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A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

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Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#221

Post by singpolyma3 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #220
singpolyma3 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost certainly not spoofed. They just own a phone number on your local exchange.

No they don't. I've called back, a couple of times, and got some guy named Bob, getting all confused. "Whaddaya mean I just called you?". Hmm...you seem very interested in redirecting this train of conversation. Why?

I'm very interested in knowing the actual current state of affairs WRT spoofing and a lot of people make claims without evidence which makes it hard to find out. I thank you for providing your evidence here because it does sound like some carriers are still not enforcing. Which is obviously a problem.

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#222

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #221
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. I've called back, a couple of times, and got some guy named Bob, getting all confused. "Whaddaya mean I just called you?". Hmm...you seem very interested in redirecting this train of conversation. Why?

I'm very interested in knowing the actual current state of affairs WRT spoofing and a lot of people make claims without evidence which makes it hard to find out. I thank you for providing your evidence here because it does sound like some carriers are still not enforcing. Which is obviously a problem.

I think it’s a mix. If the CID has someone’s name, then it’s almost certainly spoofed, but sometimes, it just has a town name, and that might be what you mean.

There was this telco, in Upstate New York, that was infamous for being a firehose of scam/spam robocalls. I think they may have been shut down, though, because I haven’t seen their numbers in the CID for a couple of years.

I would suggest that carriers are limited in what they can do. Crooks be crooks, and many of them are very clever. They usually figure out how to weasel past the guard dogs.

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#223

Post by lmz »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #20
jameshart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: for my part I would like it to be the case that any phone line that can dial or message my phone can be traced back to a known human being who can be held accountable for abuse of that phone line in terms of generating spam, abuse or harassment. Seems that we can’t both get what we want. A potential solution is that you get your anonymous phone line but my phone provider simply refuses to let you call m…

I would like any message that is spam to be able to be traced back to the offending human. I would like anonymous political posts to be untraceable by the government. I can't even get all of what I want.

One man's anonymous posts are another man's foreign influence operation.

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#224

Post by mschuster91 »

simoncion wrote: post #198
mschuster91 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not believe for even a second that Telecoms Grade switching equipment is unable to do the same. The example should rather have been some telecom carrier in Africa or India. Telco equipment is expensive, the technology is ridiculously complex and getting companies especially in less well-off regions to replace aging stuff and updating it to modern standards is next to impossible. Think about it, the globally co…

> Telco equipment is expensive... Sure, agreed. > ...the technology is ridiculously complex... Odd. I could have sworn that Caller ID, Customer-initiated Dialback, "Tell me the number of my most recent caller", and "Keep calling this number for the next half hour, and ring me if the call is answered" were features that were available on the POTS since the early 1990s. I agree that the tech's complex, but the R&D for…

> I agree that the tech's complex, but the R&D for the stuff I'm talking about has been over and done with for at least thirty five years.

Sure, but now have a look at the infrastructure that's physically deployed. Hell in Germany (!), it took until 2020 to finally disable the old and truly horribly aged ISDN infrastructure. When it takes the third-richest nation by GDP that long to replace technology, I am not going to demand better from nations that are a few dozen places below us on the economy rankings.

> I don't see how that's the problem of "The West"? If it's actually a problem, instruct "Western" telecoms to send a couple-hundred-million dollars in last-gen equipment, along with the techs required to install it and let them declare its original purchase price and the full cost of the manpower as a tax credit.

Yeah good luck with getting that past our populations that, no matter if we're talking about the US or Europe, have been riled up by the local far-right and Russia that foreign aid is a bad thing and "national wealth should stay in the nation" (with the end result of course being that Russia has swooped in to replace our foreign aid, and that's why we see so many putsches in Africa).

> But, like, we've had satellite telecommunications for nearly sixty years, terrestrial microwave transceivers for a couple of decades longer, and short- and long-wave transceivers for far, far longer than either.

Sure! But the fact remains that it took a lot of effort to get telephones and their infrastructure deployed effectively worldwide.

> Additionally... I don't know if you've noticed, but it's not uncommon to have a satellite phone in your pocket these days.

In developed economies, sure. But in countries where the iPhone models capable of that (or an outright Starlink terminal) can cost a full year's wages? In South Sudan, the yearly corrected purchase power is about 716 $ per person and year [1].

[1] https://gfmag.com/data/economic-data/poorest-country-in-the-...

