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Yet another Verizon Wireless announcement today is the introduction of City ID, an enhanced mobile caller ID that displays the city and state of incoming calls. It'll be available first on all LG Voyager phones, but Verizon hopes to roll it out to more of its phones soon. An application from Cequint, City ID lets customers know a little more information about those frustrating "unknown numbers." But as with a lot of these services, it'll cost you. The City ID application will be free for 15 days for Voyager customers, but after that it's $1.99 a month per line.

We've all seen unrecognizable numbers pop up on our cell phone screens, but to answer or not to answer? It's probably a marketer or a wrong number, but there's always that slim chance it's the Pulitzer committee, Google human resources, or that one true love who dumped you but finally decided he made a giant mistake.

(Credit: I D You)

Enter Privus Mobile. The new downloadable caller ID service for smartphones provides names and numbers of incoming callers--and not just for those stored in the phone's contact list.

Many times, you'll receive a call from a number that you haven't already saved, and it shows up sans a name. Privus Mobile--offered by Accudata Technologies subsidiary I D You--promises to deliver up to 95 percent of names for callers, individual or corporate, not in a user's directory.

The service also provides information on many international calls, but from what we can gather, blocked numbers will remain blocked.

Some new smartphones fully support the Privus Mobile service, meaning you get the names of your callers before you pick up. Other models provide the names and numbers once you hang up or miss a call, allowing you to forward their info to your contact list automatically. (Click here for a list of approved smartphones and wireless networks; the service is available throughout North America and should be announced in many European Union countries by the end of 2008.)

But how much are you willing to pay for that extra bit of wireless privus-y? Three months of service will set you back $24.95, while 12 months go for $89.95--and for those rates it just might be worth it to gamble and pick up the phone. Those who are interested can visit the I D You Web site and get a free three-day trial.

(Credit: GE)

Ah, the elusive video phone. We've been hearing about that miraculous invention since we were kids, seeing prototypes displayed at Disneyland's house of the future. But despite an occasional product on the market, visual telephony has yet to take off for the masses.

So the closest thing we may be able to get is something like the new "GE PhotoPhone," first seen at CES in January. Although it doesn't stream video, the device does at least display digital images of whomever is ringing based on a visual form of caller ID. And when no one is on the phone, it still serves as a 7-inch picture frame in either black or silver finish.

No, it's not the video phone we've been pining for since childhood, but it does bring some purpose to the otherwise-useless concept of digital frames.

(Credit: Chinavasion)

Chinavasion regularly comes up with some dubious products--a tooth-mounted microphone, anyone?--so it's not surprising that it should come up with something like this item, which at first glance seems to be of devastatingly little use. Its "Caller ID Stereo Bluetooth Headset" is a wireless device that displays the incoming number before the call is answered--which, so far as we know, already appears on pretty much any phone the market today (other than blocked calls, of course). To be fair, however, Chip Chick points out that it might come in handy if you have an unwieldy handset, especially one that could easily slip off the StairMaster's control panel while you're sweatin' to the oldies.

I'm pretty excited about Vringo's new Facebook app for a number of reasons. First, I'm a big fan of Vringo's video caller ID service, which lets users choose a video ringtone (vringo) that plays on their friends' phone when they initiate a call to said friend. Second, this new app carries Vringo's concept of personalizing the moment of phone-to-phone contact by syncing your address book with your friends' Facebook profile photos.

It takes about 5 minutes and quite a few steps to set up the service, but the directions are clear and fairly straightforward. You download one app to the phone and one to Facebook, and follow instructions to sync the phone contacts list with your Facebook friends list. It's not automatic, however. Vringo's Facebook app produces side-by-side lists of your buddies, which you match together before re-syncing your phone. The next time a friend calls, their Facebook photo blinks on for a long second, and then displays again while you're on the call.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It'd be better if the image stuck around until you answered (maybe it was shy during my tests?), and if the syncing process were streamlined. Vringo's original service still nets higher points for originality and "wow" factor, but Vringo Facebook is a good fast, free way to add a little more life to calls.

Vringo Facebook is in pre-release beta for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones. You can get in line for the invite-only phone download at http://www.vringo.com/AppServer/fb/index.jsp.

