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Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

wsj.com

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Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#21

Post by thrower123 »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #19
exhilaration wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always answer the call and then joyfully "block/report spam" the number in the Android dialer. Being able to do something to fight back is satisfying enough that I don't ignore the call. I did just switch to T-Mobile and they pass "SCAM LIKELY" as the caller name so I may start declining those.

the block button doesn’t do anything since most of the phone numbers are spoofed (someone pretending to be someone else). Filtering out any number that shares my area code and first three digits and not in my phone book would go a long way to getting rid of spam.

I get more calls these days that are callbacks because the spammers have spoofed my number than I get actual incoming robocalls these days.

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#22

Post by alkonaut »

Jaygles wrote: post #2

I've just stopped answering my phone altogether. If something is important enough the person calling should leave a voicemail.

So you get notified you have a few new voicemails and you need to take time checking them, and presumably robocalls leave robo-voicemail, and now each robocall ended up costing you more time than they would if you just hung up?

(If robocallers don’t leave voicemail...why?)

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#23

Post by e2le »

Perhaps allowing people to call via a static IPv6 address routed to their phone would resolve the issue with spoofing. A single range would be reserved for VOIP services such as 2002::/16 and subscribers would be allocated addresses that could be shortened and made to look to like traditional phone numbers.

I feel like any other solution adds yet more complexity and I would argue the only thing that should be necessary to make calls is an internet connection.

Some VOIP applications already accept calling via IPv4/IPv6 addresses.

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#24

Post by daemonk »

I wonder if it is possible to forward robocalls to another service that will attempt to keep the robocaller busy as long as possible. It would be great if everyone can just answer the robocalls and press a button to forward to a time-waster service. Hopefully, every busy robocall is one less call to another person.

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#25

Post by Aardwolf »

This problem doesn't appear to exist at that scale (there exist some spammy call centers of course, and apps to block them...) in Europe.

Not sure if that is legislation, technology or culture/economy related, and whether it's an active solution or it just passively works out.

But what stops the US from doing whatever it Europe is doing to not have tons of robocalls?

For one, making calls costs money. How can robocallers actually do multiple calls at the same time at a reasonable price in the first place? And then this spoofing: isn't the solution against that technological rather than legislation?

EDIT: A thing that gave me the impression the problem is much bigger in the US than Europe, is that the first time I heard about robocalling was in a Simpson's episode from 1996. So autodialers seem to exist for a very long time already in the US, but in Europe they're not really being used (that I know of. If they were used at large scale, I'd have noticed I guess?)

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#26

Post by awinter-py »

having a phone number will go the way of the landline

same with email addresses -- this is some combination of your identity and a license to spam you

spam protection is the main feature of gmail because email wasn't designed with fraud in mind -- an email system rebuilt from the ground up for 2019 would be safe for medical information, receipts, not be the giant password reset security hole that email currently is, and not allow randos to spam you

every new product designed in this century needs prevent fraud by design (including spam)

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#27

Post by woobar »

alkonaut wrote: post #22
Jaygles wrote: post #2

I've just stopped answering my phone altogether. If something is important enough the person calling should leave a voicemail.

So you get notified you have a few new voicemails and you need to take time checking them, and presumably robocalls leave robo-voicemail, and now each robocall ended up costing you more time than they would if you just hung up? (If robocallers don’t leave voicemail...why?)

Both my VM providers transcribe voice mail into text. Glancing at a transcript to identify spam takes a second. More important I am not interrupted by calls and could check them at the time most convenient to me.

Re: Washington’s new anti-robocall law won’t stop the calls

#29

Post by cavanasm »

Aardwolf wrote: post #25

This problem doesn't appear to exist at that scale (there exist some spammy call centers of course, and apps to block them...) in Europe. Not sure if that is legislation, technology or culture/economy related, and whether it's an active solution or it just passively works out. But what stops the US from doing whatever it Europe is doing to not have tons of robocalls? For one, making calls costs money. How can robocal…

The legislation also pushes providers to implement the technology. The incentives aren't quite aligned for phone companies to stop spoofing on their own initiative. They're still making money on these calls.
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