Tech Shout!

The feud between celebrities Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan has taken a geeky turn this time, with a small fake Caller ID seller accusing Hilton of hacking into voicemail accounts on an un-named mobile phone network.

Hilton was one of more than 50 customers whose accounts were suspended, because they had been using SpoofCard.com’s Caller ID spoofing service to hack into voicemail accounts, according to Mark Del Bianco, SpoofCard.com’s attorney. Most of the accounts that were hacked via the spoofing service belonged to well-known celebs, including Lindsay Lohan.

The New York Post reported last month that someone had stolen the password to Lohan’s BlackBerry and sent her friends “disgusting and very mean messages that everyone thought were coming from Lindsay.” Lohan’s representatives hinted that Hilton may have been behind the hack.

The scandal illustrates how the telephone industry has been affected by inexpensive telephony software, like the open-source Asterisk telephone system. Recently phishers have been using this software to set up inexpensive phone networks that give their fake e-mails an added air of authenticity, for example.