Robokiller is an amazing app that has dropped by robocalls to almost zero. It's paid but well worth it imo
Let’s Destroy Robocalls
211–220 of 286 posts
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since caller id was implemented so poorly: https://www.onsip.com/blog/how-caller-id-works-why-it-might-... Maybe it would be nice if we had something kind of like a CAPTCHA, where an app on your phone would say "please dial and say your name to complete your call" and the person would have to dial it and say who they are to talk to you. Totally knee-jerk idea I realize, but I literally get 10 SCAM LIKELY calls for ev…
say your name to complete your call" and the person would have to dial it and say who they are to talk to you. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this. My in-laws have this feature on their landline from their local telco. Completely annoying, but I don't want to talk to them anyway.
My mother has this feature (in UK). The first time you call, it will send you to the voicemail and ask you to state who you are. Then she gets a notification and can listen to the message. If she phones you back, the number you are calling from is whitelisted. I think she can press something else to blacklist you, otherwise you stay in the grey zone and will always go to the voicemail. I think she has had a couple of people not leave a message several times and eventually blocked them where she would have been completely happy to speak to them if she only knew who they were..
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#213So 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 nightmare case for whitelisting is an emergency call from or on behalf of your spouse or child using a stranger's phone. This is why I don't want a whitelist. What I want is for spammers specifically to be identifiable and blockable, or for their business to be made prohibitively expensive. I didn't get spam calls on my cell phone 15 years ago, and as you say, what has changed is largely economics. Why can't we w…
I only answer calls from contacts, i ran into this scenario a few weeks ago, my wife lost her phone and wanted to contact me to locate it with "find my iphone" she just text me from her coworker's phone, no problem at all.
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Doctor's office calling to confirm your appointment; restaurant confirming a seat reservation; delivery guy is outside and can't find your doorbell; Lyft/Uber/whatever is nearby and is looking for you; pharmacy calling to inform about a prescription being ready; some store calling to inform that your order is ready to be picked up; insurance company calling about some claim; etc. The problem is phone number that is…
That sounds like a huge hassle, which would probably make it a no-go.
It's actually a longstanding part of phone culture - "extension xxx". It doesn't need to be terribly long to keep out spam - having to enter a single digit would fix the immediate problem, and even when the spammers adapted 3 or 4 still seem sufficient.
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#215I loathe Ajit Pai as much as anyone but the FCC and Telcos have been fairly swift (by the glacial standards of telecom standards) in coming up with a fix for forged CallerID known as SHAKEN/STIR.
It's still about a year from being deployed, and it's unclear how legacy landlines will be covered, given Nortel's been bankrupt for a decade and Lucent (know Nokia) has been out of the switch business for at least as long (an aunt of mine used to work on the 5ESS software until she was laid off about 15 years ago. She's now a realtor and makes far better money, so I guess nothing lost).
They're doing this out of not-so-enlightened self-interest. Voice is still a huge part of telco revenue and they can see people abandoning voice outright if the last year's trend of 75+% of all calls being spam continues. Millennials have already adopted social standards of phone calls being considered intrusive and rude.
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Doctor's office calling to confirm your appointment; restaurant confirming a seat reservation; delivery guy is outside and can't find your doorbell; Lyft/Uber/whatever is nearby and is looking for you; pharmacy calling to inform about a prescription being ready; some store calling to inform that your order is ready to be picked up; insurance company calling about some claim; etc. The problem is phone number that is…
That sounds like a huge hassle, which would probably make it a no-go.
QR codes are widely used in China for example for quick transactions: https://a16z.com/2017/08/11/qr-codes-in-china/
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
...until and unless the phone number is spoofed. Then the blacklist is getting onto the whitelist.
Technically you're right, but what are the chances that a bad actor is going to spoof one of the phone numbers in your contact list. I mean, the odds of them hitting that are so close to zero I don't even want to think about it.
It depends on the phone, but I'm pretty sure there are still devices where "Unknown number" /= "Number not in my contact list".
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#218So 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'…
That sounds plausible, but then why are robocalls not a problem in Europe?
I have two EU numbers and have never gotten a robocall on either of them. I have never heard of anyone getting a robocall in Europe, and while that might just be anecdata I think I would have heard something after two decades, especially in privacy-minded Germany.
When I get off the plane in San Francisco and activate my American SIM card, I usually have my first robocall before I get my first beer. And my mother gets so many on her land line, she always screens her calls.
What is Europe doing right here that America is doing wrong?
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
That only works until the receptionist, mechanic, contractor, business can no longer be trusted. I took my cat in for an oil change over the weekend. That resulted in three spam texts and two spam e-mails from VCA. Time to change vets.
How often do you need to change the oil on a cat? Every 10K Meow-les?
And to be on topic, you'd need a trusted 3rd party to manage those. But lately we've seen you can't trust them to secure / not resell your data anyway.
Re: Let’s Destroy Robocalls
#220So 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'…
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