Apple wants iPhones to be able to detect spoofed call info

Apple has filed for a patent (number 20180295140) for the “detection of spoofed call information.” It would allow an iPhone to tell if an incoming call was from a spoofed number. If so, it would warn you before you answer the call.

Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing a telephone network to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station. For instance, a caller ID display might display a phone number different from that of the telephone from which the call was actually placed.

Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “The mobile device checks parameters using templates to evaluate a consistency of the invitation with respect to a database in the mobile device. The templates include session protocol, network topology, routing, and social templates. 

“Specific template data includes standardized protocol parameters, values from a database of the mobile device and phonebook entries of the mobile device. Examples of the parameters include capabilities, preconditions, vendor equipment identifiers, a hop counter value and originating network information. 

“The originating network information may be obtained from the database by first querying an on-line database to determine a network identifier associated with caller identification information in the invitation. Then, the obtained carrier identifier is used as an index into a database to obtain template data characteristic of the identified originating network.”

Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.