Sri Lanka cuts off Eircom Porn Dialler Band 13 Countries

Sponge Bob

Another year onwards and none the wiser .

"In response, Sri Lanka Telecom has told ISPs and service providers to block direct dial calls to countries including the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Wallis and Futana Islands and Western Samoa. The block to these countries will stay in enforced for at least three months."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/01/sri_lanka_smut_dialer_crackdown/

These countries , together with Diego Garcia and Guniea Bissau make up Eircoms notorious €3.60 a minute Porn Dialler band.

Tom Young

These people always forget that market and welfare economics are at stake. User education is the biggest issue. Most of the above are linked historically to France, UK and the US. The backlash was massive for ComReg when they did it, and honestly had to retract the directions. Might be funny to see if countries started to block calls to Ireland en masse. Wonder would we complain?

Educate users, first. Triffle with welfare economics and the cold war politics second.

BrianD

Well said Tom, educate the user to be personally responsible for their equipment and be aware of the scams out there. You can't blame the telco's - Eircom may be the most expensive but the rest of them aren't far behind either.

How much of a problem is this now following the brief education campaign that ComReg and the ISP's undertook?

eircomtribunal

BrianD wrote:

How much of a problem is this now following the brief education campaign that ComReg and the ISP's undertook?

You must be kidding if you suggest that this could have had any noticeable effect.

When a few countries hand over their national telco asset to scammers then this misuse should be taken up by the International Telecommunications Union.

BT offer a program to protect your dial-up Internet experience. It is free and supposed to work ( anybody using it and being in a position to recommend it?); you are safe with broadband, or on a Mac.

P.

BrianD

There is a tv ad campaign on at the moment but seems to be more directed at spyware and no mention of diallers (specifically). They again some of our favourite software manufacturers have got into the anti-spyware business so I am not surprised.

cgarvey

There is .. it's for http://makeitsecure.ie/ and it's definately to be welcomed.

BrianD

Modem hi-jacking comes under "other risks".

Sponge Bob

In a country where over half of all internet users today are forced to use dial up it should get a slot as prominent as spyware and/or anti virus

eircomtribunal

Sponge Bob wrote:

In a country where over half of all internet users today are forced to use dial up it should get a slot as prominent as spyware and/or anti virus

And more than this friendly "advice":

The end result is long distance charges appearing on your phone bill.

P.

Urban Weigl

Instead of blocking countries, why not do something like: "To place this call, press the hash key"? That should defeat the diallers, while still making it easy for us humans to call our uncles in Kiribati.

cgarvey

Well if it's a fixed sequence like that, someone could easily modify a dialer to put in that hash, and target eircom.net users.

.cg

HelterSkelter

"Sri Lanka cuts off Eircom Porn Dialler Band 13 Countries" - This sounds like Eircom have produced the porn dialer themselves. How do you guys expect to be taken seriously when you come up with sensationalist thread titles like this? I hate Eircom as much as the next man but you have got to be more objective. You should rename this forum to the Eircom bashing forum.

eircomtribunal

HelterSkelter wrote:

"How do you guys expect to be taken seriously when you come up with sensationalist thread titles like this?

Don't be daft.

Eircom was gladly taking the money those poor customers had racked up by the combination of porn diallers and Eircom's band 13 tariff of 360 cent per minute. Eircom did not set up the porn diallers and nobody is alleging that, but Eircom worked in perfect synergy with the scamster – in fact Eircom's profits from the scam was much much bigger than that of the guys who set up the diallers. And Eircom happily pressed the money out of victims, including the profit that was in it for them from the moon-priced tariff.

Despite telling the Oireachtas Committee that they would no longer charge victims of the scam, they still do their worst to collect the money. Only recently I had to help somebody whom they kept hassling for over € 1000. Many people simply pay up.

P.

HelterSkelter

Peter, I agree 100% with you about the porn dialers issue and Eircom making money on the back of this scam. I have argued the same point as you previously in this forum. My problem is that a lot of the threads seem to have a go at Eircom unnecessarly. A thread title like "Sri Lanka cuts off Eircom Porn Dialler Band 13 Countries" is totally misleading. It implies that Sri Lanka have cut off some kind of porn dialer that Eircom are responsible for. The story the poster quoted has absolutly nothing to do with Eircom so why did he feel the need to mention them? A lot of posters have a personal vandetta against Eircom and it makes it harder to take anything they post seriously.

