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FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

docs.fcc.gov

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Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#61

Post by mythrwy »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #42
patrickhogan1 wrote: post #30

Something changed about 1 year ago where the spam calls I get are 10x higher than in the past. It got so bad I had to change how I use my phone. Any caller not in my contact list goes immediately to voicemail. I’ve tried several robocall blockers, but they tend to cause connectivity issues. If anyone else has this problem, what are you using to prevent robocalls?

Pixel phones are excellent at blocking spam calls. In fact I will not let my mother use any other phone despite her desperately wanting an iPhone. My SO has an iPhone and she gets at least 3-4 spam calls a day. I get probably 1 a week that gets through the filter, which you can screen with a bot anyway.

Same. I have a Pixel on Google Fi and get like one spam call every 2 weeks. And it always shows "possible spam" in big red letters.

My girlfriend on the other hand gets several a day with a Samsung on A&TT. And it's worse for her because she is a real estate agent and can't afford not to take calls.

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#62

Post by AnimalMuppet »

homeonthemtn wrote: post #58
reactordev wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shut one down, another pops up in its place.

Ok shut that one down too.

Shut that one down and jail the execs too. The number of people willing to take that chance is finite; it is more finite when the penalty is seen to be consistently applied.

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#64

Post by klipklop »

reactordev wrote: post #50
SilverElfin wrote: post #45

I get relentless text and phone spam calls - both robotic and with humans - from just a few voice over Internet platforms. Bandwidth.com, Neutral Tandem, and ALL the brands associated with Sinch ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinch_AB ) like Inteliquent. Many of these companies got cease and desist orders in the past from the FTC. It didn’t help anything. We need to see them fined, shut down, and executives jailed.

Shut one down, another pops up in its place.

Not if we actually put the people financing these companies in prison.

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#65

Post by xp84 »

bongodongobob wrote: post #53
xp84 wrote: post #38

I'll definitely believe it when I don't see those calls, but I could not be more in favor of turning the phone network into a much more "trusted" type of system -- similar to how SSL certs used to be prior to the Let's Encrypt era, where it requires some form of validation of something besides 'existence': Conceptually, someone US-based should have to cryptographically sign, with their license to continue participati…

> Conceptually, someone US-based should have to cryptographically sign, with their license to continue participating at stake, an assertion that the source phone number is real. But phone numbers aren't real . They aren't any more real than an IP address. It's arbitrary. This is how VOIP systems work. You just assign a number from your block.

I totally get this, however they are assigned -- meaning someone is responsible for them. If you own the range 212-555-0000 through 9999 and you sign calls for spammers as coming from that range, those numbers should be revoked from your control, or you should be denied the ability to sign those outbound calls/texts so that your calls appear as likely fake.

Ideally anyone who owns numbers would stop letting literally anybody do anything with their numbers (the way they do today) because they don't want to lose the numbers or to get banned from operating a PSTN-connected system.

The outcome I'm going for is that if you're a spammer you can't find any US phone number owners who will let you use their numbers so you can only send "unsigned" calls that are obviously spam, or sign calls as originating from irresponsible countries, which are easily filtered out by those of us who don't have any friends in the Phillipines or whatever (I get a lot of "DMV" threat texts from +63)

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#66

Post by schmidtleonard »

jm4 wrote: post #54
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Easy to forget that just because "we" don't fall for them, they're still incredibly harmful to our seniors and other vulnerable populations. Also hate the scam "work from home for $125,000 per year" texts. They really prey on the desperate.

Exactly. My city started posting about online safety and warnings about various scams. Unfortunately, almost every one of them also mentions how a local resident was victimized. We have a fairly large senior population. It's easy to say it's idiots who fall for this stuff when we're young enough to have grown up in this world or started using new technology at an early age. We will be the ones targeted someday and it…

Yes, although it's worth mentioning that there are scams that target our demographic, they just look different (fake investment, job, real-estate, or romance opportunities).

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#67

Post by barkerja »

lippihom wrote: post #63

Robocalls are a huge pain but just as annoying is non-stop spam text messages. No idea why Apple doesn't allow for keyword filtering. Spam and robocalls are mostly nonexistent problems on Android.

It's not perfect/ideal, but you can basically accomplish keyword filtering using a shortcut powered by a message automation. I've done something similar where during the political season I would have all incoming texts (from unknown numbers) run through an LLM to determine if it was a political message. If so, it'd get deleted immediately.

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#68

Post by rgreen »

lippihom wrote: post #63

Robocalls are a huge pain but just as annoying is non-stop spam text messages. No idea why Apple doesn't allow for keyword filtering. Spam and robocalls are mostly nonexistent problems on Android.

i've used Bouncer for years on ios with success to filter non-stop political fundraising texts.

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#69

Post by ajross »

coldpie wrote: post #9
jacobr1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many are based in the US and subject to US-based prosecution?

Why can someone from outside the US make my phone ring? Why can't I opt out of calls sourced internationally? Seems like an easy way to fix the problem. There is no reason for anyone overseas to call me, and if someone US-based does phone spamming, we can prosecute them.

An easy way to "fix" the problem for closet dwelling US nerds like us who've decided we don't want to use the telephone anymore. Everyone else in the world isn't like us, and have to actually use their phones to talk to real people everywhere. Pretty much everyone has family abroad, etc... This just isn't a serious suggestion.

Which is why this is likely to end up getting rolled back. Surely most of these providers are dominated by spam. But equally surely all of them carry some legitimate traffic (or else this particular trigger would have been pulled already).

There will be friendly fire from this policy decision, almost certainly.

Re: FCC bars providers for non-compliance with robocall protections

#70

Post by coldpie »

schmidtleonard wrote: post #57
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least without it showing up as an international number.

No, labeling is not enough, options are not enough, unattested communication needs to go silently to spam by default . Anything else encourages the spam. "We let spammers ring your phone unless you tick an option 5 menus deep in your phone that gets automatically reset every 3 months at update time and moved every 2 years between names/locations that range from awful to insane" doesn't cut it.

The beautiful thing about default-deny for internationally-sourced calls is it fixes the spam problem for everyone, including those who opt-in. If 90% of the spammers' calls are just immediately dropped, they're no longer going to get enough hits to be worth the effort, so it also protects those who actually do have a legit reason to receive international calls.
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