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

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

#201

Post by devereaux »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #198
justinator wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post advocates a ( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses ( ) Mailing lists and other le…

Impressive. Are you using a framework of sorts to provide this answer?

It's an old meme that has been out at least since ESR released his Bayesian spam classifier.

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

#202

Post by lozaning »

jordanthoms wrote: post #77
RodericDay wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to send all my calls to google

Call Screening is done locally on the phone, the call audio and transcripts are not sent to Google.

They need to make the audio available to the user. Their text to speech engine never maages to get a decent transcript figured out. That or people are just yelling gibberish into the phone when I screen them. Until I can review the call audio I'll never know.

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

#203

Post by fitzroy »

illnewsthat wrote: post #200
fitzroy wrote: post #199

I'd like an option similar to the old answering machine / secretary screening for unknown callers: 1. A voice assistant says to the caller "may I ask who's calling [records response] and what is your call in reference to [records response]?" 2. Siri announces the call to me if the phone is not set to Not Disturb mode. 3. I accept the call or decline. If I decline, Siri gives the caller the option to leave an addition…

This is almost exactly what Google is doing. https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/16/18098714/google-assistan... > ...you can tap the “screen call” button. Google Assistant will then alert the caller that you’re using a screening service and that you’ll receive a copy of the conversation. From then, you can choose to pick up the call, hang up, or block the number.

Oh, that's great (and now I feel validated that my feature requests aren't crazy). Google definitely seems to be ahead in layering on top of traditional telephony to fix the limitations. I've used a Google Voice number for ages for this kind of stuff, and basically just never answer it.

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

#204

Post by Izkata »

snowwrestler wrote: post #127

My solution to robocalls is to answer them and then be totally silent. After a few seconds, they disconnect. The number of robocalls I receive has plummeted since I started doing this. I receive hardly any these days. My theory is that due to silent answers, the autodialers eventually mark the number as bad, or as a machine-answered number. I have no proof of this, though.

I've always done something similar, it's been supported on every cell phone I've owned (flip-phones and Android phones): Instead of answering or declining, tap the volume key. That mutes the ringer but lets it keep ringing on the remote end. So from their perspective no one picks up, and it doesn't annoy you.

I can't tell if it would have the same effect as your method though, since I've done it for so long, but I only get like 1 scam call on my cell every 3-4 months (and it's usually one forwarded from my work phone). My desk phone at work, which I have to answer and haven't tried this with, gets one call every couple of weeks.

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

#205

Post by Keverw »

Also when you take a video and someone calls it ends the video recording - even if you don't decide to answer. So you have to put your phone into airplane mode, which sucks because if you lost your phone before remembering to turn it off then find my iPhone wouldn't work... I wish there was some sort of option to not disturb while doing video... Something you could toggle on and off.

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

#206

Post by albedoa »

todd3834 wrote: post #131
snowwrestler wrote: post #127

My solution to robocalls is to answer them and then be totally silent. After a few seconds, they disconnect. The number of robocalls I receive has plummeted since I started doing this. I receive hardly any these days. My theory is that due to silent answers, the autodialers eventually mark the number as bad, or as a machine-answered number. I have no proof of this, though.

I'll have to try that out. I've been noticing that most of the calls I was getting were from the same spammy place. I found out if I listen till the end they often have an option to be removed from their list. "Press 2 to be removed", if only it was always 2 that would be too easy. I hate listening to the entire ad but I have been getting a lot less since I've been hanging in there and asking to be removed.

It is a coincidence. Legitimate operations are not spoofing their numbers in the first place, whereas spoofers have shown themselves to be dishonest by spoofing.

So you are not being removed from any spam lists using this method. Not only do they have zero incentive to remove you, they have also received a reliable indication that a human answers your phone.

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

#207

Post by nicky0 »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #157
izacus wrote: post #38

I never get robocalls in Europe - what's different here? Why does USA have this huge problem with spam calls and most of Europe doesn't? Is spam blocking on OS level really the right approach to fix this problem?

> Why does USA have this huge problem with spam calls and most of Europe doesn't? Presumably because (1) it's much easier to find English speakers in countries where most robocalls actually originate, and (2) the same model can scale to 320M recipients with very little marginal effort.

Surely in Germany robocallers woul call people in German.

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

#208

Post by SeaSeaRider »

kurthr wrote: post #195
mikestew wrote: post #9

AFAIK, it's still the case that I can't block everything but numbers in my contacts, right? That's all I'm asking, and it can't be that hard. Add that simple feature that should have been there ten years ago and the problem is solved for me.

Unfortunately, they can just call you from one of your contacts... it's not like a zillion apps haven't already grabbed that information (from one source or another). Alternately, your name (reverse lookup) and your parents names and phone numbers are easily found.

The amount of scam callers able to do this is approximately zero.

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

#209

Post by eigenvector »

amluto wrote: post #108
ac29 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There already is a proposed technological solution to this: https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/stir-and-shaken-overview/ The FCC has recently "demanded" US telecoms to implement this [0], but at this point I don't believe there is actually a regulatory requirement to do so. [0] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354933A1.pdf

I prefer an economic solution. Currently, you can sue a robocaller under the TCPA, but good luck collecting. Make each carrier liable for judgments against robocallers routed through their network. So, if I sue John Doe for robocalling me and I can’t collect, and I’m a Verizon customer, the make Verizon liable for those damages. This should come with some limits, but they should be large (say 10% of nationwide annual…

So by 'economic solution', you mean requiring litigation in the courts at tremendous cost to all parties (including the taxpayer) to create an outcome that could easily be enforced proactively by the FCC?

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

#210

Post by kkarakk »

bubblethink wrote: post #193
fergbrain wrote: post #154

T-Mobile has a feature that uses the Caller ID to display “Scam Likely”...which is a great stopgap measure and doesn’t cost me extra.

That got me thinking. I haven't seen that message in a while, but I've moved from regular android to AOSP. I wonder if that scam likely CID needs some google play support ?

google play has plenty of apps that keep track of robocalls via third party solutions. truecaller is an app i used when i was in india getting inundated by robocalls.
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