Re: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams

[aborg () mca org mt]

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/
>
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