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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-alderman/dont-get-spoofed-by-rogue_b_3574710.html When caller ID first arrived on the scene it seemed like a godsend to many people: Now you could easily identify who was on the line and ignore unwanted calls, whether from telemarketers, an ex-boyfriend or an unfriendly collection agency. But as often happens, unscrupulous individuals soon began manipulating the technology to defraud people by pretending to be someone else. Their scheme is called "caller ID spoofing" and disturbingly, it's perfectly legal in many cases. Here's how caller ID spoofing works and what precautions you should take to avoid being victimized: For a very low cost, businesses and individuals can use widely available caller ID spoofing software to generate calls which alter the telephone number and/or name that appear on the recipient's caller ID screen. Police, private investigators and collection agencies have used legal spoofing services for many years. Others who might have a legitimate reason to hide their identity when making a call include domestic violence victims and doctors returning patient calls who don't wish to release their private telephone numbers. Beyond that, the lines of legality begin to blur. The Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 prohibits anyone from transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongfully obtain anything of value. Violators can be penalized up to $10,000 for each infraction. Unfortunately, such penalties haven't dissuaded many scammers. One common caller ID scam involves spoofers pretending to represent a bank, government agency, insurer, credit card company or other organization with which you do business. They count on you being reassured after recognizing the company's name on your screen. Related Articles: http://hass-associates-daffy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Under the pretext of warning about an urgent situation (breached account, late payment,

http://www.wellsphere.com/brain-health-article/hundreds-of-south-african-facebook-profiles-have-been-cloned/1954857 Computer forensics expert Bennie Labuschagne said scammers used programs designed to "deep mine" online accounts to bypass security features."Cloning is very common and it is now like the 419 scams, only on social networks," he said. One of the South African Facebook victims, Dinesh Ramrathan, said yesterday: "A Facebook friend called me to find out why I had sent her a message asking for money online. I then discovered that my page had been duplicated. "My friends were caught off guard and accepted friend requests from the hacker, who then started sending requests for money." The impostor claimed that Ramrathan was in trouble and needed money urgently."I am lucky because all my Facebook friends know me personally outside of the social network so they knew that I was not in trouble," he said. Debby Bonnin's husband received a friend request from her even though they were already Facebook friends. One of sixmillion local users of Facebook, Bonnin said: "My major concern is identity theft and all the possible ramifications of that. On Facebook the prime issue is reputation. But the person behind the false profile could use your identity to access confidential information from your friends and then there could be security or financial problems that arise." Another Facebook user, Josh Delport, said his stored scores and tokens on game applications on the site had disappeared. University of KwaZulu-Natal associate professor of information systems Manoj Maharaj said that, though Facebook could not be hacked because of its hi-tech security features, the affected users might have put themselves at risk by clicking on links to external games, applications and shopping sites. "Users are clicking on these links without realising that their information is being passed on. If one of those sites is hacked, their information, such as credit card details, is easily a