>>See all the hot cell phone news from CTIA

While caller ID is great for landlines, cell phones don't get such a luxury. Unless the contact is in your phonebook, all you've got is an incoming number to guess who's calling. I often simply type the number into Google to get the answer, but if that's coming up short, you can give Reverse Mobile a try.

The service lets you do a reverse lookup on any number free of charge. If you want some more advanced information such as the caller name, address, and phone carrier, it'll cost you a one-time fee of $30, or you can get an all-you-can eat annual subscription to look up as many numbers as you want for $10 more.

In addition to phone records, the same company does civil records and background checks, both of which aren't nearly as useful on a day-to-day basis.

Caller ID information is not to be trusted. Judging by the reactions I've gotten from colleagues and friends recently after they've been the victims of spoofed-ID demonstrations, it's not common knowledge that caller ID information, primarily the phone number that often appears on the recipient's telephone display, can be easily faked. Best of all for the mysterious caller, it's not illegal in the U.S. (except in cases where fraud occurs). Calls for the purpose of amusement or revenge are perfectly legal.

This phone is tapped.

(Credit: Andrew McConachie)

With the help of easy-to-use Internet calling card services, it's possible to call up your friends, and have the originating caller number be something completely different, say, the White House switchboard (202-456-1414). For many of the services, it's as simple as punching in three phone numbers: your own number, your pal's number, and the number you want to show up on their phone's display when you call.

The calling card companies providing these services charge a fair bit--approximately 60 minutes of calls for $10. One of the major firms, SpoofCard, is nice enough to let users try their service out for free--two minute calls can be initiated for free from the company's Web site. For those of you doing the home-brew VOIP thing using an Asterisk server at home, faking your Caller ID information is as simple as editing a configuration file.

Being able to change the originating call number can actually be really useful--for the bad guys.

Many voice mail systems do not prompt you for a PIN or password when you appear to be calling from the number associated with that voice mail account. Some credit card companies require that new cards be activated upon receipt by calling up an automated phone system from the cardholder's home phone number. Many people screen their calls, looking first at the display before deciding if they will pick up the phone. Such people can be tricked into picking up the phone by someone who would ordinarily get ignored. Caller ID spoofing is a priceless technique when conducting social engineering or industrial espionage. Being able to call someone else in a company and have the number come up as as an internal office phone number can make it much easier to pretend to be "Bob from accounting."

Anonymous

(Credit: Doublebug / Flickr)

Using a fake caller ID service, it should be possible for a motivated criminal to stalk someone, listen to their voice mail and then activate a credit card stolen from the victim's mailbox. Creepy stuff

So what about the law? Caller ID spoofing services do not appear to violate any federal criminal law, according to an interview published with Orin Kerr, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School, and a former Justice Department computer crime lawyer. "It doesn't violate the Wiretap Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or anything like that," said Kerr.

Congress attempted to pass legislation earlier in 2007 making it illegal to spoof caller ID. The bill, The Truth in Caller ID Act of 2007, sailed through the House of Representatives but has yet to make it through the Senate. The law would outlaw causing "any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information" via "any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service." Law enforcement is exempt from the rule.

Ma Bell: Got the ill communication

(Credit: TheTallest / Flickr)

With the legislation apparently stalled at the federal level, some states have begun to pas their own laws. According to USA Today: "Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed a law banning commercial telemarketers from using ID spoofing. Violators can be fined up to $10,000 per incident. Alaska and New York have considered anti-spoofing legislation. Delaware has no law that specifically bars people from misrepresenting their name and number on the recipient's caller ID. If done for commercial purposes, however, the practice could be treated as a violation of the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act or the Consumer Fraud Act, says Barbara Gadbois, who directs the Consumer Protection Unit of the Delaware Attorney General's Office. Extracting personal information that is then used to steal money or commit another crime is a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison, Gadbois says."

Even the state laws that have been proposed only ban the commercial use of caller ID spoofing and cases of fraud. The use of such services by individuals for amusement or revenge is still perfectly legal. Thus, until the feds can agree upon and pass stronger legislation, fake caller ID is here to stay.