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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

#31

Post by viraptor »

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…

> For one, making calls costs money.

It gets a lot cheaper at scale.

> And then this spoofing: isn't the solution against that technological rather than legislation?

"Spoofing" is just a name for using caller ID you shouldn't. There's no tech solution for it... unless we create a global federated registry that can be queried online, a new phone network which cares about it, and migrate every phone in the world to it. POTS will be alive longer than us.

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

#32

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

exhilaration wrote: post #13
Jaygles wrote: post #2

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

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.

I’ve found that when I get a robot call, if I type randomly on the numpad it usually gets me on the line with a real person, who’s time I’m happy to waste. I figure this is the most expensive outcome for the caller

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

#33

Post by Aardwolf »

viraptor wrote: post #31
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…

> For one, making calls costs money. It gets a lot cheaper at scale. > And then this spoofing: isn't the solution against that technological rather than legislation? "Spoofing" is just a name for using caller ID you shouldn't. There's no tech solution for it... unless we create a global federated registry that can be queried online, a new phone network which cares about it, and migrate every phone in the world to it.…

I never noticed this spoofing ability in Europe though. Can someone make a phone call and appear to have a different number (and is this about mobile or landline numbers)? If so, why isn't it being done at large scale in Europe to get around apps that block known call centers?

Why would there be no tech solution around fake caller ID? The phone company knows who it's billing for this call, doesn't it?

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

#34

Post by bvanderplaats »

awinter-py wrote: post #26

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,…

My company recently switched to MSFT Teams, and the other day I was thinking how difficult it would be to get spam through teams.

By design, only people part of our organization can communicate with each other. There (AFAIK) is no endpoint for my organizational teams account visible to other teams users outside my organization. For spam to occur, someone's account would need to be compromised (which would be found quickly) or a fake account somehow created by the org admin (which seems unlikely).

With email, the IT department is commonly spoofed, or the president, HR, etc. Most people can spot the differences, but with teams they would virtually never get any fraudulent messages.

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

#35

Post by EamonnMR »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #3
Jaygles wrote: post #2

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

You aren't getting the robot voicemails yet? I mean sure I can ignore those too - but it's that much more annoying since I now have to filter through my voicemails to see if anyone left a message that actually matters. I'd guess about 1/3 of robocallers are leaving me voicemails now. I also very recently started getting obvious phishing attempts via SMS.

This is why I just don't listen to voicemail. There is no reason to leave a voicemail, just send a text.

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

#36

Post by reaperducer »

Jaygles wrote: post #2

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

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

I don't do either, because the spam calls I get are in a language I don't speak, and my voicemail is full of messages in languages I don't speak.

I have to resort to "if it's important, someone will e-mail me or send a letter," which ten years ago used to be the biggest vector for unwanted contact.

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

#37

Post by reaperducer »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #12
Jaygles wrote: post #2

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

I havent had voicemail in over a decade. I used to fill it up myself, then later I learned you can call the company and they will disable it. I figure if it was important they would have sent a text in the first place. But I havent gotten any spam calls in over a year ever since tmobile started blocking them for me. Are the other providers not doing this?

I figure if it was important they would have sent a text in the first place.

Interesting, since my mobile hotspot gets dozens of spam text messages from Seattle-area car dealers each month.

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

#38

Post by wuunderbar »

EamonnMR wrote: post #35
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't getting the robot voicemails yet? I mean sure I can ignore those too - but it's that much more annoying since I now have to filter through my voicemails to see if anyone left a message that actually matters. I'd guess about 1/3 of robocallers are leaving me voicemails now. I also very recently started getting obvious phishing attempts via SMS.

This is why I just don't listen to voicemail. There is no reason to leave a voicemail, just send a text.

Yeah that's going to screw you over at some point, I presume.

I had the California DMV try to reach out to be about some form inconsistencies and they only contacted me by phone and voicemail. (To their credit they left me 3 voicemails through a very busy day I had.)

There was no other way they were going to contact me before letting my car registration expire.

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

#39

Post by reaperducer »

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…

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.

In a previous HN discussion, it was pointed out by people in Germany that it does exist, and is a big problem in Germany. I don't know about the rest of Europe.

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

#40

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

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…

Yep. This seems to be one of those American things like prescription drug ads on TV.
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