Spoofcard

There is a service out there that allows a caller to mask or "spoof" someone's caller ID. It goes like this: a person enters their phone number, the number they want to call, and the number the caller wants to appear in the recipient's caller ID.

The FAQ section of the website says the service is completely legal, and suggests maybe a good use would be for a doctor who wants to make calls from a personal line without giving his patient access to him 24-hours a day.

But the testimonials reveal the true story.

"One of my favorite spoof was getting the phone number to a local planned parenthood and calling a friend regarding her "test results"...priceless"

or

"Telling my friend who is a licensed plumber that his license has been revoked due to unethical practices. It drove him nuts.... it was hillarious (sic)."

Now, it may not be illegal, and it certainly appeals to the lowest sense of humor. But to quote a famous line, "What about the children?"

This is a bullying tool that eventually will be discovered by many a student wishing to harm a classmate, and there is no way to determine if the caller ID number has been spoofed or not.

With younger and younger students accessing cell phones regularly, I would recommend a discussion about not trusting caller IDs and keeping their heads about them. If it seems to good to be true that the most popular boy in school goes from completely ignoring you to proclaiming his love over the phone, it just might be.