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Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

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Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#41

Post by davidajackson »

jeremyw wrote: post #26

I built a whitelisting phone system for my aging dad with Twilio, an OBi200 VoIP adapter, and gcloud for transcribing untrusted calls sent to voicemail. (US specific) If you think the aggressive IRS and Sheriff scams are bad -- you've committed a crime only $100 _right now_ will solve! -- the shakedowns targeting enfeebled senior citizens are truly sinister. Which is to say, people who care for seniors (children of,…

Good to hear, it's sad to see grandparents/parents get scammed. I've had a few senior citizens getting these types of scams use CallStop to protect their cell and landline. It feels good to be helping them.

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#42

Post by davidajackson »

hedora wrote: post #16

I like the idea of having a pin. I wonder if overloading the “extension” field in existing address books would be reasonably ergonomic. Eg: (555) 876-5309 ext 1337 Or similar syntax should work with legacy systems to share your phone number (and maybe autodial the pin).

The format for autodialing with CallStop is ",2,". The commas are pauses. You can store these in Apple contacts for example if you want to try dialing a number, pausing, and then pressing a tone.

Here's what the PIN email invites look like, which use this system:

David Jackson has scheduled a call with you. To join, tap here: 11111111111,2,73827

Call start: Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 7:00:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

Call end: Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 8:00:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

You will be able to call David Jackson starting 5 minutes before the scheduled time and until 5 minutes after. You can continue talking after the scheduled end time, but you can only call David Jackson during this window of time.

If you're unable to join via the link above, call 1111111111, wait for the prompt and then press 2, and enter the PIN 73827. Your call will then be forwarded to David Jackson.

Organizer notes: None.

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#43

Post by tehlike »

jeremyw wrote: post #26

I built a whitelisting phone system for my aging dad with Twilio, an OBi200 VoIP adapter, and gcloud for transcribing untrusted calls sent to voicemail. (US specific) If you think the aggressive IRS and Sheriff scams are bad -- you've committed a crime only $100 _right now_ will solve! -- the shakedowns targeting enfeebled senior citizens are truly sinister. Which is to say, people who care for seniors (children of,…

Android/google got better with this past few years...

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#44

Post by procombo »

martin_a wrote: post #24

People! You really need to get into politics or whatever and fix those things from a legal side! You really need to stop inventing services and starting businesses for the most simple things in life! edit: Don't get me wrong, I love the spirit, but there are _real_ problems to tackle and you are still working on stopping telephone spam? It's 2020, nobody should even think about things like that...

Creating a whitelist service for yourself literally only takes a couple hours studying Twilio docs. Hardly a huge waste of time, and when you get 2 spam calls every morning before 8 am for weeks it's completely worth it.

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#45

Post by procombo »

qorrect wrote: post #29
martin_a wrote: post #24

People! You really need to get into politics or whatever and fix those things from a legal side! You really need to stop inventing services and starting businesses for the most simple things in life! edit: Don't get me wrong, I love the spirit, but there are _real_ problems to tackle and you are still working on stopping telephone spam? It's 2020, nobody should even think about things like that...

What should we be thinking about ?

Apparently we are all supposed to become lawyers. ;)

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#46

Post by VentureCurious »

davidajackson wrote: post #39
nlh wrote: post #7

Congrats on launching! One security-related question: I had looked into this area previously as a user and a security-conscious friend pointed out that systems that use call forwarding to stop the spam problem are a HUGE security risk. You’re effectively man-in-the-middling all mobile calls, SMS, etc, and if there’s some sort of compromise (or, much less likely, malicious act) on your end, all of us users will be in…

This is definitely a big concern and I have thought a lot about it. Storing data like whitelists, whitelist requests, etc. on the device instead of server is probably going to be the best way to minimize potential issues around privacy. One way to do that is to locally store the whitelist and to route the call to the device and then have the device reject the call if not in the whitelist. But it’s slightly more compl…

A bloom filter of my contact’s phone numbers that is updated on my device and checked on the server could be a good privacy approach. A small number of false positives (robo calls getting through) would be acceptable if the device still filters or presents the option to accept.

PINs could also be a bloom filter on the server, then the device filters on whether the specific PIN entered was single use or has been revoked.

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#47

Post by scarejunba »

martin_a wrote: post #24

People! You really need to get into politics or whatever and fix those things from a legal side! You really need to stop inventing services and starting businesses for the most simple things in life! edit: Don't get me wrong, I love the spirit, but there are _real_ problems to tackle and you are still working on stopping telephone spam? It's 2020, nobody should even think about things like that...

Nah, this is exactly wrong. What you're describing is the hard way to solve small problems. There's really no personal value in doing that.

As for me I just use Google Fi and an Android and it blocks these for me.

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#48

Post by ascar »

The problem I have with a whitlisting approach is, what if it's actually some legitimate and damn important call? When my father was in the hospital close to death I got informed by phone from an unknown number. You get these calls hopefully only a few times in your lifetime, but I definitely don't want to miss them.

What's your approach for these cases?

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#49

Post by craftyguy »

ascar wrote: post #48

The problem I have with a whitlisting approach is, what if it's actually some legitimate and damn important call? When my father was in the hospital close to death I got informed by phone from an unknown number. You get these calls hopefully only a few times in your lifetime, but I definitely don't want to miss them. What's your approach for these cases?

> What's your approach for these cases?

If it's important enough, the caller will leave a voicemail.

Re: Show HN: CallStop – Superhuman for your phone number

#50

Post by davidajackson »

bawolff wrote: post #34

Interesting. I kind of wish there was like an audio captcha app. If the number isnt in your contacts, voice comes on asking them to type some random 4 digit number. Well it is of course anarms race, almost all my call spam is recordings so i think itd be effective.

A few people have mentioned they'd like this service, where a random digit/puzzle is presented. I decided to focus on people who wanted the most extreme call blocking service but would like to come back to this later.
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