A Lakewood-based company is finding itself in the spotlight after playing a role in nabbing the teen suspected of making hundreds of bomb threats to Jewish Centers and other institutions.
The teen, an Israeli-American, allegedly used multiple different methods to prevent detection, and one of those methods was something called SpoofCard.
What is SpoofCard?
Lakewood resident Meir Cohen and Eli Finkelman launched TelTech and developed SpoofCard over ten years ago. It helps people protect their privacy and security by allowing them to change their Caller ID. This is particularly valuable for professionals. For example, if a doctor needs to call a patient from their home or mobile number, they can change their caller ID so that the patient sees their office number. Mystery shoppers, investigators, and people just concerned about their privacy use SpoofCard every day.
Meir and Eli identified the value of this tool for consumers, but also realized that misuse could not be tolerated.
“So as we have grown the product, and in-fact our suite of privacy and security products, from a small Lakewood company to a company that offers apps and services around the world, we have always worked with law enforcement at all levels to make sure our product was being used responsibly,” the company told TLS.
In the case of the JCC bomb threats, SpoofCard was just a small piece of the perpetrators methodology for preventing detection.
“But, as federal agencies asked for our help we were prepared as always to help,” the company said.
Over the last two months, Spoofcard has cooperated with lawful data requests from federal, state and foreign law enforcement agencies regarding the rash of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers.
In this case, at the specific request of law enforcement agencies involved, TelTech kept suspect accounts open, provided requested data, and used technical resources to aid investigators.
And sure enough, the FBI in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, made an arrest.
“We are thrilled and relieved to have received news that an arrest has been made in this case,” said TelTech. “We are glad that our assistance in the case helped law enforcement reach this positive outcome.”
TelTech added, “We take great pride in the fact that for over 10 years we have helped people protect their privacy with SpoofCard, and that we have always taken a consistent position against any misuse of our services. We comply with lawful requests from all levels of law enforcement, and we have built specific tools to prevent abuse of our service.”
A better headline would be “JCC’s bomb threat perpetrator used a Lakewood company’s software”
One thing spoof call does is bypass the phone of the person you want to call and access’s their voicemail. When ever I get a message left on my voice mail thru spoof call I might as well have never gotten the voicemail. It gets deleted and I do not take down any of the info or ever follow up on it. I know they used spoof call because my phone never rang despite being on. There’s no way I would have missed the call had they tried my phone for real. If you don’t want to talk to me, shoot me an email or text like a mentsch but if you’re going to use such a round about way to get me a message so it looks as if you tried your best to call me, don’t bother delivering the message in the first place- it won’t be acknowledged. I tried being dan l’kaf zechus but the person basically admitted they had used spoof call.