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Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

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Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#131

Post by Piskvorrr »

neilalexander wrote: post #87
mola wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Robocalls are the problem, Truecaller isn't the solution. Regulations against unwanted harassment is. Robocalls are not a force of nature where our only recourse is a technological solution. They are a result of a human choice, where the absolute majority of individual think it's a menace. So our recourse is legal. band-aid solutions like Truecaller cause more problems. The Truecaller product is not a usual commod…

At the end of the day, someone somewhere is granting robocallers access to the public telephone network. Hold those service providers legally responsible until they start taking action - it's not like there is no way to find out who they are.

A shell company, operating out of Vanuatu, with VoIP servers in Vietnam and Venezuela? Gl;hf.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#132

Post by Piskvorrr »

tomp wrote: post #130
Piskvorrr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In essence, this is the spam debate all over again, with some extra seasoning. (The permissions are incidental - other apps exist that are polite in this respect.) So, out comes the canned spam response: Your post advocates a ( ) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your partic…

> Lack of centrally controlling authority for email That's the key difference with phones - phone numbers and call are (quasi-)centrally controlled - by your network provider. A simple legislative solution is just "user gets $10 discount on their phone bill for each spam call" and watch the problem solve itself...

(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money

Where does the $10 come from? (Who pays it? Who collects it?) Also, you just invoked a Cobra Effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#133

Post by Uplink »

RikNieu wrote: post #23

I find TrueCaller very usefull. I used to get sooo many sales and robo-calls a day that I seriously considered just getting rid of my phone. Now they get automatically blocked or I can just put them on a profile that they ring silently and hang up immediately. I get that this can be dangerous for journalists, but shouldn't they maybe investigate alternative ways of contacting sources privately? Mobile numbers are not…

I use "Should I Answer?" for this purpose. I don't have to give them my data in order to know who's calling me most of the time. It could block calls, but I don't use that feature.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#134

Post by PeterisP »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #131
neilalexander wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, someone somewhere is granting robocallers access to the public telephone network. Hold those service providers legally responsible until they start taking action - it's not like there is no way to find out who they are.

A shell company, operating out of Vanuatu, with VoIP servers in Vietnam and Venezuela? Gl;hf.

International phone calls aren't free and unrestricted. It's quite feasible to arrange a regime where such inbound spam calls are economically unfeasible, and legally unfeasible within a regulatory regime e.g. apply large financial penalties to the originating phone company, of which there's a limited number, all are licensed, and can be prohibited from obtaining new licenses.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#135

Post by Piskvorrr »

duxup wrote: post #36
RikNieu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but for edgecases with no alternative means of contact, there could be other simple solutions. In the articles instance, Chloe could in the future register that sim, and then immediately tag it as Chloe Sullivan on TrueCaller(or whatever app they use in the country in question). Problem solved. Ta-da. There are solutions other than proposing regulations or limitations on apps that benefit waay more people than…

I'm not convinced a single fake entery defeats the system here. The app claims to stop unwanted robo callers...I'm sure those robo callers already have tried your method to look like something else.

As a user of a different app, I see how many "user reviews" are there for the caller, by the rating (good/neutral/bad). For actual robocallers, the "bad" number is overwhelming, usually with a single "good" review - the spammers would need to flood the review system.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#136

Post by tomp »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #132
tomp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lack of centrally controlling authority for email That's the key difference with phones - phone numbers and call are (quasi-)centrally controlled - by your network provider. A simple legislative solution is just "user gets $10 discount on their phone bill for each spam call" and watch the problem solve itself...

