Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 332 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#81

Post by undoware »

GalacticDomin8r wrote: post #63
undoware wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoters, why do you disagree? I'm sincere and I believe myself to be correct.

They are vital in the same way mosquitoes are vital to the ecosystem. You try to assume they must serve some higher purpose greater than blood-sucking(eg food for fish), but nope that's it.

I fail to understand how I assume they serve a greater purpose -- they simply provide consequences for debtors, something increasingly difficult. I hate them, but it fascinates me that some folks can't even bear to discuss how the meat grinder actually works.

Because grind it does.

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#82

Post by YeahSureWhyNot »

I wish there was no unlimited calling and texting. 1 cent per minute/text is ideal. cheap enough for everyone to afford and expensive enough to make massive scale spam calling business unprofitable. same for emails. make emails cost 1 cent per email that gets donated to whatever good cause and watch spam drop by 90%

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#83

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

pmoriarty wrote: post #28

On Android, you can do exactly this with an app called "Should I Answer?" That app has a lot more features too, like blocking calls which are rated negatively in the community-curated database. Of course, you can rate numbers yourself as well, and block/whitelist those. It can also block hidden numbers or foreign numbers, and a whole bunch of other stuff as well. It's a pretty cool app. Check it out.

Agreed. And it does it by periodically downloading a ratings database and storing it on your phone, so the checking doesn't leak any personal info. That takes some space, but not very much.

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#84

Post by danShumway »

wittedhaddock wrote: post #62

My name is James, I work for Community Phone, a nationwide cell phone company. Show of hands: if we opened up this feature for you to control this filter for yourself or your loved ones, holding all else constant (price and coverage), would that be sufficient to cause a switch to try out an alternate provider?

Huh. I am currently on Google Fi.

I'm not thrilled putting Google in charge of my mobile data, but I still trust Google to safeguard my privacy more than any of the major telcos, and for someone who uses small amounts of data, they're very competitively priced and have really good, simple billing.

But particularly with the Librem Phone coming up, I've been trying to find other phone providers I won't hate that can give me more flexibility in devices and that at least somewhat shares my values. Community Phone looks really interesting. I'm frankly a little bit weirded out that the prices are that low, I'm going over the site trying to figure out what the tradeoffs are.

Rolling out a feature like this would definitely make me more interested in switching. Even if I didn't think it was valuable for me personally, it would make me feel like the company was in close contact with its users and working with them, rather than just blindly selling to them.

From a pure feature point of view, I would still want unknown people to be able to leave me messages. I get legitimate calls from unknown numbers -- but my policy is that if I don't know you and the call isn't important enough to leave a message, you're either spam or I don't care. If it is important enough to leave a message, I screen that and then add the number to my contact list if it's legit.

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#85

Post by wittedhaddock »

meetuu wrote: post #70
wittedhaddock wrote: post #62

My name is James, I work for Community Phone, a nationwide cell phone company. Show of hands: if we opened up this feature for you to control this filter for yourself or your loved ones, holding all else constant (price and coverage), would that be sufficient to cause a switch to try out an alternate provider?

hi James, This filter is a filter i would love to have for my phone, there is a wish list that could accompany the desire to filter calls, a ^large^ list perhaps, but i think it would be summed up as another user has stated, I want my phone to serve me, not the other way around. I also believe the smart phone thing has been abused for far too long, to the point I will not operate a smart phone for reasons of security…

Hi meetuu, thanks very much for your thoughtful response. I totally can relate to your desire for that feature and I hope you do not feel ashamed for it. Your phone is a personal device, and it ought to exist to serve your personal preferences so that you may live the best possible life with the thing (toleration or enjoyment)! I think it can be confusing now, that they have become so impersonally social, that we can be made to feel strange for wanting them to behave in different ways. And I appreciate your desire for simplicity and wanting to get to the essence of your communications.

At what point did you finally decide to leave your smartphone behind and how severe of a lifestyle change have you had to make in order to operate and function as you have come to expect of yourself?

- We currently offer unlimited talking and texting for $15/month + state taxes and FCC fees, or ~$18.

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#86

Post by paul7986 »

kylec wrote: post #15
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #5

I just put my iphone on "do not disturb" full-time and use my favourites list to only allow calls though (from a selected list). People who double call are also allowed through. Then you are not constantly distracted by notifications, emails, texts, spam calls [1]. My thinking is, my phone should serve me, not the other way around, so I only check when I'm not focused on something else. Personally, I find useless not…

I want to do this, but only for calls. All other notifications should happen normally. It annoys me that iOS doesn't support that though, it's all or nothing.

Exactly only for calls... text is my main form of communication. I want only calls from those I let ring my phone do so and all others go to voicemail.

I hope Apple updates DND with more options like DND for calls only.

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#87

Post by Simon_says »

wyred wrote: post #49

What if it was a legitimate emergency? Like if someone used your number as an emergency contact. Or some hospital in the world trying to contact you because someone you know got hospitalized (touch wood).

For legitimate emergencies, 911 is open 24 hours a day. Everything else can wait until I'm ready.

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#88

Post by wittedhaddock »

danShumway wrote: post #84
wittedhaddock wrote: post #62

My name is James, I work for Community Phone, a nationwide cell phone company. Show of hands: if we opened up this feature for you to control this filter for yourself or your loved ones, holding all else constant (price and coverage), would that be sufficient to cause a switch to try out an alternate provider?

Huh. I am currently on Google Fi. I'm not thrilled putting Google in charge of my mobile data, but I still trust Google to safeguard my privacy more than any of the major telcos, and for someone who uses small amounts of data, they're very competitively priced and have really good, simple billing. But particularly with the Librem Phone coming up, I've been trying to find other phone providers I won't hate that can gi…

Hey danShumway, thanks for your note here. I am going to share it with my colleagues if that's okay with you. You express a very important culture and way of working.

The real answer is that our prices are low because most of our users to date use less than 1gb per line (nearly all senior citizens on our 15 or 25 plans)... they were overpaying the most while using the least (but even for them we cannot be too low otherwise even the stingiest would think our pricing is too low to be credible... and I am laughed out of /r/nocontract for having prices that are way too high). And since building that volume, we've been able to keep our prices as they are, due to better negotiations with carriers.

That said, most of our customers to date join us just because they like getting a human from Boston or Milwaukee when they answer the phone who can help them quickly, listens intently to what you say, and doesn't require a "tech-ese"

For how long were you with your previous carrier before joining Google Fi and when did you make the switch?

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#89

Post by djohnston »

YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #82

I wish there was no unlimited calling and texting. 1 cent per minute/text is ideal. cheap enough for everyone to afford and expensive enough to make massive scale spam calling business unprofitable. same for emails. make emails cost 1 cent per email that gets donated to whatever good cause and watch spam drop by 90%

i feel like it would be effective but i worry about requiring payment information for sending emails. it seems like a privacy nightmare

Re: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

#90

Post by stevenicr »

Assuming op is using an iPhone?

I was looking into this for a friend and found something a couple of tutorials for making it happen with iphone, but they all said you had to use the interface from a computer (desktop/laptop) - that the call filtering and time block feature was not accessible via the phone's interface. (this was about a year ago?) - you could make your phone go silent, but let a selected set of contact be able to ring, or perhaps give another set of contacts the option to turn off your silent mode if they coded twice within 5 minutes or something?

I think there is built in methods for this with do not disturb and assorted options with that feature on newish android without third party apps right?

(I currently frequently use a "timed silent profile" app that I paid the premium for years ago, but I think I ran into these settings on base android in the past year.

Post reply on HN