Text message caller ID spoofing

[7789849803]

I recently received an email from someone in the community. I won't name the person, but they are welcome to come join this conversation and identify themselves if they like. Here's the message, and then my public response:

Spoiler

Hello 7789849803,

You helped me with the idea below to initialize my VM, thank you!

I was wondering, by any chance do you know how to do the same with SMS messages?

I would like to be able to receive activation texts once in a while, so I dont need the full unlimited package.

I tried having the CallerID number in VOIP.ms and then texting from there, but it didnt work.

Thanks again,

******.

If you have access to a VoIP device, you could always spoof your caller ID when calling the voicemail number. Since it's your own phone number you're spoofing, you can do this without any legal issues.

Though you'd have to have a VoIP service and be technically proficient in order to achieve this

Which brings me to my response:

Caller ID spoofing on text messaging is a bit hard to find. There's two reasons for this:

First and foremost, setting up texting itself is a pain. Cellular carriers in North America don't easily provide access to their text/multimedia message network to outside entities. This is also why texting is something that Fongo (for instance) still has to charge for, while they can give away some calling for free.

Second, if you spoof the caller ID of an outgoing message, then all replies to it will go to a different service than the one the text is originating from. This is usually undesirable.

Voip.ms will let you send text messages over the internet, but only using a DID number that is set up to work with their VoIP service. So replies to any texts you send out from there will all exclusively end up right back in voip.ms.

Others may have knowledge of a service that does in fact let you spoof the caller ID on outgoing SMSes, but I don't know of any, and a brief internet search didn't yield any ready answers, either.

[7789849803]

Good idea, @Martin. The requirement is not mine, though I am the one who created this thread. @jairolevi is the one currently in need of such a solution.

Though, as discussed in my first post on this thread, I suspect that there are technical reasons why such a feature would have limited applications anyway.

[Martin]

Hi 778,

You're welcome.

I regret that the service doesn't meet with your requirements.

An idea: Communicate with the company, explaining what you're seeking. If they do market research and find sufficient demand, they may eventually offer that which you are seeking now.

[7789849803]

Thanks, @Martin. That sounds like a great service, and certainly a good one to know about.

However, they don't offer the type of SMS caller ID spoofing that is being discussed here. According to their website:

"When you send an SMS, it will appear as a random number each time and any replies sent back will appear in your SMS History."

[srlawren]

Some great discussion here, that will be of interest to some in the community for sure!

[Martin]

Hi 778,

You were looking for a spoofing service.

Canadian and American private investigators tend to use www.spooftel.com. Unless the company has relocated, it's situated in BC.

You might find the rates a tad expensive.

Cheers.

[7789849803]

@jairolevi Hotel My Phone is a really interesting product! Thanks for letting us know about it. Too bad it won't let you spoof your text message caller ID, though.

[jairolevi]

@7789849803 Thanks for replying to my question! I didnt think other people would be interested in this thats why I PMd you.

Talking about this....

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@srlawren wrote:

@7789849803 wouldn't it be great if texting just died already, and got replaced with <insert your favourite data-based messenger app here--for me

---

... I very well wish that too, texting (real SMS's) is so 90's LOL.  The only reason I still use texting is to verify apps ( they send SMS verification codes ).

I really wish PM comes out with a call and text add-on (lets say 100 minutes, 100 txt), I dont need unlimited calls and txt.  That is the only think holding me from fully transfering my phone to PM.

Thank you guys!

JL.

PS. I think that the only person who calls me to my real phone is my dad.  Calls in WhatsApp calls have waaay more quality, and also FREE ( doesnt matter if you are calling next door or calling the other side of the world, its FREE.  I dont get why people still pay for regular phones and international calls.. )

PS 2. This is the closest I could get http://hotelmyphone.com/

Downside? still uses real text (SMS) messages from the second phone, but you could kinda spoof caller ID and TXT.  Not exactly what I am looking for, but close.

[7789849803]

@srlawren Yeah, I agree that having SMS fallback is a good idea. Which is where Fongo comes in for me.

@kav2001c WhatsApp is not a puppet to Facebook. WhatsApp IS (owned by) Facebook! There's nothing illegal or illicit about using a temporary phone number for texting, so feel free to talk about those apps. However, that conversation will not speak to the topic of this thread - which is spoofing caller ID for SMSes to another number that you already own.

[srlawren]

@kav2001c honestly, it's hard to criticize any company for dropping support for BB10, as even BlackBerry has essentially given up for it.  WhatsApp of course will run on Priv and the two new Android BlackBerry devices coming this year.  Losing Windows phone support is arguably a slightly bigger pill to swallow, but it is such a minority platform still it's hard to find a ton of fault with them.

I'm curious about the flaw you mention with WhatsApp?  On the brightside, they just rolled out ubiquitous end-to-end encryption for all, which is pretty sweet.

[kav2001c]

@srlawren - Whatsapp has become a Facebook puppet though. It has dropped suport for things like Windows and Blackberry. Plus there is a very serious flaw in how it works.

BBM was alot better but public perception these days is to discount Blackberry and hope they die and go away. I think it has more to do with stock investors speculating than general public but serious damage has been done to the brand

[kav2001c]

If you do not want someone to know your "real" number there are many apps out there that can assign a fake number to your phone.

The catch is most of them have an ad window embedded in them (unless of course you have rooted your device but that is a whole other discussion)

I will await a mod/oracle response before posting specific names just in case, but many are totally seamless and can send/receive to your fake number at will

3rd party programs are not supported by Public Mobile but by the specific creator of each app

[srlawren]

@7789849803 wouldn't it be great if texting just died already, and got replaced with <insert your favourite data-based messenger app here--for me, probably WhatsApp, or even BBM--I know, I know>???  Unfortunately, there's almost as many ways to message the people in my contact list as there are people in my contact list, and never will anybody agree on ONE service to rule them all, so we're stuck with fallback to the lowest common denominator--SMS.  Bleh.