for “spit”:

So far there have been no documented cases of spit. But Schwartau says this is just because there are not yet enough VoIP users to make it worthwhile. “Spam became popular because there was a big enough target audience,” he says.

But the number of VoIP users is increasing rapidly. In 2003, there were only about 131,000 residential VoIP subscribers in the US, but by 2008 the level is projected to reach 17.5 million. “It’s inevitable,” says Schwartau.

The solution Qovia offers is a filter that identifies calls likely to be spam, on the basis of the frequency and duration of the calls, and removes them. But Schwartau says a better solution would be a trusted third party that people register their address and telephone number with and then use to digitally sign all phone calls. If everyone did this, then people could choose to only receive calls from people on the verified list.

He says the content filters used by many companies to kill email spam, based on tell-tale patterns of words, would be much harder to implement with voice data. It is harder to write algorithms that pick out particular spoken words and phrases because pronunciation is so variable, Schwartau warns.

En Technology News van un poco más allá con las implicaciones de todo esto, incluyendo el futuro phishing:

The voice messages may be more believable than e-mail spam. “What happens when elderly people start to get calls from individuals claiming to represent their banks?” asked Osterman. In some cases, the victims may hand over personal information, such as their account numbers and passwords. Even if they try to rely on a security Security, strength, a lower TCO: find out about all the advantages of IBM Middleware on Linux. check, such as caller ID, they may find that the hacker Latest News about hacker has spoofed that information, so it only experienced computers users may not fooled.

If VoIP spamming takes hold, banks and credit card companies may be hurt. “Banks often call customers to verify credit card transactions,” Osterman Research’s Osterman told TechNewsWorld. “I can envision scenarios where customers would be unwilling to provide personal information because they doubt it is the bank that is actually calling.”