The next time your phone rings and you think you should answer because the caller ID says it’s your mother or your boss, think again.

A Vancouver company is cashing in on a security flaw in telephone caller ID that allows callers to take on bogus identities and appear to be calling from any number they choose.

Totally Connected Security announced Monday that for $15 a month, plus five to 10 cents a minute, customers can call anywhere in North America and masquerade as whoever they want to be.

The Vancouver service comes on the heels of the Web-based Camophone service, which allows anyone with a credit card or $5 US in a Pay Pal account to choose the number that will be displayed by the recipient’s caller ID.

So any call could be coming from a bill collector, a telemarketer, a con artist, or anyone else who wants to hide their true identity and get you to pick up the phone.

“I can call you from any number I want, including 911,” said Ryan Purita, senior security specialist with Totally Connected. “Caller ID spoofing has been around for a couple of years, but no one has ever offered the service.

“The only people who knew about it were hackers and people who knew telephone systems like the back of their hand. I thought, ‘This is such a cool feature, why don’t I offer it to the public?'”

Purita said the service would allow callers such as bill collectors to convince people to pick up calls they might otherwise have screened.

Caller ID spoofing can take advantage of any phone service that uses caller ID, and the Vancouver offering has Telus lawyers scrambling to see if there’s anything they can do to about it.

“We’re aware of the practice,” said Telus spokesman Shawn Hall. He said the company’s security department “is taking this issue very seriously.”

“We are monitoring the situation and will take all appropriate action,” said Hall, adding he doesn’t know what that action could be.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004