(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money Where does the $10 come from? (Who pays it? Who collects it?) Also, you just invoked a Cobra Effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

Users collect $10 from their network operator by filling a claim in an online form. Burden of proof on the network operator to prove it wasn't a spam call (e.g. originated from a known number, lasted more than some number of minutes, metadata indicates that it was a two-way conversation, etc.). Huge fines if users complain to the regulator that any of the above isn't true.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#137

Post by avaika »

enitihas wrote: post #103
abtom wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a non-user and do not wish your information to appear on the app, you can unlist your number here - https://www.truecaller.com/unlisting Though I do not agree with the method where as a non-user I need to manually opt-out of the service, it does seem to work. My number is no longer visible on the app.

I tried using the unlisting UI, but it says I need to install the app and deactivate my account before unlisting. When I install the app, it refuses to run unless I grant it all sorts of permissions. So it seems before unlisting, I need to give truecaller my data. This absolutely ridiculous.

It worked for me just from the site. I've never used the app before, never had it installed.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#138

Post by oytis »

tty2300 wrote: post #79
mikedilger wrote: post #74

It seems absurd to me to consider data about a person to belong to that person. If I learn that Chloe is a reporter for The Inquirer, what law restricts me from telling somebody else? And if there is one, what else can I not say about her? Can I mention she is a brunette? Can I tell the story about going out for coffee, or am I violating her privacy by leaking the fact that she prefers coffee to tea? To get really ri…

New technology has opened up new possibilities far beyond what your word of mouth example has. Megacorps are sucking up data on a mass scale and using it for evil such as manipulating elections, tricking you in to buying stuff and reporting your every action to the government. For this reason we need to think beyond the old ways of dealing with data.

Yes, the reality has changed. We have to either adapt our notions of privacy etc. to the new reality or pretend that nothing really changed. The latter seems to work, but one day you go to Africa (or India, or China, or just have to deal with someone who can ignore/circumvent the regulation), and - surprise! - the reality is still there.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#139

Post by CaptainZapp »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #120
CaptainZapp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a lot of problems that just show how incompetent politicians can get on a bad day Mind elaborating on them? The only potential issue, which I see, is some ambigiouty. However, I don't see how you could craft a legal frame work without some ambiguity, which needs to be resolved by the courts at one point. Unless your business model is dreck, I really don't see any issues with the GDPR as such.

Maybe I'm just naively applying my programmers sense of beauty to legal stuff, but the main problem I have is complexity. I'm OK with google having to spend some money on lawyers to work out what they can and cannot get away with, but smaller busynesses seem to be pretty lost right now. This is partly because it's a new thing and we need to wait and see how judges ultimately interpret things, which will give people s…

Maybe I'm just naively applying my programmers sense of beauty to legal stuff

I see that happening a lot. Actually, it's more trying to apply tech skills to societal issues, often without really thinking through the consequences or the bigger societal impact. Sidewalk Labs Toronto experiments provides a nice illustration of such issues.[1], [2] & [3]

One of the buzzwords that really gets my blood boiling is "Government V2.0".

Life and society is usally quite messy and attempting to optimize it very often yields rather undesirable consequences, or just outsources the externalities to other parts of society.

A simpler, more elegant solution would have been better in my opinion.

Sure, that would be nice. But I think that's extremely hard to do with crafting legal frameworks.

If tech has tought me anything in the last 20 years is that you will have people, entities and corporations just abusing the sweet bejeezus out of any loophole, which they can identify and get away with.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/08/...

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sidewalk-labs-privacy...

[3] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/cracks-appear-i...

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#140

Post by gdy »

kmlx wrote: post #115
vanderZwan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are living in a complex, mostly functioning nation state where the majority of conflicts is resolved in a civil manner. Not in a small tribal society where you might be murdered by someone physically stronger than you simply because he lusts after your partner. That simple fact proves how hyperbolic and naive your statement is.

wut? are we really comparing 21st century society with a tribal one? by that measure we've solved pretty much everything. when in reality the contrary is true: politicians are mostly career based opportunists and the inertial nature of our society pushes us to peace and prosperity.

"by that measure we've solved pretty much everything"

Yes.

And you need to appreciate this before you start breaking things. Life can go from good to bad, not to better.

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