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Let’s Destroy Robocalls

nytimes.com

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Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#191

Post by kabdib »

guelo wrote: post #108
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…

That's bullshit. Telcos can stop it on a dime but they don't because they profit from it. We just need regulation with teeth. Your attitude that only "innovation" can save us and we should get rid of regulators is what led us to where we are now.

Verizon has my cell phone in some kind of trial for a new service that's supposed to filter out robocalls.

They'll want to charge me for it soon, I'm sure. I'm betting that as soon as the trial is up (one that I never asked for, btw) that the number of bogus calls will skyrocket, and I'll be forced to whitelist.

My response will be letters to the FCC [nothing will happen] and the FTC [nothing will happen]. Companies and powerfully-placed individuals make a lot of money from these calls. I don't know how difficult the ESS-level work is for call filtering, but fixing the landscape of corrupt practices is a LOT harder.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#192

Post by onemoresoop »

guelo wrote: post #108
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…

That's bullshit. Telcos can stop it on a dime but they don't because they profit from it. We just need regulation with teeth. Your attitude that only "innovation" can save us and we should get rid of regulators is what led us to where we are now.

Thats right. Innovation lead to this. With more innovation from telcos, we'll get a "Now! from $9.99 a month we'll block all robocalls."

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#193

Post by tracker1 »

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'm pretty sure there are already apps for Android that can do what you are asking. I use google voice, which tends to block most of the crap.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#195

Post by knodi123 »

cfallin wrote: post #84

One solution, not practical for most folks but works well for me: live in a different area code than phone number. (My cell number is in the area code I grew up in.) It seems most spam calls either fake a source number that's in my phone's area code, or use a completely random source. Almost any inbound call I actually expect without an address-book entry would come from my (new) local area code, so I can pick up a c…

This approach works so well that I installed a CallBlocker app which just pre-rejects any calls from my native area code out of hand. I check its logs every now and then, so far not a single false positive.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#196

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#197

Post by albeebe1 »

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…

You're going to quickly find that the robocallers (that don't spoof their number) only use numbers for a very short period of time before moving onto another number. Then you'll have legitimate numbers that you've never seen before all of a sudden start blasting out calls such as school delay/cancellation calls and community crime/amber alerts.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#198

Post by lordnacho »

No, the solution is technological and close at hand:

An obnoxious voice synthesizer that takes the agent on a long and fruitless journey.

The people who do robocalls are only using the robot to get you into a conversation. At that stage -at least when I've been called- a human takes over and tries to talk you into whatever it is they're selling.

If you eat up the person's time with GPT-2 generated BS that's voice synthesized, the operator wastes his time.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#199

Post by logfromblammo »

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…

Patient calls surgeon's professional number, and their office switchboard forwards it to the surgeon from the "Incoming Patient Call" number, which is whitelisted in the surgeon's phone.

Why would a patient be dialing their doctor directly, anyway? Any reason I can think of would still allow for the physician to whitelist that person in their contact list. Most of the time, the doc would probably want the call recorded and transcribed for the medical records, and also billed to the patient's insurance as a patient consultation. A direct call couldn't do that without an app to help out.

All of the "business" contacts in my phone are for the main dial-in number for a company. I don't need to dial direct to Joe the mechanic or Trudy in accounts receivable or Jean-Pierre on the help desk. The business's automated switchboard can enforce business hours and vacations, and still connect me to whomever I need to speak to for that call. And if an employee needs to contact me, they don't even need to know my phone number. They can speed dial the company employee outbound number and punch in my work ticket number, and be connected automatically, from the company number. The identity authority is delegated to the individual business, instead of the proven-untrustworthy phone company.

It isn't that difficult for a business to set up their own call-management server these days.

Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls

#200

Post by SheinhardtWigCo »

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…

From your company's website:

> Our simple web and mobile apps allow your team to text 1000+ people an hour. Your contacts see a normal SMS from a local number.

Does that mean you would appear on your own live map of attacks?

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