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Let’s Destroy Robocalls

nytimes.com

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Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#91

Post by dfxm12 »

acdha wrote: post #72
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…

Now you missed the reminder from your dentist, a call from that relative whose new number you forgot to save

These are the types of people who leave voicemails. Robocallers are not...

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#92

Post by jliptzin »

petters wrote: post #81
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'…

> Why I can't get this is beyond me. The first setting in my default Android phone app is to block unknown callers. What specifically do you want?

Is that just blocking calls with unknown caller ID or calls that are not in your contacts list?

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#93

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

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'…

The only reason that matters here is bad actors.

What kind of lack of compassion do you have to have to participate in an organisation that generates something universally hated.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#94

Post by GordonS »

guitarbill wrote: post #17
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…

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…

I'm in the UK, and while it's true that almost all calls from within the UK have ceased, I still periodically get a lot from outside of the UK. Usually they seem to be from India, and are pulling a tech support scam, claiming to be from Microsoft, my ISP, BT etc

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#95

Post by tobib »

petters wrote: post #81
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'…

> Why I can't get this is beyond me. The first setting in my default Android phone app is to block unknown callers. What specifically do you want?

Phone numbers are being spoofed so while you might block the majority of those calls you won't be able to block all of them. The problem has to be solved upstream.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#96

Post by Spooky23 »

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?

Why would the Verizon/AT&T lawyers running the FCC want do things that cost the telcos money?

It's not like these are long-term government employees, they are taking big paycuts in anticipation of getting private sector gigs later.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#98

Post by tobib »

DenisM wrote: post #50
tbrock wrote: post #11

Our company actually has a really good view into where robocalls are coming from and what they are doing because we own a tremendous amount of phone numbers in the US (100s of thousands - millions at peak). We can basically see when this is happening and a robo-caller is targeting an area code, zip code, state, etc... When we get called from a number we don't know we used to simply reject the call. Now, as of this we…

Make a firehose and sell it to {Google|Apple} so that they can use it to increase value of their phones to consumers.

The phone numbers are spoofed so this would probably do more harm than good.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#99

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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'…

It would be nice if someone would create a device to exchange contact info with businesses to close the loop on managing the whitelist for new, infrequent associations. I should be able to go to a receptionist, mechanic, or contractor and accept identifying info from a Bluetooth device or a standardized non-URL QR code payload to let them contact me in the future. Then we could more conveniently manage authentication ourselves and cut the bad actors out of the process.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#100

Post by moate »

petters wrote: post #81
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'…

> Why I can't get this is beyond me. The first setting in my default Android phone app is to block unknown callers. What specifically do you want?

That's a blacklist, "Don't accept calls from X". A white list would be "only accept calls from Y". That's what GP seems to be asking for.
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