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FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

docs.fcc.gov

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Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#171

Post by nine_k »

mehrdadn wrote: post #145

Can someone explain what this will translate into in terms of the end-user experience? For one thing, authentication will be next to useless (at least to me) if my phone is still going to ring. So does that mean it's not going to ring for a spoofed number? Also, if it results in tons of voicemail then that's still going to be quite annoying. (How) is the actual end-user experience going to be addressed?

Fraud becomes harder because unauthorized impersonation of someone else's number becomes illegal and is (hopefully) technically prevented.

Because of this, you can just blacklist spammers again, and burner numbers for them become harder to come by.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#172

Post by macintux »

p2t2p wrote: post #132
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling with the decision of whether to automatically block anyone not in my contact list and leave a message in my voicemail explaining why. Don't want to be unfriendly, but it's only getting more ridiculous.

> Don't want to be unfriendly Given my experience with robocall and stuff, I _do_ want to be unfriendly. I hate to guts that a lot of people assume that they can interrupt you at any given moment. One guy called me when I was driving and wasn't having any of that, kept on complaining that I didn't pick up. My current plan right now is to have a landline number from my internet provider (that's SIP essentially). Whene…

I’ve been paying for Vonage for 10-15 years now so I can keep my old landline phone number active to give out to businesses. Haven’t had a phone hooked up to it for nearly all that time. Voicemail + transcription works great.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#173

Post by user5994461 »

closeparen wrote: post #24
ilamont wrote: post #6

Kind of curious why it took so long. Spoofed calls for fraud, swatting, etc. have been around for at least ten years.

Why it took so long to get all the participants in a federated network to adopt a new protocol? If that were easy we would have solved email spam too, 20 years ago.

and indeed gmail has fixed email spam for almost 20 years.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#174

Post by StavrosK »

pkaye wrote: post #168
StavrosK wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Greece, I think it's EU-wide. When you tell a spammer you're registered in our do-not-call registry, they get scared pretty quickly and swear they'll never call again. They usually don't.

Do the spammers speak greek or english?

Greek, why would they speak English? They're usually phone companies offering discounts.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#175

Post by manigandham »

mulmen wrote: post #3

Does this mean I can start answering my phone again? Are there other vectors for spam calling which are not addressed by this solution?

Yea, you still probably don't know what that number is. This just prevents spoofing, not the calls themselves.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#176

Post by mehrdadn »

II2II wrote: post #165
mehrdadn wrote: post #145

Can someone explain what this will translate into in terms of the end-user experience? For one thing, authentication will be next to useless (at least to me) if my phone is still going to ring. So does that mean it's not going to ring for a spoofed number? Also, if it results in tons of voicemail then that's still going to be quite annoying. (How) is the actual end-user experience going to be addressed?

Presumably it would reduce the amount of fraud. While it may not deter legal nuisance calls, that should make the phone a more reliable communications medium. That's especially true for businesses and government since, with the current state of affairs, it isn't even worth verifying that an incoming call is legitimate. Not to mention that spoofed numbers make targeted attacks possible.

Off-topic, but your sentence made me realize a useful difference between "lawful" and "legal". I first read "legal" as "relating to matters of law" rather than "lawful", and then realized you meant the latter. Now I see why the word "lawful" might be used!

Regarding your actual reply, though, that basically means we shouldn't really hold our breaths for this to actually stop calls? :\ Just less fraud, which is nice, but from the only thing that makes these calls such a nuisance.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#177

Post by ableal »

ugh123 wrote: post #166

I didn't see anything in there about penalties for carriers not enforcing this. Also willing to bet they beg for extensions claiming they're not ready - or too costly to implement.

Good point. I suspect carriers tolerate scammers because they're good for the bottom line.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#178

Post by II2II »

koheripbal wrote: post #116
mumblemumble wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-driver's state ID works for everything you'd use a driver's license for except operating a motor vehicle. Even though people typically say, "Driver's license" when they really mean either kind of state-issued ID card.

Isn't a driver's license nearly as easy to renew as a non-driving state ID? I don't see the point, even if you only need to rent a car on rare instances.

There are people who choose not to drive. If you have never had a license, there is nothing to renew. Then there are people who do not qualify for a driver's license (e.g. medical reasons).

Heck, I've lived most of my (middle-aged) life without ID and probably haven't used it in the past three years.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#179

Post by mehrdadn »

yellow_lead wrote: post #170
mehrdadn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that means phones will still ring (unless you have a Pixel or something)? That will still drive people crazy!

Some carriers may have the ability to limit calls to customers based on attestation level. Customer could configure they only want to receive i.e "A" attested calls. This means the carrier from where the call originated knows that the customer who made the call owns the number they dialed from.

Right, but I guess I'm asking, are plans for this in the works? Because currently I'm not aware of anything like this, nor of any plans to implement anything like this. None of the announcements suggest it might be happening either, so that's why I'm lost as to what the end-user experience would be.

Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

#180

Post by derefr »

manigandham wrote: post #175
mulmen wrote: post #3

Does this mean I can start answering my phone again? Are there other vectors for spam calling which are not addressed by this solution?

Yea, you still probably don't know what that number is. This just prevents spoofing, not the calls themselves.

As long as there's no spoofing, shared client-side software-level blacklists (i.e. the same "adblocking" we do elsewhere) can handle the rest.

It would solve 99% of the problem just to be able to block all the calls that either 1. originate directly in other countries, or 2. that originate from number-ranges leased to carriers known to exist solely for the purpose of leasing numbers to VoIP/softphone/"app calling" providers; or 3. that originate from numbers that refer to the PBXes of companies whose business is to proxy foreign numbers to appear as local numbers. (Heck, once there's no more spoofing, we'll notice how big of a problem those are, and we'll probably get a law against them.)

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