[drewprops]

Did anyone else see the story on the abuse of the IP Relay system for the speaking/hearing impaired? If this were an operating system flaw it would make MAJOR headlines... insanely broken!!!! I'm pasting in an article I just posted on my site to begin the dialogue:

Originally Posted by drewprops I saw a story by reporter Lisa Meyers on the Today Show this morning that left me with my mouth wide open. The fee that you see on your telephone bill called the Carrier Cost Recovery Fee is to fund a service called IP Relay for the deaf that allows them to go to a website and type in a message to be relayed by an operator to a hearing person, via telephone. The operator reads the message to the hearing person then types that hearing person’s spoken reply and transmits it back to the deaf individual. This costs all of us about $92 Million per year to keep this service running, which I’m fine with because it helps those with hearing and speech disabilities to function in a world that is all about aural communication. It’s ears for the deaf, a voice for the mute. A wonder of the modern age. Except that it’s being abused by crooks, scammers, killers and thieves, notably scammers in Nigeria. Since the service is free and un-policed, these people can use it to relay anything from ID theft information to threats against people’s lives (one operator had to read something along the lines of “if you don’t do it I will kill your children” to someone). They showed other examples of the wild abuses that the system is used for, from hate-filled Nazi rants to explicit sexual material, that operators have HAD to read (assuming they wanted to keep their jobs I suppose). You see, there’s a Catch-22 with the system that prevents operators from reporting suspicious activity because it’s an invasion of privacy to do report these conversations to security agencies. From what they say it’s been happening for years and the FCC has done nothing to stop it. I’m sure that lawmakers are scratching their heads on how to structure the service to preserve its original intent without creating draconian controls for the law-abiding users of the service, but at this point in time it’s clearly broken and in need of immediate intervention. If you have time to watch, the MSNBC website already has the video posted from this morning’s segment, follow this link.

[Banana]

I wouldn't worry so much it as it's obsolete. More people are flicking to videophone as means to communicate.

The main reason for making relay services free was because typing on a keyboard hopelessly lagged behind normal speech. And imagine going through an automated line!!!! Operator would type down the options for me to press and when I find the option I want, and tell the operator to do that, we have aleady missed the opportunity and need to hang up and redial to press the option. Now if it's another sub-menu.... we do it all over again. What would probably take a hearing person only 10-15 minutes to get the information they need from their government line, it would take me well over an hour. You can easily see how ridiculously huge our phone bill could be if we were charged by minutes for that. It's maddening, I tell you.

Now that I have videophone, I offically gave the phone line, TTY, and all IP relays (there's more than just one provider) the finger and never looked back. Furthermore, it's self-regulating since you of course have to be able to sign to use the videophone. I don't think any nigerian scammer is going to learn enough sign to scam the videophone relay service.

So, yes I agree IP relay is broken, but I would imagine it'll become moot or maybe it is already moot.

Edit: I just remembered something. If you're blind, you get an application from your government for exemption from directory service charges which you then furnish to your local phone carrier so you never get charged for calling 411 to get a phone number. Since TTY are usually given out for free (or at subsidized price, depending on one's income) and requires an application which would require a professional to certify the applicant's need (which I've done as part of my job) for TTY, it's not a big of a stretch to randomly assign a ID number that has no information about the person, but only allows them to use IP relay. It would at least help stem the frauds without invading Deaf people's privacy, I suppose.

[intlplby]

yes, we have the internet now to meet our fraud and death threat needs

[alcimedes]

Oh, I thought this was going to be about kids using IP relay to send horrifically pornographic messages to their friends......

nevermind......

[murbot]

What are you saying, speaking or hearing impaired criminals don't deserve the same level of communication that the rest of us do?

[jdcfsu]

My roommates and I ordered a pizza using it in college one night when we were bored. Does that make me a criminal?

[drewprops]

All depends....
Did you get the operator to tell the pizza people that you wanted to lick their _____ and touch their ______ ?

[Schnauzer]

Originally Posted by murbot What are you saying, speaking or hearing impaired criminals don't deserve the same level of communication that the rest of us do?

lol

[jdcfsu]

Haha, nope. Just that we were hungry.

[atomicbartbeans]

http://www.sprintip.com is one such service... it's pretty neat in that a hearing-impaired individual with a computer can call anyone via browser window, no clunky TTY device required.

Note that it's easily misused by perfectly capable people though... try it out, i dare you.

That's not to say that I condone such abuse though... especially since I pay for it in my phone bill.

[Banana]

ABB, welcome to last century.

As I noted above, it's pretty much obsolete now that videophones are the emerging norms.

[drewprops]

ABB, that's exactly the type of service they're talking about in the news story.


Banana, some of the biggest concerns about the abuse of the system are:

1) the criminal is never recorded (vocally or visually)
2) to respect privacy rights there is no recording or transcript created for the session(!!)

