HELP - NO Filter Story

[Guy Teasdale]

Hi fellow librarians

A little aside from this filter thread but as this is Web for Lib and that
I am a Lib, I take the liberty to ask the help of the collective
information power of you librarians. Roy, if I am off track, just filter
this message.;-)

I have been victim of a scam like the one mentionned in this article:

Hammer, Ben. FTC Slams Alleged Net Porn Scam : British-based Verity
International is accused of billing more than 110,000 U.S. consumers for
false phone charges.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,19206,00.html
October 6, 2000, 5:22 PM PDT 

My 14 y old kid used a "dialer software" which shut down the Internet
connection and made a direct modem call to .... Madagascar. By clicking on
the "I agree" button, he was signing a 4 pages contract (full proofed
legally), in a language that he doesn't understand (English) to accept the
terms and conditions (like accepting to pay 5can$ a minute.)

So papa is left with a huge phone bill to pay. The phone cie told me "we
are just a carrier" You are responsible for the phone, you pay. Hey! who is
charging me that bill ? I am trying to argue with them that they are more
than a carrier, they are go-between and that as a corporation they have a
social responsibility to protect customers from such scams on the Internet.
They were aware of this scam months before my kid called to this place,
they didn't shut off the line. They have the technological know-how to
react much more rapidly than they did. If THEY had been hacked, the hacker
would already be in jail!

I presume that they will tell me that I should have used a filter software.
In fact, if I have had a filter on my PC, I would have been protected when
he downloaded this dial program. But I am wondering if my kid had had a
copy of the dialer program on a diskette (it's a small program of 50k
called sexygirls.exe), do anybody know if the filter would have worked,
since the dialer take control of the modem (as far as I understand). Are
the "net nannies" of this world just watching what's coming from the http
protocol or are they also watching what is accessed on a diskette?

If somebody has more recent developments to tell me, or some clues to help
my argumentation with my phone cie, you can email me privately. I'll
summarize to the list if I receive new informations.

I think that the FTC is taking this scam more seriously and efficiently
than my phone cie. This is a multi millions $ scam.

Thanks.
Guy Teasdale, conseiller à la documentation
Bibliothèque de l'Université Laval
http://www.bibl.ulaval.ca/info/pagepers/teasdale/
tél. (418)656-2131, poste 2090. fax (418)656-7897