A Utah company whose video conferencing technology is used by tens of thousands of deaf people to communicate is trying to figure out who would be base enough to hack into their system and flood tens of thousands of deaf customers with fake conference calls.

Officials with Sorenson Communications say since October they have dealt with a plague of prank calls to its point-to-point video calling service. The company provides video conferencing calls to the deaf free of charge to allow deaf people to communicate via sign language to others.

Sorenson public relations director Ann Bardsley said on one day, tens of thousands of false calls were sent to Sorenson videophones. On the user end, deaf customers think they have missed a call and that their unit is somehow malfunctioning.

The unknown hackers have affected some 30,000 video phones installed in the homes and workplaces of deaf customers across the United States, according to the company.

Ron Burdett, vice president of community relations for Sorenson Communications, said deaf customers who use sign language rely on his company's service for daily communications. Such interruptions he called "inconvenient and distressing."

Company officials say they do not know what is motivating the unknown group of hackers but they do figure it is a malicious reason.

Mitch Moyers is the technical program director for the Robert G. Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Taylorsville. He said the center, which provides training and acts as a social hub, has several Sorenson video relay phones that people can use for free.

"I'm disappointed. I feel like this is a great use for technology and to have people like that make life difficult for other people, that's disappointing," Moyers said.

Moyers said the system allows the deaf to use their "natural language" of signing without having to use a slow and sometimes inaccurate text relay service in which an operator converts voice into text which appears on a text relay phone.

For many deaf, Moyers said these video relay devices are their main window to the outside world, which makes this prank even more upsetting.

The flood of fake calls has gotten to the point that Sorenson has filed a federal lawsuit against a list of unknown "John Does" in hopes of getting a judge to allow them to subpoena information from a computer server their people have tracked the attacks to. The company claims the unknown group has violated the Federal Computer Abuse and Fraud Act and wants an injunction to put a stop to the fake calls and is also seeking damages.

Bardsley said the use of current video technology has revolutionized the way the deaf can communicate and her company wants to protect that. "Just as hearing people use phones to call a doctor, order dinner, check in with a family member, or conduct daily business at work, so do our deaf users of our video relay service," she said.

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E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com