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

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

#231

Post by tones411 »

altmind wrote: post #11

Just checked, I got this feature on stock samsung s8(phone-settings-block numbers-block unknown callers)? Are you talking about iphone(as if it is a default phone vendor) ?

Thanks. I am using iphone but didn’t realize Samsung had that option. I couldn’t find that option on my Essential Android phone either so it must be a vendor thing.

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

#232

Post by tones411 »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #31

Get a Google Voice number. Give your cell number to people, the Google Voice number everywhere else. You can configure Google Voice to send all calls to voicemail if you want. And I think you can still configure it to send you a transcription via text. Spam calls won't leave a message.

Yep. Even if I switch numbers they real number is still out in the wild. And even if it’s not in the wild my guess is they are just calling every combination of numbers.

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

#233

Post by paulie_a »

joshka wrote: post #121
m463 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This still lets people on that list wake you up after hours unless you take manual action. I believe apple has a new call fitering API, but of course you don't have a way of really knowing what apps do with their permissions. Apple should give you the ability to firewall apps from any net access.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/callkit/cxcalldire... Single number at a time though. Useless for spammers that use random spoofed numbers. Not sure what sort of performance problems you'd hit by adding 10M numbers per area code. It's probably a hashset underneath, so maybe none...?

I was so annoyed by spam calls that I called my carrier and asked if I could block Texas and Florida.

Apparently you cannot.

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

#234

Post by StavrosK »

chooseaname wrote: post #225
StavrosK wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a "Press 1 to be connected" option? Where?

Not who you're replying to, but I just looked and the only option I see is you can turn on screening and so when you pick up, you hear the person's name and can decide to take the call or not.

Yeah, plus spam filtering, which AFAIK doesn't work like the GP's solution. I think the other commenter was just confused.

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

#237

Post by maxxxxx »

StavrosK wrote: post #179
fyfy18 wrote: post #166

A few years ago my parents were getting a lot of spam calls on their landline. Basically all of them were automated calls, either a recorded message or you were connected to a person shortly after the call was connected. I bought an OBi100 [0], which is a small device designed to be a VOIP adapter, but you can setup rules on how calls (incoming or outgoing) are handled. I setup a rule that if the call was from a with…

This is the kind of solution that only works because basically nobody is doing it. If a big provider deployed it, it would take five seconds for it to be defeated.

This is hacker news so this kind of solution is cool. And whatever the big guys are doing this user can always change his approach to defeat the spammers. Not globally but just for himself.

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

#238

Post by wittedhaddock »

samstave wrote: post #92
wittedhaddock wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hi James, Interesting service - how did it get started? I see that you're all over the site, assuming youre "Strategy Team James"... Are you the founder of this service? Who backs the network you talk to? Would you have a data-only-text-only SIM plan? (i.e. could I have a ~$3/month SIM that ONLY allowed Text? or a $5/month plan that ONLY allowed text+SOME data? I'd like to put sims in some IoT devices - and want to f…

Hi Sam, I started a previous company (caffei.net) and during this time of selling network software that improves end user privacy, battery life, network performance, and total data used to the folks building all the apps all the people use for 2 years, I grew disgusted with how little regard they have for all of the many prepaid people in the world... for whom a sloppily set up RPC connection for some trash 30 second video ad will cost them $0.40. This is why we had that lemonde.fr teardown on HN several months back: apps stuff themselves with third parties that hog up the network and thus battery life and aren't penalized for it. So the phone company we started became a way to exact the proper practices we know we can deliver, and we know that folks would benefit from. But then we started finding a lot of people in far worse situations with their big phone company providers, paying more than $300 a month for less than 2 gigabytes of data (using less than 50mb a month) etc etc. So our morals pushed us because we couldn't find anyone else helping them! Yes, Consumer Cellular, and yes GreatCall, are supposed to be good, but in practice for about 5% of users, they are really, really bad. And yeah I'm a founder.

We use AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile networks. We also peer with a few hundred regional carriers around the world.

What is your business application and how big of a cost component are these SIM cards and how many of them would you need? Have you checked out hologram.io? They have a card built for this IIRC.

Always open to ideas! I am james@communityphone.org

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