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Eliminating Robocalls

twilio.com

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Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#131

Post by jsjohnst »

snazz wrote: post #83
a_wild_dandan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking numbers won't deter anything, FYI. Those spam calls spoof random numbers (often using your area code). I've received a spam call from myself.

You sure it wasn’t just a single digit off from your phone number? I’ve never gotten a call from myself. Is Caller ID that insecure?

Yes, it’s that insecure. I used to freak out friends in the late 90s doing it, but sadly it’s not changed much and is just as easy as ever.

Twilio will even let you spoof “your own number” on their network for outbound calls as mentioned in the article. Yes, they at least verify the number is “yours” before doing it, but it’s not hard to get around that limitation either assuming you have access to the other person’s phone.

Networking of all times has been grossly permissive historically and a lot of it is still today. With a lax upstream bandwidth provider, I could even pretend to have your IP address quite effectively (well, I don’t know a way to get just yours, but I do know how to get yours and the adjoining few hundred next to you).

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#132

Post by tyingq »

eruci wrote: post #128
phaer wrote: post #49

I read a lot about the plague that robocalls are on international forums, especially from the U.S. But I live in central Europe, Austria, and received only two SPAM calls in my whole life, both by what seemed to be actual human agents on the other side and hear from similar amounts from friends I've asked about the phenomena. Can someone explain why it seems such hard to resolve problem elsewhere while it seems hardl…

People in the US are more likely to fall for these pitches. Maybe due to the lower average intelligence of the common dude. Just a hypothesis. This phenomenon deserves a deeper inquiry.

Oh, that's fun. Americans have a lower average intelligence than Europeans?

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#133

Post by paulie_a »

If it is an area code outside of 4-5 I block it. If it isn't in my phonebook but in that range, I check the voicemail then 99 percent of the time I block it. Sometimes I answer and mess with the caller to waste their energy and ruin their numbers.

What irritates me is the spoofing of numbers. That should be a felony and charged in criminal court. They steal real people's numbers briefly in my experience. Either arrest and throw the person calling in prison or blacklist that Carrier.

And fine the carrier you use for allowing it to even happen.

EDIT: on a side note you are not able to block Texas and Florida. I could block those two entire states without worries and I'd receive a lot less calls.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#134

Post by r00fus »

gonehome wrote: post #56
godzillabrennus wrote: post #52

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice nu…

I used Google voice for years while Google let it languish in relative obscurity. Eventually after I realized it was silently dropping group messages because they were MMS and Google never worked on supporting MMS (images were dropped too back then) I left it for iOS and iMessage. Getting dropped from group chats meant people thought you were ignoring them and you'd miss invitations. Google had a huge lead with voice…

I hand out my actual mobile# to friends/family.

I give out my GV# (I use call-screening) to everyone (esp. businesses) and put it on my gmail .sig.

I get almost no spam calls at all.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#135

Post by aero142 »

StudentStuff wrote: post #2

Getting STIR & SHAKEN implemented so we have proper trust of the caller ID is going to be a massive undertaking for the industry as a whole. T-Mobile and Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case). STIR/SHAKEN also can break call forwarding, as a fo…

Does my phone know if the caller ID is STIR/SHAKEN certified? I can already send numbers that are not in my caller ID to my voicemail directly. I would love to be able to do this for the unverified callerId numbers. Maybe if enough people did it, the phone companies would have to add it to prevent their calls from hitting the trash bin.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#136

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #52

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice nu…

Weird, I have a number on Google Voice and it is also the number I give out to businesses and post publicly (any people I don't personally know). The robocalls on that number have become so bad in the past year that I gave up and just turned it off so it won't ever ring through to my phone anymore. Which actually is fine, for how I'm using it, as I just go in and check it every now and then (and have email notifications turned on).

It seems like this is a problem that needs to be cut down at the source of the calls, not necessarily at the filtering stage on the receiving end. Aren't most of these robo-callers likely using the same providers/APIs?

I know Twilio doesn't explicitly allow robocallers on their platform, but it's hard to believe that a lot of them are not using Twilio or companies like it to automate their spam anyway. It seems this problem arose when automated / APIs connected to the telephone system were made, like Twilio, not way back when Bell was split up.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#137

Post by vitaflo »

hartator wrote: post #40

I disagree with the solution. A simple App that send to voicemail numbers not in my contacts will be far than enough. And it won’t require to change the whole infrastructure!

You can already do this in iOS. Set your phone on Do Not Disturb and then in the iOS settings tell it to allow numbers in your contact list to get through even when DND is on.

I've done this for years and never get robocalls.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#138

Post by TuringNYC »

Abundnce10 wrote: post #25

All I really want to do is allow calls through to my phone that are stored in my contacts. If they're not in my contacts, I'd prefer not to be notified and have it sent to voicemail.

Im tempted to do this...but always worry...what if it is from a school (child is hurt) or from a hospital (someone is sick) or for any urgent need?

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#139

Post by UncleEntity »

gonehome wrote: post #28
rhacker wrote: post #20

I'm waaay past trusting that network. I tell companies to text or email me. And texting is also starting to get spammed out. Right now, I can't even use apps like Hiya that implement prefix blocking. My method right now is to forward ALL calls to a google voice number, and those are transcribed or what-have-you. If you don't leave a message, I don't care about you. We need a signal, at the highest of levels to basica…

Yes - a contact whitelist is all I want from iOS with two features: a button to temporarily allow all calls for 30min (for Uber/door dash) and the option to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within 2min of the first. All other calls should go to voicemail by default. The way Apple allows you to interact with CallKit makes this hard to implement because a blacklist of numbers is requir…

> and the option to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within 2min of the first.

They have (had? still on 10.3 which it claims is up to date) that option under the "Repeated Calls" clicky box -- allow calls if they call back within 3 minutes.

Had to turn even that off since the spammers got smart and were getting through.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#140

Post by tdfx »

hyperjeff wrote: post #35
gonehome wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - a contact whitelist is all I want from iOS with two features: a button to temporarily allow all calls for 30min (for Uber/door dash) and the option to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within 2min of the first. All other calls should go to voicemail by default. The way Apple allows you to interact with CallKit makes this hard to implement because a blacklist of numbers is requir…

Isn't this exact feature available via Do Not Disturb? I have DND on 24/7, and you can quickly turn it off for Lyft/etc if needed. If you make groups within your contacts you can even hone the whitelist and can fairly quickly mod it.

DND does not direct calls to voicemail, it just keeps your phone silent and doesn't ring/vibrate while the incoming call screen is showing. I've still accidentally answered calls while in DND mode. Sometimes I just want to turn phone calls off entirely and use my phone like it's an iPod touch with a data SIM card.
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