The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790 • Hacker News Board

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#151

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

smittywerben wrote: post #28

sg47 wrote: post #10

Can we try robocalling them to collect the remaining?

Makes me wonder how long distance rates are charged in the first place. A little OT but did we used to call websites?

In dialup, you (or your modem) would dial a POP server, or point-of-presence. That was a modem bank on one side, and Internet backbone link on the other, generally as a local call. The website was reached via the POP, but you could reach any website anywhere on the public Internet without having to dial up each individually.

More specifically, PSTN is a public, switched, telecommunications network, in which each communication occurs over a direct, and until recently physical, circuit. The "switches" refer to how those circuits are set up and broken down. By contrast the Internet is packet routed; each data packet is routed across the network by the best available route. Users don't have dedicated circuits (though there are dedicated addresses), but rather data from multiple communications is commingled on common transmission channels.

There were BBSes which you'd call directly (the job board DICE ws initially a BBS), but BBS != website. Similar in ways to today's SPAs though.

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1704/point-of-presence...

https://networkencyclopedia.com/point-of-presence-pop/

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#152

Post by tasssko » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

Frustrated UK user here. I hardly ever answer my phone anymore it just isn’t worth it. We get hounded by insurance, PPI, investment scams, trading scams, there is a new one going around now for windows. I don’t even answer my mobile any more just in the habit of checking voicemail and my reception catches dozens of calls a day. We have a virtual reception that charges by the call they answer and sometimes these add up to over £100/ month. Vodafone block outright scams now I basically get a call try to answer and it gets cancelled. Vodafone sent me a text regarding it. My landline is off just a voicemail box now. The telcos are dead if this continues, whatsapp, facetime, facebook, ios and android messenger, slack, hangouts, MSTeams, Wechat are how I communicate now. Is that a sign of things to come?

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#153

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #23

chooseaname wrote: post #13

Stop allowing spoofed numbers. Period. I'm sorry BigCorp, but this is a public nuisance and trumps your "need" for a single phone number.

As someone with a heavy background, it would break a fair bit of the PSTN - while moves are in place to change the technical limitations of the PSTN that prevent this kind of verification, they're not complete yet, and will take several more years to implement fully.

PSTN is likely dead soon regardless at present rates. My guess is within 5 years though that may be slightly optimistic.

More from defections to other (more spam-averse) technologies. Remaining, if it can still compete with cable, as a data backhaul.

Slightly more fleshed out here:

https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102357651020681668

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#154

Post by mattkrause » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #70

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there was a guy in the UK who set up a premium number after getting sick of cold sales calls. All companies get his 10p/minute number as contact (he gets 7p of that). Only friends and family get the real underlying number. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462

I like the idea, but it doesn't solve the problem of when your real number makes it onto call lists. But I do like the idea of giving out a 1-900 number to people. It would certainly get some interesting reactions, depending on context.

Is there even a list? I had assumed they were just umm...enumerating all the numbers.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#155

Post by runeb » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:46 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #88

Semaphor wrote: post #68

I have a question, why are robocalls such a problem in the U.S.A.? As far as I know, they aren’t in Germany (or if they are, not on that level, I never got one).

There are a lot of people living outside the USA who can speak English. Both legitimate and fraudulent English-language call centers are easier to set up internationally than German-language call centers. The robo part of the call can obviously be automated from anywhere but there are actual humans pretending to be from "Apple Support" when a target responds. That raises another question: are other Anglosphere countr…

I get some of it in Norway. English speaking call centers running scams. A lot of it comes from foreign numbers though, so it is easy enough to at least ignore.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#156

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:46 PM UTC

dangero wrote: post #149

dredmorbius wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business opportunity.

I agree there’s a business here, but will walled gardens let the solution work optimally? Apple locks down their phone and messaging apis so that nobody can use them.

Basically: selling the ability for a company to make phone calls from numerous systems all of which appear to originate at a single, designated, known, and generally callee-approved, number.

Needn't be a walled garden.

Though migrations from PSTN to various alternatives is also fairly likely. Much of the present "social media" / apps space is actually probably a jostling for supremacy / positioning in this regard.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#157

Post by stevespang » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:49 PM UTC

There should be legal requirements that all the details of these scumbags be published and available for all to see, their Soc. security no's (which cannot be changed), their photos, the DL's, they should be able to be hunted down and dealt with . . .

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#158

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

nobodyandproud wrote: post #26

nobodyandproud wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a market-based problem rather than a policy problem: The problem is the low cost of making calls. Make calls cost money and the problem will naturally go away.

Already three down-votes, but not a single explanation or repudiation as to why this particular problem isn’t solved more easily by markets.

Markets actually create the conflicts of interest which cause this situation to exist in the first place.

By way of indirect response, Bernard J. Stern's "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937):

https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag...

In Markdown: https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#159

Post by nzealand » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

kiernanmcgowan wrote: post #98

tamalpais wrote: post #27

I enabled the Silence Unknown Callers feature [0] in iOS and haven’t answered a spam call since. The downside is that it sends every call from unknown numbers to voicemail, including legitimate ones. It’s a worthwhile trade-off. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

The majority of spam calls come from the same area code as my phone number, but its not the area code that I live in. I'd love this feature to be area code specific - it would give the granularity I need to block spam but allow for unknown numbers from where I now live.

Number Shield on iOS will allow you to block all calls beginning in an area code, but lets through any numbers in your contact list.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#160

Post by tempsolution » Sat, Nov 09, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

Calling is broken. I wished Apple would just add an option "Block all calls unless their number is in contacts". It's ridiculous that this option is only available in Do Not Disturb. It's like Apple was trying to somehow profit from robo-callers.

It's time to put calls into the grave. The next step needs to be something like we have for websites. You need to get a personal SSL certificate to call and it will be bound to your identity. Then whenever you call, a random certificate will be generated to authenticate yourself to the callee. The callee will verify that the anonymous root certificate of the caller wasn't revoked. And then either block the call or let it through.

Robocallers would simply get their root certificate revoked and would be unable to carry out ANY other call in the name of that company until they paid the imposed fines and re-imbursed their victims for the lost time and annoyance. People creating these companies would lose the ability to obtain another certificate for another company until the previous charges are resolved.

This is just a momentary brain dump, but essentially all problems in our society revolve around a lack of accountability. We have the technology to anonymously impose accountability in everything digital. Let's start using it!