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Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

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Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#171

Post by [deleted] »

mindslight wrote: post #168
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for the carrier twilio is sending out these message to.

No these messages are not spam there either, because they are not spam period. What you might mean is that the carrier's draconian probabilistic anti-spam system incorrectly categorizes them as spam. And that this causes a practical problem for Twilio, which lacks any recourse against said carrier's incorrect classification. In other words, a similar problem to what OP is complaining about, one hop away. You're doing…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#172

Post by kylebyproxy »

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #152
ChrisDutrow wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

> petty

Says the guy hung up on terms of service

> assuming

Says the guy accusing OP of malice

> irritable

Says the guy lashing-out

A+ projection all around. No notes.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#173

Post by jjnoakes »

onphonenow wrote: post #89
jjnoakes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you operate an open relay for email - your IP address is going to be blacklisted very quickly. Same here This doesn't sound like an open relay (since the incoming message can't be forwarded to arbitrary destinations), this sounds like a mailing list. And if my mailing list was banned because someone else sent spam to it, I'd be upset too.

I'm making the point that sending messages on behalf of others DRAMATICALLY increases the risk that you will send low quality messages. Spam, phishing etc. I'm more surprised that folks don't get that. Twilio is clear. You are responsible for all messages you send using their platform. They are clear in their terms that this applies EVEN IF you allow others to use your service in ways that result in crap going out. T…

I get that just fine. I just disagree with it, and I disagree with the analogy to an open mail relay.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#174

Post by YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo »

mindslight wrote: post #168
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for the carrier twilio is sending out these message to.

No these messages are not spam there either, because they are not spam period. What you might mean is that the carrier's draconian probabilistic anti-spam system incorrectly categorizes them as spam. And that this causes a practical problem for Twilio, which lacks any recourse against said carrier's incorrect classification. In other words, a similar problem to what OP is complaining about, one hop away. You're doing…

These messages are subjectively spam for the platform you use if they specified it in their ToS you have no right to force them to serve you.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#176

Post by YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo »

kylebyproxy wrote: post #172
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> petty Says the guy hung up on terms of service > assuming Says the guy accusing OP of malice > irritable Says the guy lashing-out A+ projection all around. No notes.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#177

Post by mindslight »

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #174
mindslight wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No these messages are not spam there either, because they are not spam period. What you might mean is that the carrier's draconian probabilistic anti-spam system incorrectly categorizes them as spam. And that this causes a practical problem for Twilio, which lacks any recourse against said carrier's incorrect classification. In other words, a similar problem to what OP is complaining about, one hop away. You're doing…

These messages are subjectively spam for the platform you use if they specified it in their ToS you have no right to force them to serve you.

Yet again you're just stating a technical description as if it implicitly justifies the state of things. Nobody here is confused about how Twilio can legally do this or how market incentives encourage them to do so.

We're discussing a higher level behavior and what ought to be. And getting a critical service pulled out from under you based on overzealous unaccountable spam filtering is certainly not what ought to be.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#178

Post by zaroth »

jjnoakes wrote: post #173
onphonenow wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm making the point that sending messages on behalf of others DRAMATICALLY increases the risk that you will send low quality messages. Spam, phishing etc. I'm more surprised that folks don't get that. Twilio is clear. You are responsible for all messages you send using their platform. They are clear in their terms that this applies EVEN IF you allow others to use your service in ways that result in crap going out. T…

I get that just fine. I just disagree with it, and I disagree with the analogy to an open mail relay.

It’s definitely not analogous to an open mail relay in the slightest.

The whole point of an open mail relay is the 3rd party can send their crap through your servers to anyone they want to target. This scenario gives the spammer no control over who gets the message.

Twilio is being used as a message bus, and OP is simply trying to save the work of writing an app or a new UI on the employee’s phone to read a list of messages. It’s a pretty common use case.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#179

Post by vmception »

paxys wrote: post #120

Why misdirect from the real issue just to rally an internet mob in your favor? The problem clearly isn't that you received a fraud text (as the title suggests), it is that you SENT fraud texts using Twilio. That will obviously get you banned from any mainstream service. Also: > I don't need tech support, I just need someone to call, explain the situation to, and have them click a button. What do you think tech suppor…

> Why misdirect from the real issue just to rally an internet mob in your favor?

Because what you described worked? They got customer service from two higher ups at Twilio who cared way more about the internet mob than literally everything else happening at their $42,000,000,000 company that is teetering on a confidence crisis based on share price trends, or the multiples that investors are willing to accept from this management team.

Re: Ask HN: Twilio suspended account because someone sent us a fraud text

#180

Post by FateOfNations »

ChrisDutrow wrote: post #142
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With due respect, you are the one ignoring key context: From the employee's carrier perspective those are external messages originating from you. All that Verizon/T-Mobile/at&t see is spam coming from you, they don't know about the employer/employee relation. So when those carries complain to your carrier, your carrier has little options but to lock you.

Ok so are you saying that Twilio cannot be used to rely messages from company phone numbers to employee cells phones? I would understand if this was an edge case, but my understanding is this is a quite common and a core use case. I'm pretty sure this exact use case is in their basic tutorial.

All the recipient's carrier knows is they see a spam or phishing message originating from Twilio, and (profess to) have a zero tolerance for spam/phishing. They have no idea about context of the "forward to consenting employee" use case or any way of validating it.

If there is any possibility that those messages could be interpreted as spam, that doesn't seem to be a valid use case for Twilio (any more). You could forward the message over some channel other than SMS to the employee (like email, or a custom solution).

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