Sponge Bob

Every Single Country cut off by Sri Lanka is in Eircoms Porn Dialler Band 13.

No other incumbent telco in the world has created a special Porn Dialler band to make a super extra profit from the activities of international Dialler fraudsters except Eircom.

HelterSkelter

Sponge Bob wrote:

Every Single Country cut off by Sri Lanka is in Eircoms Porn Dialler Band 13.

They are also in BT Ireland's "World C" band, so why didn't you title the thread "Sri Lanka cuts off BT Ireland Porn Dialler World C Countries"??

Sponge Bob wrote:

No other incumbent telco in the world has created a special Porn Dialler band to make a super extra profit from the activities of international Dialler fraudsters except Eircom.

Not denying that at all. The story you posted has nothing to do with Eircom, I don't see why you had to mention them in such a way as to suggest they are responsible for the porn dialer software, in fact you should not have mentioned them at all.

Sponge Bob

HelterSkelter wrote:

They are also in BT Ireland's "World C" band, so why didn't you title the thread "Sri Lanka cuts off BT Ireland Porn Dialler World C Countries"??

Because the BT World C band contains countries where porn diallers do not dial and the band was not specifically created to extort BT customers .

Eircom Band 13 is a subset of the Rest Of The World band created in 2002 for some extra profit. Band 13 Calls were originally €3 a minute but when Comreg said nothing...as they do.. they inceased the charges to €3.60 a minute in 2003

HelterSkelter

Sponge Bob wrote:

Because the BT World C band contains countries where porn diallers do not dial and the band was not specifically created to extort BT customers .

Eircom Band 13 is a subset of the Rest Of The World band created in 2002 for some extra profit. Band 13 Calls were originally €3 a minute but when Comreg said nothing...as they do.. they inceased the charges to €3.60 a minute in 2003

I know, I know, I know but the Sri Lanka story has NOTHING to do with Eircom...In fact if I was someone working for Eircom and I saw this thread I would sue you...

"In response, Sri Lanka Telecom has told ISPs and service providers to block direct dial calls to countries including the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Wallis and Futana Islands and Western Samoa. The block to these countries will stay in enforced for at least three months."

cgarvey

HelterSkelter wrote:

In fact if I was someone working for Eircom and I saw this thread I would sue you...

Good luck (if you were)!

The title is acurate. It is sensational, as you suggest, but it is acurate. This forum is the opinions of IoffL members, not IoffL. So because a forum thread is sensational, doesn't mean that IoffL is. IoffL have one official communication medium; their website.

Now lets all get back on topic!

eircomtribunal

Now that is a new approach to getting a lazy regulator going!
In a BBC program today evening about the world of "rogue dialler and premium rate phone scams" a fraud victim asks for the regulator to be"taken out back and horse whipped because they're full of crap".

From the Register: The Great Phone Call Con, a Money Programme investigation into telecom fraud, is due to be broadcast tonight (Friday November 11) at 7 pm on BBC2

P.

eircomtribunal

Just watched the BBC program there and it was reminding me about the "slight" difference about how UK and EIRE consumers were/are cheated out of their money by rogue diallers.
In the UK it works with premium rate numbers, so
BT gets £ 1.80, the middle man (telecom) provider around £ 20 and the scamster setting up the dialler fraud collects around £ 70. (per hour, as these premium numbers charge at £ 1.50 per minute)

Here Eircom makes the lion share from the scam, because the rogue diallers work via re-routing the connections not through premium numbers (with industry owned one-man watchdog REGTEL having sufficient control), but by re-routing them to a country on the Eircom Band 13, which happens to be charged at € 3.60 per minute (peak and off-peak alike).
http://www.comwreck.com/images/blog_images/scam.jpg
P.

Solair

Simple sollution...

Take your phone bill to the Gardai

eircom are in receipt of the proceeds of a crime.

Cant see how that can be remotely legal!

BrianD

Here we go again.

a) It's irrelevant what Eircom charge. They just happen to be the most expensive telco for this group of countries. The dialer scam has worked it's way through almost every country.

b) Eircom don't make the phone calls the consumer does because through ignorance or complacency have allowed the security of their PC to be undermines.

c) The ISPs should have taken a more proactive approach in dealing with this issues as should have the telcos. The regulators should have been stronger and stepped in quicker with sensible actions i.e. not banning calls to certain countries. It seems that both parties have now taken a more proactive stance.

d) Is it really a problem? Even makeitsecure,ie doesn't seem to take modem hijacking as a serious issue.

