I recently contributed to Methods to Facilitate the Traceback and Mitigate the Spoofing of Telecommunications, a new report written by Eric Priezkalns for the European Network Against Crime and Terrorism (ENACT). The topic was requested by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, which wanted an analysis of practical solutions to Caller-ID and Sender-ID spoofing.

My contribution included overseeing the survey we ran through Commsrisk and providing graphs, data, and insights from the Commsrisk Global Fraud Dashboard.

The dashboard was created to encourage a more empirical approach to decision-making, and this report is a case in point. We were able to use its data to make well-supported arguments for low-cost, high-impact solutions in a discussion that is otherwise too frequently muddied by speculation and marketing.

Cease to resist, giving my goodbye
Drive my car into the ocean
You’ll think I’m dead, but I sail away
On a wave of mutilation

This is the final Commsrisk article. The website will continue to host the Commsrisk Global Fraud Dashboard under the stewardship of James Greenley, the software engineer who created it, for as long as he can find financial backers to support that work. Presenting reams of objective data compiled from varied international sources is the best way to build on the platform constructed during the first two decades of this website. Facts and figures need to rule; words are too messy and too easily twisted. My regular narratives about the communications sector end now, not with regret, but with pleasure. I am glad to be released to live a different life to the one that has consumed so much of me.