Won't it be dead? Isn't it super easy to pull the caller's location out of jurisdiction of this law?
Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
101–110 of 148 posts
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there are privacy regulations that prevent the phone company from deanonymizing a caller without a warrant. Or at least that’s the excuse I’ve heard cited before.
If you are on the do not call list a warrant SHOULD be easy to get though.
Through what agency? My local police just give you a pamphlet on avoiding phone scams. And nothing that I've seen has come from my diligent reporting to the FCC. I doubt the FBI is going to give me the time of day.
I just don't answer unknown numbers in my phone anymore.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#103HN is funny. Most of the time we fight for anonymity, security and privacy yet here were are, demanding spoof-proof caller ID.
Spoofed Caller ID is a lie, not anonymity. Here's a proposal: 1) Caller may choose to hide/suppress their Caller ID, 2) mandatory option for phone carriers to allow Callee to completely block calls (no ring, no voicemail) that don't carry Caller ID, 3) When present Caller ID must be accurate. The above allows anonymity but disallows deceit. It also provides opt-out for people not to receive anonymous calls. (Anonymit…
Note on above: there are legitimate reasons for businesses to set Caller ID to something other than the call origin. But the "something other" should be selected from a set under the control of the business, not a free for all. I.e., a desk phone with DID may show as the main company number, etc.
This takes a little more work to account for, but it shouldn't be a roadblock.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#104HN is funny. Most of the time we fight for anonymity, security and privacy yet here were are, demanding spoof-proof caller ID.
I think you'll find many people are not in favor of universal anonymity, and most people are in favor of strong guarantees of identity. They are separate issues and useful in different cases.
There's anonymity, fraud, and strong guarantees of identity. I'm fine with 1 and 3. There's no reason for the phone company to have a knowingly spoofable caller ID system when it's already being used so heavily for 2.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you really wanted to find out you could just ask the phone company, they know the real number/identity of the person calling you, or at the very least a layer deeper than caller ID. It's not like caller ID spoofing makes you anonymous.
Most robocalls come from VOIP addresses outside the US, which can be created/rotated just like spam email addresses.
Then ban the VOIP providers. Maybe they'll adjust their policies accordingly.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
White male landowners don't fall for political ads? It's weird how many political ads talk about farming when that group is immune to them!
Landowners in general would be a good place to start, people who are smart enough to contribute to society and have a vested interest in the country succeeding.
Every citizen has an interest in the country succeeding. I rent because I live in a densely populated area with high land prices. Does this mean I'm not contributing to society or would be ok if the country failed?
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most robocalls come from VOIP addresses outside the US, which can be created/rotated just like spam email addresses.
Then ban the VOIP providers. Maybe they'll adjust their policies accordingly.
This is essentially how email works, right?
Legitimate companies who deal with mass email on behalf of their clients (such as MailChimp.com) are very careful to prevent abuse, precisely because of the risk of getting blocked (which would sink them, of course).
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Telemarketing is specifically about marketing via phone calls. The phrase you want is "online marketing", although that is a bit longer. Almost all of the discussion in the comments thread here is about phone calls.
So is Wikipedia's definition "Telemarketing is defined as contacting, qualifying, and canvassing prospective customers using telecommunications devices such as telephone, fax, and internet" wrong? Or is it just misleadingly general?
Yeah, that definition is wrong, as evidenced by the confusion in this comment thread. I can't find a dictionary definition that matches what Wikipedia says. Every dictionary I checked [1] [2] [3] [4] specifies that telemarketing is marketing via the phone. Telemarketing is telephone marketing.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/telemarketing
[2] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/telemark...
[3] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/telemarketing
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should at least require that a human initiates and terminates every single call.
What does that mean, exactly? Does the human have to whistle the DTMF frequencies into a handset to initiate the call, or can they use a machine that generates those tones when buttons are pressed? Can a machine automatically press the buttons? If so, how is that different from what is allowed today?
Some big wigs in Hollywood have locked down 99% of our devices so that we can't copy their HD video. I'm pretty sure most of us realize that actually limiting calls to only humans is strictly impossible, but what about getting it to about 99% human with some offenders that we can sue in court.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#110The only practical way to enforce this is to fine the telecom carriers that let the overseas junk calls onto their networks in the first place.
Speaking of which, it would be great to have a 'no foreign origination' inbound policy. That would require VOIP providers to step up, and that seems like a very complex problem.
At this point, I consider telephone communication to be almost a complete loss. We need an entirely new system.