Toward Standardization of Authenticated Caller ID Transmission

With the cost of telecommunication becoming as cheap as Internet data, the telephone network today is rife with telephone spam and scams. In recent years, the U.S. government has received record numbers of complaints on phone fraud and unwanted calls. Caller ID is at the heart of stopping telephone spam - a variety of apps and services, including law enforcement, rely on caller ID information to defend against unwanted calls. However, spammers are using spoofed caller IDs to defeat call blockers, to evade identification, and to further a variety of scams. To provide a solution to this problem, this article proposes a standardized authentication scheme for caller ID that enables the possibility of a security indicator for telecommunication. The goal of this proposal is to help prevent users from falling victim to telephone spam and scams, as well as provide a foundation for future and existing defenses to stop unwanted telephone communication based on caller ID information.