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Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

spencerdailey.com

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Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#61

Post by bradleyankrom »

elliekelly wrote: post #48
bradleyankrom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I turned off the feature that shows calls on my MacBook because of this. It's nice that the UI shows "Scam Likely" as the caller, but maybe give me an option to filter out those calls entirely? Let them go to voicemail or something... who is answering the phone when the caller is unknown and identified by the UI as "Scam Likely"?

Yes! I would even go so far as to say if the caller isn't in my phonebook let them go to voicemail. Or at least give me the option in settings. If I don't know who's calling they're getting my voicemail 100% of the time.

Elsewhere in the replies it was suggested that you put your phone on Do Not Disturb and configure it to allow calls from your contacts to get through. That might be a hacky solution?

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#62

Post by Reason077 »

btilly wrote: post #41

I actually would like a regulatory solution for this. Mandate a way for me to say whether incoming calls were spam. Require my phone company to pay me money every time I get spammed. Allow my phone company to, at their option, proactively block calls from specific upstreams and/or pass the charge to the specific upstreams. Now from those incentives, the fines will naturally follow the upstreams to the source of the s…

”I actually would like a regulatory solution for this.”

The UK has a solution. It does actually work, mostly:

https://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#63

Post by bradleyankrom »

traek wrote: post #50
bradleyankrom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I turned off the feature that shows calls on my MacBook because of this. It's nice that the UI shows "Scam Likely" as the caller, but maybe give me an option to filter out those calls entirely? Let them go to voicemail or something... who is answering the phone when the caller is unknown and identified by the UI as "Scam Likely"?

That's a T-Mobile feature, not an Apple feature, and you can change your settings to block the calls instead of just ID'ing them. https://www.t-mobile.com/resources/call-protection

Awesome, thanks. I enabled it. That should cut down on at least ~40% of the junk calls I get.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#64

Post by fxj »

robocalls are illegal in germany. They are called unerlaubte Telefonwerbung and one energy company got fined with 140.000 euros.

https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunik...

FTA: After the E wie Einfach GmbH had found agencies for the advertising measures, obviously no more control took place. Therefore the E.ON daughter is occupied now with a fine of 140.000 euro. Because as a client of the call actions it must guarantee the adherence to the legal principles. This includes above all that in each individual case an explicit consent of the consumers is present. The client is responsible for this, even if the telephone calls are carried out by subcontractors. However, the decision of the Federal Network Agency is not yet legally binding: the electricity supplier can appeal the fine in court.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

https://www.e-recht24.de/news/telekommunikation/10928-unerla...

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#65

Post by troydavis »

The eventual fix will be adopting ATIS SHAKEN and STIR protocols, which is, very roughly, signed caller ID. The FCC is now demanding it of carriers:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354933A1.pdf (Background and open letters to carriers: https://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-pai-demands-industry-a...)

How it works, short version: https://transnexus.com/blog/2017/stop-spoofed-robocalls-with...

How it works, long version: http://www.atis.org/01_resources/whitepapers/#shaken-studies (find in page for “SHAKEN” and “Caller ID”)

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#66

Post by sofaofthedamned »

spenvo wrote: post #57
awakeasleep wrote: post #14

"At the telelphony-infrastructure level, it’s a supremely difficult problem that lacks a short-term fix because the underlying protocol is hopelessly insecure." This is only partly true. Technologically the solution is difficult, but it's easy from the social side as carriers can blacklist the smaller carriers that allow this fraud to take place. The real problem is that everyone except the consumer benefits from thi…

I agree there’s a lot the carriers could be accomplishing in flagging “inauthentic” behavior of network participants, the root cause of SS7’s lack of authentication and encryption will remain and the problem will fester. Yes, carriers are definitely on the hook for making things better too. That said, the decisions in Apple's client side software are atrocious for the considerations of 2019. Aside: No idea why my pos…

I used to work in the mobile space for 7 years and i'm still amazed nobody has proposed and monetized a solution to SS7 being unfit for purpose. The reason it's not happened is nobody wants to spend money on even talking about the fix, never mind implementing it.

The sheer number of scammers and nation state actors that have taken advantage of this is mind-blowing, but we still use SMS as a 2FA.

If we have telephony providers responsible for these breaches the problem will disappear in 6 months.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#67

Post by sofaofthedamned »

troydavis wrote: post #65

The eventual fix will be adopting ATIS SHAKEN and STIR protocols, which is, very roughly, signed caller ID. The FCC is now demanding it of carriers: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354933A1.pdf (Background and open letters to carriers: https://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-pai-demands-industry-a... ) How it works, short version: https://transnexus.com/blog/2017/stop-spoofed-robocalls-with... How it works,…

Apologies for not reading through these links, but does this fix just the caller-id issue, or the routing issue - i.e. routing an SMS to a bad actor?

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#68

Post by elsonrodriguez »

mortenjorck wrote: post #21

Since the phone companies are too busy trying to build content empires rather than working to improve their core competencies, it's time for Apple to step up the call-blocking experience at the OS level. The addition of a call-blocking API was a very good first step, but the time is fast arriving when robust blocking patterns will be table stakes similar to what basic email spam filtering is today.

I'd give it a year before they buy someone like Hiya.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#69

Post by sofaofthedamned »

Reason077 wrote: post #62
btilly wrote: post #41

I actually would like a regulatory solution for this. Mandate a way for me to say whether incoming calls were spam. Require my phone company to pay me money every time I get spammed. Allow my phone company to, at their option, proactively block calls from specific upstreams and/or pass the charge to the specific upstreams. Now from those incentives, the fines will naturally follow the upstreams to the source of the s…

”I actually would like a regulatory solution for this.” The UK has a solution. It does actually work, mostly: https://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

It doesn't work, and i'm in the UK too. Bad actors simply ditch their LTD Co when they eventually get a small fine and some use it as a whitelist of active numbers to use. IIRC there was an idea about making directors of companies who flout this personally responsible, I wonder if this happened?

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#70

Post by btilly »

Reason077 wrote: post #62
btilly wrote: post #41

I actually would like a regulatory solution for this. Mandate a way for me to say whether incoming calls were spam. Require my phone company to pay me money every time I get spammed. Allow my phone company to, at their option, proactively block calls from specific upstreams and/or pass the charge to the specific upstreams. Now from those incentives, the fines will naturally follow the upstreams to the source of the s…

”I actually would like a regulatory solution for this.” The UK has a solution. It does actually work, mostly: https://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

The USA has a similar solution. See https://www.donotcall.gov/ for details. Until fairly recently, it also worked pretty well. And still does for legitimate companies doing phone solicitation. (Excepting political parties, because they are exempt from the law.)

However spoofers who know that they won't be tracked back to the source don't care about do not call lists.

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