Eircomtribunal - you really have to start facing the real world without that Eircom chip on your shoulder. Your allegations are bordering on ridiculous.

Solair wrote:

Simple sollution...

Take your phone bill to the Gardai

eircom are in receipt of the proceeds of a crime.

Cant see how that can be remotely legal!

Best of luck with that ...

I've missed this old nugget of nonsense.

OfflerCrocGod

BrianD wrote:

Eircomtribunal - you really have to start facing the real world without that Eircom chip on your shoulder. Your allegations are bordering on ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more, eircom are angels, it was simply accidental that they managed to form the Band 13 countries just as people were being hit with these diallers. Also the fact that the Band 13 countries were the ones these diallers phoned was again simply pure chance. I feel sorry for eircom, all this [strike]good[/strike]bad luck.

eircomtribunal

BrianD wrote:

Your allegations are bordering on ridiculous.

Brian, I only post this "old" stuff to get you going… anyway, you did not bother to watch the BBC program, I guess.

I liked the scene when the BBC investigators were trying to meet the main guy who ran four rogue porn dialler scams in the UK from Palma: they were told he was currently travelling and not available. The BBC guys then discovered that this was only partly true. The guy had been arrested a few days earlier by Spanish police and the only journey he was soon going to make was to Germany, where his companion had already been sentenced for fraud.
P.

BrianD

I didn't see the programme though I would have liked to. I don't have BBC.

In my view concentrating on Eircom's band 13 issue diverts attention away from the nub of the problem - the scam. These scams are a hairs breath of being legal in that if the scammers post terms and conditions on the dialler pop up (I accept that many diallers are installed surreptiously) explaining extra charges etc. then it is pretty much hard luck for the consumer. Many of these dialer scams are now moving to legitimate premium rate numbers - less opportunity to make shed loads of money but still 20 min on any 15XX number is a lucrative proposition for any "provider". Harping on about any telco, accusing them being complicity, forcing them to refund money etc really avoids the one thing that will end these scams - educating the computer user to avoid the damn things.

I believe that I am fair in correct in saying that more people on this board were more interested in blaming Eircom then facing up to the core of the problem - making computer users more responsible. The dialler scam is becoming more 'legit' by the day and complaining about Eircom's Band 13 isn't going to shut down this type of activity.

oscarBravo

As always, Brian, you miss the point. Yes, the scammers are ultimately responsible for the scams. Yes, people should educate themselves as to the risks. Let's accept those as given and move on.

The question is: is it acceptable that a telco should respond to these scams by cashing in on them? Even if we were to agree that the telco has no responsibility whatsoever in these matters, is it OK that they should shamelessly profiteer from them?

eircomtribunal

Since eircom felt it necessary (guess why!) to publicly tell the Oireachtas Committee that they would refund all (genuine) victims of rogue dialler (modem hijacking) scams (not those who had willingly used genuine diallers) and accepted that the industry would have to deal with the problem, the rogue dialler problem seems to be under control.

The "legitimate" dialler scams via premium call numbers does not seem to be a problem in Ireland, as – contrary to ICSTIS in the UK – REGTEL has a firm grip on the issue. The Premium Service "Industry" in Ireland and their own regulator are too clever to let such things ruin the image of this wholly dubious "industry", which wants to be seen as a clean one. So they rather cut users off after a certain, bearable amount of tariff is racked up, in order not to upset the public.
P.

Tom Young

Peter, welfare economics is a lever in many markets for scammers. I hate to add to EU contempt but unfortunately hands are tied in many situations.

If "More Better Broadband" was available dialler scams would not be an issue (of highlight).

As usual you're correct on the point that the premium service in Ireland too are regulated to death, like many other tranlation services.

I guess mobile access to 1800/1850/1890 is next for the media. For a provider it costs the 1800/50/90 number holder .27 cent to own a number. I ask you!!

*How do we go about that then?*

BrianD

oscarBravo wrote:

As always, Brian, you miss the point. Yes, the scammers are ultimately responsible for the scams. Yes, people should educate themselves as to the risks. Let's accept those as given and move on.

The question is: is it acceptable that a telco should respond to these scams by cashing in on them? Even if we were to agree that the telco has no responsibility whatsoever in these matters, is it OK that they should shamelessly profiteer from them?

No, oscarbravo you have consistently missed the point and again this is high lighted by your posting.

damien

Simple rule folks, get personal, get banned.