Now, I realize that #1 and #2 are the same thing, but I thought it was such an important point that I would repeat myself! (apologies to Grant and Naylor)

And honestly, while video phones may be used by a segment of the tech-savvy criminal, they're still the cutting edge of communication to a large part of the population. I don't know ANYBODY using a video-chat cellphone and only one person who uses their iChat on a regular basis.

So, the existing TTY system isn't going away anytime soon and as it is already widely used by criminals in poor countries where videophone services are highly unlikely, they're fated to grow in popularity.

[Banana]

Drewprops,

Perhaps I wasn't clear. Let me try again.

IP relays were intended for deaf and hard of hearing people. Now it has been abused by criminals.

However, deaf and hard of hearing people now can get videophone and router for free. The only segment I am aware of who aren't getting videophones are one who didn't have internet connection to support the videophone's bandwidth. However the same segment wouldn't be able to use IP relay on a regular basis because of the lack of internet connection.

AFAIK, the most viable use of ip relay would be from wireless devices such as Sidekick or Blackberry. I don't think that will go away for a while as there are several problem with using a videophoe with a wireless network.

But all in all, relays are in decline. According to my state's Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the use of videophone relay had double digit growth while traditional relay dropped like a brick over the same period.

So, I was basically saying that deaf and hard of hearing people in large are moving away from IP relays already.

But I have to agree that this kind of abuses has to stop right now, and the best way I can think of is to start giving out PINs to Deaf/HoH people as I proposed above. Not foolproof, but certainly will stem the abuse.

[drewprops]

Gotcha, and I totally agree.
Still need to make a big fat poop on the legislators to make them deal with this problem this session.

[Banana]

*bump*

I'm very disappointed.


I found a great Christmas deal and placed a order with the company, expecting to get it after the Christmas. After getting an email from them asking me to call them to confirm the order as the order was quite pricey, I thought to myself; that's a good thing that they want to make sure nobody get scammed in the end.

So I made a call to them with the videophone. When they picked up and realizing I was using a relay service, they outright refused to take the call. I barely got in my word reminding that I am an actual customer and gave them the order number. I was then transferred to a manager. He asked me for a callback number so I gave him one... except he won't accept the callback number because it uses relay service. I don't even have a voice line, and even if I did, he'd still have to use one to reach me via TTY (a device that should have been made obsolete a decade ago).

At this point, it was clear that they would not do business with a CA in between me and them, nevermind that CA is bound by FCC to keep everything confidential and is likewise obliged to terminate calls that are not sanctioned. I offered them to communicate with me via email, which they also declined. (I have to admit- that is a prudent thing to do- too many scammers running around with a bogus email account) We finally came to agreement that they would call my issuing bank to confirm the account information given but doing so will cost me another day and even so, I have to call them back to make sure the order has been confirmed.

I did ask them what their problem with relay call was, and they replied that it was due to numbers of frauds using relay call they decided to not accept any relay calls at all, effectively blocking out legitimate customers as well.

All this extra hassles because a bunch of jerks decided they would be anonymous using relay calls to run a scam? Looks like I'm the loser here, and that totally sucks! And I wasn't even using a IP Relay!

[zsummers]

Originally Posted by Banana *bump* I'm very disappointed. I found a great Christmas deal and placed a order with the company, expecting to get it after the Christmas. After getting an email from them asking me to call them to confirm the order as the order was quite pricey, I thought to myself; that's a good thing that they want to make sure nobody get scammed in the end. So I made a call to them with the videophone. When they picked up and realizing I was using a relay service, they outright refused to take the call. I barely got in my word reminding that I am an actual customer and gave them the order number. I was then transferred to a manager. He asked me for a callback number so I gave him one... except he won't accept the callback number because it uses relay service. I don't even have a voice line, and even if I did, he'd still have to use one to reach me via TTY (a device that should have been made obsolete a decade ago). At this point, it was clear that they would not do business with a CA in between me and them, nevermind that CA is bound by FCC to keep everything confidential and is likewise obliged to terminate calls that are not sanctioned. I offered them to communicate with me via email, which they also declined. (I have to admit- that is a prudent thing to do- too many scammers running around with a bogus email account) We finally came to agreement that they would call my issuing bank to confirm the account information given but doing so will cost me another day and even so, I have to call them back to make sure the order has been confirmed. I did ask them what their problem with relay call was, and they replied that it was due to numbers of frauds using relay call they decided to not accept any relay calls at all, effectively blocking out legitimate customers as well. All this extra hassles because a bunch of jerks decided they would be anonymous using relay calls to run a scam? Looks like I'm the loser here, and that totally sucks! And I wasn't even using a IP Relay!

... is all I have to say about that. I wonder if they are not violating some equal access law, Banana. If you were frustrated enough by them, you might note that for them.