For those who don't live in the US, this entertaining video by John Oliver might give some context:
FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
21–30 of 352 posts
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#22Sounds like a good first step to solve the problem of how the legacy telecoms systems were designed in a world of trusted peers federating. End result of course being spoofed caller ID spam.
Unless I'm missing something though, these measures don't do anything to address the gaping security hole in mobile networks around roaming interconnects. That seems to still be a pretty good way to do SMS and call interception, which are increasingly valuable as phones become the de-facto 2FA channel for access to banking, cryptocurrency services and more.
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#23Does this mean I can start answering my phone again? Are there other vectors for spam calling which are not addressed by this solution?
Seems like the scammers may already be using smaller service providers which means you have at least two more years of not answering your phone. I like voicemail, if its important they'll leave a message.
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#24Kind 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.
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#25Kind of curious why it took so long. Spoofed calls for fraud, swatting, etc. have been around for at least ten years.
The problem had gotten worse due to easily available tools used to automate the calls.
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#26Earlier 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.
Recent versions of Android have an option to automatically screen callers who are not in your contact list. The caller gets a robot asking them why they're calling, and you can view the transcript of their response in real time and decide whether or not to answer.
I thought that was Pixel only option - I'll have to dig in and see if it's available on a Samsung.
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#27Kind of curious why it took so long. Spoofed calls for fraud, swatting, etc. have been around for at least ten years.
Only in recent years has the FCC been inundated with complaints about it. Seems like there was a tipping point in volume the last couple of years
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#28Is this going to impact PBX systems that use ANI Information Elements to route calls and provide caller information to customer service applications, etc? Spoofing is kind of at the heart of those things.
ANIs will still get "spoofed" as there are many legitimate use cases, but you have to "have permission" to use the number you're spoofing, meaning either you own the number or your underlying service provider owns it on your behalf. The legitimate use case is basically: I am placing this outbound call over VOIP or a different phone line, but I want this ANI to show up on the callee's phone, so when they call back the…
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Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#29Earlier 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.
Recent versions of Android have an option to automatically screen callers who are not in your contact list. The caller gets a robot asking them why they're calling, and you can view the transcript of their response in real time and decide whether or not to answer.
As I recall this was a Google Voice feature as well.
My mobile carrier puts "scam likely" on calls that its algorithms have determined are likely spam, I wish there was an android option to just not ring the phone if that was the caller ID name.
Re: FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]
#30Will this also prevent spoofed text messages?
I have never received a spoofed SMS message so I already thought this was impossible.