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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

#61

Post by wrs »

davidajackson wrote: post #53
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?

Most people don't answer unknown calls anymore. They're likely to miss these life/death calls right now. That's why the PIN feature is better for most people--you can give a 5 digit PIN to loved ones. You may be an exception if you answer every call--I won't answer any call from an unknown number, and most young people don't answer unknown calls anymore. Seniors tend to answer more, but that's because they are more u…

Until this service becomes so popular that the robocallers start deliberately working around it, I think you may only need a 1-digit PIN. I've had a service from the phone company on my landline for decades that just makes an unknown caller dial a 1 before my phone will ring, and it continues to nearly eliminate spam calls. So the 1-digit PIN can just be a "1".

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

#62

Post by winrid »

VentureCurious wrote: post #46
davidajackson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 revok…

I'd just use the bloom filter a pre reqs to doing an actual query.

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

#65

Post by pavel_lishin »

I want something different.

I want a Lenny, but that I don't have to conference in. That step is failure prone, takes time, and usually doesn't work -by the time Lenny is on the line, the spammer has long fucked off.

I want a "bot" that spews nonsense - but sufficiently plausible nonsense to keep spammers on the line - that I can activate with a single button click, at any point during a phone conversation with anyone. Either by reaching out to a remote server, or by running it locally on my phone.

When a human being reaches my phone, I want to be able to keep them from reaching others, for at least some time.

( Lenny: https://toao.net/595-lenny )

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

#67

Post by davidajackson »

winrid wrote: post #63

So it's like a shared and community driven (but automatic) blacklist? Do numbers ever need to get whitelisted?

CallStop uses whitelists that each person manages. When an unknown caller calls you, they hear, "You have reached a phone number protected by CallStop. If you know this person, press 1 to send a whitelist request with a quick note. If you have a PIN to reach this person directly, press 2 and enter the PIN." Your contacts are your default whitelist to begin.

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

#68

Post by davidajackson »

Shank wrote: post #66

Does it work with Google Voice forwarding? I tested it by calling my Google Voice number, but it looks like it doesn't.

You can protect any number (cell, landline, google voice number) by forwarding that number to your CallStop number. As long as you can forward the number to CallStop, you can screen calls in this fashion. If you're intending to route incoming calls from your CallStop number to another number, let me know and I can try to add that option into the app. Also my email is david@callstop.com if I can help any further.

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

#69

Post by davidajackson »

wrs wrote: post #61
davidajackson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't answer unknown calls anymore. They're likely to miss these life/death calls right now. That's why the PIN feature is better for most people--you can give a 5 digit PIN to loved ones. You may be an exception if you answer every call--I won't answer any call from an unknown number, and most young people don't answer unknown calls anymore. Seniors tend to answer more, but that's because they are more u…

Until this service becomes so popular that the robocallers start deliberately working around it, I think you may only need a 1-digit PIN. I've had a service from the phone company on my landline for decades that just makes an unknown caller dial a 1 before my phone will ring, and it continues to nearly eliminate spam calls. So the 1-digit PIN can just be a "1".

Randomized "Enter X to be connected" with 0-9 is a feature several people have requested. I agree that you can probably cut most with just that.

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

#70

Post by offtotheraces »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #65

I want something different. I want a Lenny, but that I don't have to conference in. That step is failure prone, takes time, and usually doesn't work -by the time Lenny is on the line, the spammer has long fucked off. I want a "bot" that spews nonsense - but sufficiently plausible nonsense to keep spammers on the line - that I can activate with a single button click, at any point during a phone conversation with anyon…

Check out the Robokiller app - their answerbots do exactly what you described.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/robokiller-block-spam-calls/id...

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