Today I saw this:

Internet phone users face a Spit of bother
FIRST there was Spam, now there is Spit.
Users of e-mail must wade through scores of junk messages each morning and risk deleting that all-important business or personal correspondence, and now internet phone systems are being deluged by junk calls which have been given the unhygienic-sounding acronym Spit (SPam over Internet Telephony).

Now, I confess I don't turn to The Scotsman as my first point in tech news, but I bet some folks do. In truth,reading through the article, it was this that really bothered me:

And just like the infamous e-mails from Africa which beg for money, internet phone calls asking for cash are emerging from Nigeria. Free calls allow scammers to spend as long as they want wearing victims down with long calls or repeatedly phoning back. And the fact that the calls can be made cheaply from overseas means that "Spitters" need not worry about obeying UK laws on telemarketing.

Technology commentator Brian Baglow said: "This was inevitable. As soon as voice over internet calls became popular it became interesting for scammers. I have had junk calls from people from all over the world.

"One Nigerian was on the phone and saying he was in a serious jam and needed money. I played along for a short while and asked where I should send the money to. He said: 'No, no. Just give me your bank details!' 'Yeah right,' I thought.

So whoever Brian Baglow is, he's getting the calls that none of the rest of us are seeing - "junk calls from all over the world," he says. Popular fellow. I've got multiple VoIP lines up in multiples systems for over five years and haven't seen my first SPIT yet. The first Brian Baglow Google found does PR and Communications work in the UK, so that may be him on LinkedIn. I'd like to talk with him myself.

For more on the concept of SPIT, I posted this a few days ago. My post drew one anonymous comment from someone who I sense  just doesn't understand the reality of the hype behind SPIT, and it's been hype for a long time now. I got a lot of email from VoIP practitioners around the world thanking me for openly sharing the truth about SPIT. Folks who really work in the VoIP sector know that SPIT is more about fear than reality at this point.

I'll say it again. SPIT is a potential problem. Not a real one. It just isn't a real world problem today. And strong user authentication mechanisms for all IP networking are the solutions to SPIT, SPAM and many network security problems.


Technorati Tags: SPIT, SPAM, hype