[133789] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: OT - NO (Non-Operational) Question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay Ashworth)
Fri Dec 17 02:13:54 2010
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:14:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com>
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikK2J9pSat6z-ou510c6X4SdmqM1+PPC4tE49y4@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Haninger" <ahaning@mindspring.com>
> To: "Joe Blanchard" <jbfixurpc@gmail.com>
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 1:28:47 AM
> Subject: Re: OT - NO (Non-Operational) Question
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Joe Blanchard <jbfixurpc@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > It appears there's really no easy way to determine the origin of a
> > text sent to a cell...
> >
> For shortcodes, Neustar provided a list:
>
> https://www.usshortcodes.com/csc/directory/directoryList.do?method=showDirectory&group=all
>
> For regular cellular numbers, the Wireless Amber Alert site is popular
> amongst MVNO (e.g. prepaid) users to find out so they can use the
> email-to-text gateways:
>
> http://www.wirelessamberalerts.com/
>
> (You don't actually sign up, just enter the number and then it will
> tell you
> the carrier.)
>
> For landlines/VoIP/etc. Google should be able to tell you at least the
> city/state. Though it's rare that you will get a text from a landline,
> it is possible.
I could be wrong, but I think the actual question was "is it realistic
to assume a text to a cellphone came from the number it *says* it came
from?" and I think the answer is "no, there are a few ways to spoof it".
Received SMS messages are probably not evidentiary, absent a report from
the receiving carrier of the message traffic log involved, which would
itself be hearsay unless someone testified about it.
Cheers,
-- jra
