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Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

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Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#91
Good on them!

> and one in five (22%) experiencing a fraud attempt every single week

That seems low. I guess they mean phone calls only.

I get -no exaggeration- several hundred spam mails a day (and these are the ones that made it past the first line defense). I also get 10 or more scam texts.

Some of the phising emails that I get, are frighteningly realistic (but invariably seem to have at least one speling eror in them).

If folks live in a normal suburban development, they are highly unlikely to get several hundred crooks, knocking on their door, every day, but being on the Internet, means exactly that.

The crooks only need to land you once, you have to have a perfect record, avoiding them.

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#93
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe when you first receive a text you see: This message is from an unknown number. (Accept / Block / Charge sender $1)

Well, that just invokes we-had-a-baby-its-a-boy

They had a baby.

It’s a boy!

That said - perhaps harder to change the name that shows up as quickly as you could leave a recorded name? :)

Still one of the best ads ever made.

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#94
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then, once the spammers have blacklisted the Daisy numbers, cycle those spam-free numbers to their customers and start a new batch of Daisy numbers. This way, there is a constant flow of spammer free numbers being cycled into the pool. Of course, everyone and their dog wants your phone number, so you will have to be careful who you give it to if you want it to stay spam-free.

> Then, once the spammers have blacklisted the Daisy numbers, cycle those spam-free numbers to their customers and start a new batch of Daisy numbers. This is actually genius. The spammers will have blacklisted all of their targets eventually.

Until they catch on and un-blacklist the numbers periodically.

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#96
post #57
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then suddenly, calls from consenting callers to consenting receivers are labeled as spam and blocked. What can you do about it? Nothing. Switch to email, I guess. Oh wait, same problem.

reductio ad absurdum: we're back to Pony Express

I called out email because email actually has this problem. It's not reductio ad absurdum if it's true.

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#97
post #13

This is cool when some independent hacker / artist does it as "Lemmy". When a big telecom does it, the second thing they do with it is to fuck up the spam detection so bad that every third phone call I make gets answered by "Daisy". And just think about it - why would a telecom need this tech? They can already drop the spam calls and stop routing calls from the bad actor telecoms who enable the spammers. They don't d…

If every third call you make goes to Daisy you are using shit data and are likely part of the problem. Are you absolutely sure they are fucking up the spam detection, or are you just doing all of your cold calling with blinders on?

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#98

If you use a VoIP service like Twilio and voip.ms, you can set up a very simple IVR menu that just asks unknown callers to press 1 to be connected to you. No AI involved. For me, this has been surprisingly effective against robocalls. Obviously this isn’t going to work against scammers who call directly, but most of the spam calls I receive start with some pre-recorded message which isn’t going to pass the menu. Edit…

Its kind of funny to think we've already had many of these services that were apparently really ahead of their time. I remember being an outside sales rep for a local mom and pop wireless company in the late 90's, early aughts. We sold an automated "assistant" called Wildfire that would screen calls and stood as an intermediary between you can callers. She would answer, you would record your name and then it would ca…

I seem to vaguely recall this Wildfire brand name....Because when i first got google voice, it was really half of an acquired company...which if remember correctly was a competitor to wildfire, no? Like grandcentral or something? Anyway, yeah, when i first got google voicemail, this feature was really impressive! But, of course eventually learned that this tyoe of thing already existed in some corners :-)

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#99
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have already sorted the world between people you want to take calls from and people you don't, why wouldn't you just block the people you don't want instead of charging them money?

Because there's a middle ground of people who we have not yet categorized. I don't know every phone number my doctor might call me from.

My doctor, bank, eh well everyone, will text or email me if they cannot reach me. I haven't answered a number I don't recognize for the past 10 years; life is excellent.

Re: Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

#100
post #89

This reminds me of “shadow banning” - instead of letting the misbehaving user know they’ve been banned, and let them find a way around it, you make them believe they’re not banned and let them waste their time interacting with the system (without actually interacting with others), this makes them spend less time on actual misuse and it makes the penalty for it more expensive. Good strategy. Cruel too. So I don’t thin…

No doubt it has been misused at some point or another, but shadow banning in the context of online communities is generally a last-resort defense against the very worst and most prolific trolls. Not someone who accidentally breaks forum etiquette one time.

A person who is shadow banned generally continues their antisocial behavior in the face of multiple warnings and reprimands. I don't see it as cruel. I see it as defending the community against those who get pleasure out of trying to wreck it. It's effective because the bannee is generally too dim to realize what has happened to them until they get bored and go away.

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