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#225

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

rescbr wrote: post #139
carlosjobim wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling in an anonymous tip to the police and such.

I’d say to use a payphone if you need to do that, but then my age is showing, as this is not possible anymore.

My country has online anonymous tips online, and pay phones.

I don’t think caller id blocking would work with the police, they almost certainly have the ability to unmask your number if they want.

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#226

Post by DrewADesign »

DrewADesign wrote: post #115
smallmancontrov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that you mention it, I believe I have seen a couple of red flagged calls, but I still get ~3 calls a day from a very aggressive business loan spammer, it's always a new number and never flagged.

Anybody desperate enough to consider telemarketed merchant cash advances (MCAs) should look into them very carefully first. The contracts often have stipulations that allow them to draw money from your bank account at will, penalty interest rates that jump up 400% APR, have been known to use mafia enforcers to violently extract payments, and the list goes on. There was a more perfect union video (titled something abo…

Hmmm… I wonder if the no-response downvotes are from people in the MCA business? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#227

Post by sunshine-o »

frollogaston wrote: post #178
sunshine-o wrote: post #90

Phone numbers are just a liability: - It is kind of expensive, - You are forced to provide it to many official institutions, - It is the default or mandatory insecure 2FA for many institutions, - It always get leaked somewhere and is one of the most common/reliable identifier. We still have them around governments and telcos love it and old people and scammers are its last users.

The cost is a feature. Kinda also the case with IPv4 addresses.

Same problem with IPv4.

We've been paying for v4 and v6 for decades but somehow we cannot get rid of v4. My guess is there are a lot of interests at play.

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#228

Post by kelseyfrog »

frollogaston wrote: post #179
kelseyfrog wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they not have parents in random countries?

Probably, maybe not. Yeah it'd be great if the entire world were prosperous and happy, until then we need a way to make spam calls harder.

Then propose something that doesn't infringe on privacy.

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#229

Post by simoncion »

mschuster91 wrote: post #224
simoncion wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telco equipment is expensive... Sure, agreed. > ...the technology is ridiculously complex... Odd. I could have sworn that Caller ID, Customer-initiated Dialback, "Tell me the number of my most recent caller", and "Keep calling this number for the next half hour, and ring me if the call is answered" were features that were available on the POTS since the early 1990s. I agree that the tech's complex, but the R&D for…

> I agree that the tech's complex, but the R&D for the stuff I'm talking about has been over and done with for at least thirty five years. Sure, but now have a look at the infrastructure that's physically deployed. Hell in Germany (!), it took until 2020 to finally disable the old and truly horribly aged ISDN infrastructure. When it takes the third-richest nation by GDP that long to replace technology, I am not going…

> When it takes the third-richest nation by GDP that long to replace technology, I am not going to demand better from nations that are a few dozen places below us on the economy rankings.

It's odd that you talk about "demanding" nations to foot the bill for upgrades even though I talk about paying "Western" telcos to give it to them, install it, and teach them how to use and maintain it for free. You even quote this plan in your next paragraph. Smells like you have an axe to grind or something.

> Yeah good luck with getting that past our populations that...

Oh boy. Hun, the "expense" is gonna be less than a couple billion dollars, and it's not even going to be an appropriation. Unless some politician wants to use it to score points, literally noone in the public will notice.

> But in countries where the iPhone models capable of that (or an outright Starlink terminal) can cost a full year's wages?

Mmm, tell me what the BOM is for the satellite communications package on the phones that I'm talking about. I bet that not only do you have no clue, you're also largely unaware of the state of radio telecommunications in many of the nations in Africa. As a bonus inquiry, do tell me how many of the people who can't afford to buy the cheapest-available satellite phone are running scam/spam phone call operations in those countries. I bet that number is very close to zero. ;)

Do remember that TFA that started all of this conversation discussed the FCC's plans to require government-issued ID in order to get access to the phone network. This is being presented as the "only way" to "solve" spam and scam calls, but even a moment's thought makes it plain that not only is it not the only way, [0] it will be completely unable to achieve the stated goal.

[0] ...tax credits and their equivalents move businesses to solve every problem that can be solved, after all...

Re: A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

#230

Post by KaiserPro »

inigyou wrote: post #165
KaiserPro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS farm/machines don't work in the UK at least, I suspect not even in NL

Of course they do but every SIM is registered to your ID so it's extremely risky for you.

Ok, let me be more precise: They are not economically viable.
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