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

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

#421

Post by pbhjpbhj »

salawat wrote: post #377
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even just giving origin information would help, if the local end of the interconnect ensured calls show the international dial-code as a minimum then that would help; instead we get (in UK) international calls (India, primarily) with caller ID showing a local number (sometimes your own number, I think) ... the interconnect certainly shouldn't be facilitating that.

That's easier said than done. SS7 its the primarily utilized protocol stack nowadays. The PTSN (Public Telephone Switching Network) and the Internet have been combined for a while now. The problematic part of SS7 is it allows for setting arbitrary unauthenticated origination info in the rough equivalent of a "From" field in the initiation process. There are attempts ongoing to attempt to implement a "Web of Trust" la…

It was my understanding that in PSTN at country-level boundaries the operators choose to forward calls, and do billing and such recording: at that point they decide whether to put the call to the local country network or not. If the call has meta-data as if its come from the local country then they could drop the call request, but they establish the voice call [because call senders pay more than call receivers, presumably].

Is that incorrect?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_System_No._7

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

#422

Post by beenBoutIT »

omarhaneef wrote: post #34
beenBoutIT wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Kevin Bacon wanted to start a pirate radio station he could just set up shop and get away with it now?

Do you mean Christian Slater? Or did I forget a sub-plot in Footloose?

I did mean Christian Slater. Although after being blown away by Bacon's performance in White Water Summer I can't help but wonder how much darker Pump Up the Volume would be with Bacon cast as the lead.

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

#423

Post by dredmorbius »

smabie wrote: post #396
dredmorbius wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because abuse by a very few destroys trust in and value of the system to all: [S]ince mid-2015, a consortium of engineers from phone carriers and others in the telecom industry have worked on a way to [stop call-spoofing], worried that spam phone calls could eventually endanger the whole system. “We’re getting to the point where nobody trusts the phone network,” says Jim McEachern, principal technologist at the Allia…

That’s not a bad answer (“things that undermine trust in systems are bad”) but when generalized, can lead to undesirable results. For example using your axiom, undermining trust in a corrupt and harmful system would also be bad. Like for instance, speaking out against a repressive government regime.

Thank you.

Trust is one element. Common weal, the sense of acting in the common good, is the more critical element.

Trust here is a mechanism, rather than and end goal itself. Through the undermining of trust in a system for the public benefit, the common good is harmed.

Your counterexample becomes far less difficult when phrased equivalently:

Through the undermining of trust within a system opposed to the public benefit, the common good is increased.

TL;DR: you've confused ends and means.

Though generally, common good is extremely reliant on a strong social trust fabric.

(As to the question of whether or not "common good" / "common weal" is an appropriate goal value of a system, that's another discussion. I've elected to adopt for now the general idea that it is, but there are varying points of view on this point, and cases in which there is no globally beneficial outcome. Most especially where some are disadvantaged such that others, any, might survive. See also: "lifeboat ethics".)

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

#424

Post by dredmorbius »

madiathomas wrote: post #415
dredmorbius wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've opted out of PSTN entirely, for the past few years.

That's my goal too.

If you don't mind my asking, why?

I've identified a few possibly concerns:

- Privacy.

- Avoiding distraction.

- Cost.

Others?

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

#425

Post by dredmorbius »

smabie wrote: post #397
codeplea wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what's the moral justification for making this illegal? The robocalls I receive are all using fake caller IDs. At that point, it's fraud, isn't it? I wouldn't mind robocallers if they used a real caller ID. If that were the case, I could just block them and be done with it.

Misrepresentation is a commonly agreed upon morally bad thing (i.e lying). But spoofing is an issue seperate and apart from robo-calls, even if the correlation between the two is very high. So we still need to figure out what, exactly , is morally bad about being robo-called. And the answer can’t be related to spoofing, do not call lists, or whatever, as these are not related to the essence of what defines a unsolici…

Small-scale spoofing, a/k/a pseudonymous / anonymous whistleblowing or commentary, can be useful, and has a very well-established tradition.

The goal of, effectively, all robocalls is fraud or value-extraction from the system. It works only because of the scale possible.

Small-scale operators (unless hugely and widely distributed) don't exhibit these characteristics. A fundamental problem of robocalls is the scale of operation itself.

Scale matters.

Countermeasures which disrupt at-scale operation whilst protecting small-scale activities are net beneficial.

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

#426

Post by righteous »

jjeaff wrote: post #382
onetimeusename wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are slow to act because it is unclear whether it is justified in the law for them to block what they believe is spam or if a customer wants to receive a call. Section 202 of Telecommunications Act details that telecoms cannot discriminate connections so they have been unwilling to block spam if it can lead to breaking the law[1]. The FCC has been trying to change that by rolling out new guidance on what can defi…

They don't have to block anything. Just make sure that any caller id number is validated and registered to the company making calls. I shouldn't be receiving calls from local numbers that are actually Indian call centers threatening that the police are on their way unless I pay my IRS bill with iTunes gift cards. Services like twilio avoid this easily by simply requiring me to purchase the callback number or at least…

It could even be simpler than that.

We simply require each outbound phone call deposit $1 in escrow. After 60 days, if there’s no claims the money is returned.

Whenever someone gets a spam call, they can *69 it to mark as spam. That escrow dólar is then split between the consumer and the carrier.

Consumers who are heavily spammed are incentivized to report it.

We just need to make spam calling unprofitable to solve the issue.

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

#427

Post by cwkoss »

bduerst wrote: post #419
cwkoss wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more complex as the Clinton campaign colluded with the media to deliberately elevate Trump as part of their "pied piper strategy" to promote candidates they perceived as easy-to-beat. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/1120/251 Pretty depressing to consider that a portion of donations to the HRC campaign in 2015 were spent promoting Trump.

Hillary Clinton is currently not the president, and those surrounding her campaign are not currently in prison for fraud. Please stop deflecting to conspiracies that are not relevant.

Did you read the linked document? It is an internal document from HRC's campaign.

If you're analyzing why Trump won, knowing that her campaign intentionally elevated his campaign is certainly relevant.

I hope our country can take off the hyperpartisan tribalist blinders and address the reality of why Trump won so we don't end up with another 4 years of him.

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

#428

Post by dredmorbius »

smittywerben wrote: post #393
dredmorbius wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 com…

That's impressive how POP servers communicated across the Internet backbone considering some websites were long distance. I get to read about Erlang now. Carrier-grade NAT in regards to ip addresses reminds me of my grandparents had a shared phone-line for their neighborhood. It's funny you mentioned BBS, I think that's what I was initially unclear about. That answers many of my questions, ty for the time.

Clarifying: dialing the PoP was generally lpcal.

The backbone connectiin was TCP/IP, not PSTN. There are no distance charges, only bandwidth, generally at 95%ile peak "burstable" billing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burstable_billing

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

#430

Post by madiathomas »

dredmorbius wrote: post #424
madiathomas wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my goal too.

If you don't mind my asking, why? I've identified a few possibly concerns: - Privacy. - Avoiding distraction. - Cost. Others?

To avoid distraction. Majority of calls I received from landline numbers, are from robocalls.
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