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Let’s Destroy Robocalls

nytimes.com

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Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#71

Post by guitarbill »

michaelt wrote: post #31
guitarbill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd still miss out, like with the surgeon's example of a patient calling. It doesn't need a technological solution at all. In the UK and Germany, there were some calls, but it was rare, not even once a month. Do-not-call lists are enforced, and e.g. the ICO can fine directors of companies, not just the companies. Reporting nuisance calls can be done on a website, immediately. Then again, in the US, everything requi…

The UK system is good, but there are still robocalls and scam calls occasionally. If you can make your scam calls from a foreign telephone network with spoofed caller ID, or your scam is good enough you can profitably do it from prepaid anonymous SIMs, regulators claim they're powerless.

Agree, there's still room for blocking tech. Blocking calls from outside the country is simpler though.

I still think privacy laws are more effective. The only time I've had really bad robocalls was when I transferred a domain. Now, ICANN are muppets and wilfully ignore GDPR et al. Okay, so WHOIS "protection", right? But insultingly, transferring domains doesn't work with WHOIS protection, and you need to supply a real number.

(Oh well, at least in the UK I can still buy pre-paid SIM cards with only cash in every major supermarket chain.)

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#72

Post by acdha »

gonehome wrote: post #3

What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Is there a law against this or something? Nomorobo, Robokiller, Hiya all do an okay job as blacklisting applications but that seems like the wrong way to go about it. Some suggest using do not disturb to do…

> What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped.

Now you missed the reminder from your dentist, a call from that relative whose new number you forgot to save, and you have 600 recruiters and other stale business contacts in your address book because you wanted to hear from them but you're still getting spam calls because the spammers were smart enough to start spoofing numbers like the local utility companies for your area code.

There are many technical fixes which sound good until you think about what an adversary with a profit margin would do to work around them. What will work is fixing the underlying telephone system so Caller ID / ANI are reliable enough to use for filtering and law enforcement. The major telephone companies didn't want to spend the money last time, and they profit from all of these calls now, but if it became a regulatory requirement that would change.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#73

Post by degenerate »

darksaints wrote: post #51
aarongray wrote: post #26

Lots of feel good ideas in the post, but no actual good ideas. Back when Congress created the Do Not Call Registry, and then forced law abiding companies to pay $10,000 for it, they pretty much just compiled an amazing list of active phone numbers that non-law abiding companies could acquire for a pretty good price and then sell them in batches to smaller companies that couldn't afford the full thing. Once virtual ph…

I have a really tough time comprehending why it is such a difficult problem to solve. The FCC could have solved it by now, independently of congressional legislation, considering the fact that they regulate the issuance of phone numbers. Those overseas companies still have to get their US phone numbers from an FCC regulated body. What am I missing?

What you are missing is, the people abusing the phone number are typically not the owners. For example you can get a phone number from Twilio for $1/mo, and spam people from it. Just like you can upload a copyrighted song to YouTube, or download an MP3 from your ISP-provided internet. Owning the "platform" puts some responsibility on you, but it's not expected that you can stop ALL bad activity in its tracks.

What can be done though, is monitoring for massive calling patterns at the PSTN level, but big telcos are not interested/incentivized in stopping Robocalls because it generates a lot of $$ when the calls travel over the legacy phone network.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#74

Post by rtkwe »

imgabe wrote: post #32

Is this generating a lot of revenue for the service providers? I think it must be or they wouldn't allow it to go on. Surely if one provider marketed themselves as blocking robocalls, they would get a large influx of business. IIRC one of the main selling points of gmail when it started was that it had a much better spam filter than other services at the time.

Phone companies are required to connect all phone calls in the US. So they can't really do anything about it. Spam callers can go to any disreputable carrier and all other carriers have to connect their calls.

There was actually a really weird phone scam going back a while that was just making calls that tried to keep people on the line as long as possible to make money off of the interconnect fees companies can charge each other.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/251

https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/104-case-phantom-calle...

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#75

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #3

What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Is there a law against this or something? Nomorobo, Robokiller, Hiya all do an okay job as blacklisting applications but that seems like the wrong way to go about it. Some suggest using do not disturb to do…

[deleted]

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#76

Post by autotune »

cletus wrote: post #62

So robocalls are the result of: - Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero - Cost of automation going to basically zero - Phone calls that can come from the Internet so there are no national boundaries anymore - Caller ID operating on essentially the honor system - Bad actors (telephone companies) benefitting from this traffic by charging for it - Larger players having no incentive to punish bad actors There'…

iPhone at least has the option for a contacts only whitelist, I only get notifications from contacts and everything else gets ignored. No point in even considering answering a call from someone I don’t know, if it’s truly important they can leave a message and I respond asap.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#77

Post by city41 »

cletus wrote: post #62

So robocalls are the result of: - Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero - Cost of automation going to basically zero - Phone calls that can come from the Internet so there are no national boundaries anymore - Caller ID operating on essentially the honor system - Bad actors (telephone companies) benefitting from this traffic by charging for it - Larger players having no incentive to punish bad actors There'…

I probably make two or three phone calls a year. And that’s just to companies behind the times not offering chat support. I think it’s high time we just deprecate phones altogether. It’s pretty crazy I use a 10 digit number to identify myself. ICQ did that and it was considered archaic.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#78

Post by rtkwe »

uberman wrote: post #47

What I don't quite understand is, how can the NSA and/or other three letter agencies reliably collect meta data on calls and how can the telcos reliably charge for calls and services, yet we are unable to stop robocalling...

Legally carriers are required to connect all calls in the US. That provision is pretty important but leaves the system open to abuse. I hope we can find a way to block out robocalls without allowing the phone system to balkanize.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/251

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#79

Post by plushpuffin »

wlesieutre wrote: post #12
gonehome wrote: post #3

What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Is there a law against this or something? Nomorobo, Robokiller, Hiya all do an okay job as blacklisting applications but that seems like the wrong way to go about it. Some suggest using do not disturb to do…

Voicemails are still annoying, I have a red alert badge on the home screen and have to go in, check that it's not real, and delete it. Would love to be able to junk filter incoming voicemail based on the transcript. Anything with "card services calling about your credit card account" or "qualify for a medical grade back or knee brace" goes straight to trash. Of course that only works for a few months until scammers a…

I downloaded an app that automates the process of disabling voicemail entirely. I don't need it. Anyone whose call I miss can just send me a text or email.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.teltech.nov...

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#80

Post by mrguyorama »

WorldMaker wrote: post #64
gonehome wrote: post #3

What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Is there a law against this or something? Nomorobo, Robokiller, Hiya all do an okay job as blacklisting applications but that seems like the wrong way to go about it. Some suggest using do not disturb to do…

I've been saying for a while that Phone UX on our handheld computers is an amazing mistake. There's no other application on any computing device that we allow to be an uneasily dismissable, focus stealing modal with sound alarms in 2019. Sure, phone calls have historical weight behind them, but it is past time to rethink the UX for current usage.

If you want to see how good UX can be on a mobile device, download Microsoft Remote Desktop for android and remote into a Microsoft Windows Server instance. I just want that experience, though preferably with a Linux system, that happens to have a "phone" application.

Did anyone ever make a "desktop" phone?

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