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Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

reportphonespam.org

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Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#131

Post by green-salt »

underseacables wrote: post #74

Why can't we reverse the flow? A phone number that is spam, what if we throw it right back at them? Especially text spam. A lot of times it's not even a phone number, and that's just wrong. But if it is a phone number, it would be nice to put that into a website and have that phone number up voted by other people who have gotten spam. If it reaches a certain vote total, then it can be confirmed as a spam number, and…

Unfortunately most of the source numbers are spoofed, and this would cause collateral damage to any legit users of those numbers.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#132

Post by BLKNSLVR »

flerchin wrote: post #126
TeMPOraL wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s when I realized we’ll never win. The spammers have won. It's tough, but it's not helpful that people don't know the face of the enemy. The fight isn't with just some stereotypical "spammers". Advertisers and marketing departments are spammers, and they've destroyed phone as a medium, much like they did it to physical mail, radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, and now streaming and the Web in general. We won't make…

Nah. We're talking about spam texts and phone calls. That stuff isn't legal. Yeah what everyone else does is creepy af, and _should be illegal_, but that's not the facts on the ground today.

The creepy af stuff being legal is one of the cracks that the illegal stuff uses to leak through.

Those cracks need to be sealed, but there's enough creepy af industry lobbying that it won't happen because money.

There's money in them thar retirement villages.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#133

Post by dylan604 »

drdaeman wrote: post #114
jimmydddd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the posted page that the telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now. I suspect they are somehow making money from the spam callers.

> telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now I'm not so sure about this. No one (except for, obviously, spammers) benefits from email spam, every mailhost and network admin is most certainly interested in stopping it (to some extent), and yet my mailbox can prove that spam is still very much alive. Solving spam problems in a highly distributed large federation…

When you consider that most of this stuff originates from places outside of jurisdictions of any place that would ever consider doing something about it, you realize that legislation is worth much less than the paper it's never printed on.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#134

Post by demosthanos »

aimor wrote: post #81

I've been reporting spam calls and texts to the FCC for a few years now. Does it do anything? I don't know, certainly not immediately, and the problem persists. I tried the method spelled out here for my latest batch of "Your USPS package has arrived" texts, but the phone numbers (example: +63 936 631 6676) just give an "invalid number" response. Not unexpected. Every official channel seems to be failing us on this o…

I've had some luck with reporting phishing domains to their registrars. It doesn't always work, but I have gotten a few taken down that way.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#135

Post by case »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #64
mullingitover wrote: post #25

I wish we could euthanize this garbage, antiquated phone system. It shouldn't be expected/required that every adult has a phone number when the system is so irredeemably broken and dangerous. If the web didn't have HTTPS, it would be illegal to conduct sensitive business over it. Yet we're stuck with this entrenched telephone system, the best we can do is STIR/SHAKEN, and that's not real security.

100%. My son got sick at school last week and I ignored the call from the school nurse because I have been so thoroughly conditioned by daily scam calls to ignore any unrecognized number. It’s insane that this is still a problem.

Did the school at least leave a legit voicemail? (Curious)

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#136

Post by mynameisvlad »

batch12 wrote: post #119
jimmydddd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the posted page that the telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now. I suspect they are somehow making money from the spam callers.

A few questions (in good faith) for discussion: - How do you feel about the telcoms reading/filtering your texts? - Where do you feel these controls would be most appropriately applied? Sender or recipient or both? - How would you define SMS spam for filtering? Should the messages be manually reviewed or automatically filtered based on volume/content? - Should recipient telcoms filter potentially malicious or spammy…

Texts are not encrypted anyway, your telecom can already read and filter your texts, and there’s been several instances of it happening.

Eg: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/17aqv1z/tmobile_li...

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#137

Post by usui »

TrueGeek wrote: post #86
dboreham wrote: post #23

My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone.

I had someone call Friday night. I sent it to voice mail and they immediately hung up and called back. It happed again and I sent it to voice mail again. On the third call in under a minute I thought something must be wrong and maybe this was a friend of a friend in trouble. I answered and they said “Are you interested in selling your house at 1234….” I hung up, mad at myself for falling for it, and at them for being…

Apple might be more incentivized to deal with spam using their communication rails more than a typical SMS provider. It might be worth at least marking this as spam in Messages.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#138

Post by lakpan »

tinus_hn wrote: post #76
mullingitover wrote: post #25

I wish we could euthanize this garbage, antiquated phone system. It shouldn't be expected/required that every adult has a phone number when the system is so irredeemably broken and dangerous. If the web didn't have HTTPS, it would be illegal to conduct sensitive business over it. Yet we're stuck with this entrenched telephone system, the best we can do is STIR/SHAKEN, and that's not real security.

You can rest assured that the phone company 100% securely knows who to bill for the call. They just aren’t telling you.

In America’s “receiver pays their part” system I wouldn’t be too sure. In the rest of the world, the caller/texter pays 100% of the charge, but in the US you’re charged per text and minutes received.

Once you add a “free call” entity on the other side (like Google Voice) then no one is charged to make the call.

Additionally, plenty of people “sell” their real number and there are android apps routing internet call through the victim’s real number. In this case, even if the person is charged, it’s not necessarily the spammer.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#139

Post by a_wild_dandan »

"People still use phones?"

For my social circle, phones have become fax machines -- archaic tech that you forget exists until required for some abnormal situation. My pocket computer's "phone" reference feels quaint, like those floppy disk icons on save buttons; except disk drives aren't so persistently, actively detrimental to my day that I must disable them.

So now, all unknown callers are automatically ignored. If it's important, they'll submit a proof-of-work voicemail. Otherwise, modern apps work perfectly for everyone, and the vestigial phone system can remain in the graveyard where it belongs, thank you very much.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#140

Post by kulshan »

dboreham wrote: post #23

My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone.

Send all unknown numbers (not in contact list) direct to voicemail...easy peasy. 99% spam calls don't leave voicemail and visual voicemail lets me delete and block quick. Very minimal intrusion into my device and time.

Couldn't imagine taking the steps in this post to try and block a number that's probably already been replaced with a new one by the time it takes for anything to be done.

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