Apple iPhone patent hints at automatic detection of nuisance callers using spoofed phone numbers

Apple seems to be working on a new technology that could detect nuisance callers using spoofed phone numbers as the company filed for patents named "Detection of spoofed call information." This system could let iPhones perform checks on a call to ascertain if it is genuine, if not warn the user of the nuisance callers or prevent it from disturbing the phone user at all.  There are cases where a call is made, a session initiation protocol (SIP) invite is sent along between phone networks to the user's device. The SIP invite can contain a number of elements, with headers providing data meant to establish the call, such as speech codec information, network equipment identifiers, 3GPP VoLTE protocol information, server identifiers, and other elements. While the spoofing caller can fill in some SIP invite fields, some are populated or overwritten by network servers as it travels. This automatically added or altered information constitutes a signature for that network, which could be used to compare with other existing call signatures to determine if the call itself is legitimate. The new Apple's system could also be used to determine if the spoofer is passing the call through a forwarding device, which is connected to a legitimate network ...