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This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

wired.com

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Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#41

Post by coldpie »

mtmail wrote: post #7
nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…

Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.

On Android 4.4 (Moto X, fairly stock Android), specific contacts have a setting to avoid ringing the phone. I add spammers to a contact called Asshole with that setting set. Works nicely, and doesn't require installing an application.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#42

Post by jimktrains2 »

Vendan wrote: post #28
snarfy wrote: post #23

When I had a land line, I changed my recorded message to the three tones and "We're sorry, the number cannot be completed as dialed" message and eliminated pretty much all spam calls.

Hah, I did that, though it was just the tones and then a normal voicemail message. The robodial stuff at the time just listened for them, so it was quite effective.

In case anyone was curious, they're called Special Information Tones[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#43

Post by coldpie »

yebyen wrote: post #37
maxerickson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you expect a revealing answer to that question? I don't think I'm suggesting something that wastes part of your life. What I suggest directly restores usefulness to the phone, and it likely forces the call center companies to report unsuccessful calls instead of no answers to their customers (and if done in large numbers it should have an impact).

He's right. I work in a call center (not calling on the phones, I keep up the infrastructure) where we do mostly market research for our clients which involves calling their customers. Utility companies, medical offices, consulting services, they will all honor do-not-call requests and so will any legitimate call center business. That is thankless work, the people on the phones are mostly not scum, but the number of…

Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#44

Post by Spooky23 »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…

If you pick up the phone and say "Please put me on your courtesy do not call list", legitimate companies will stop calling you. That leaves the you've won a free cruise/insurance/alarm scam companies, but they mostly don't call over and over again. The point is not to argue with them about whether they should be calling you etc., it is to advertise yourself as a dead lead.

Until election day. I live in a state capital in a very politically active ward in my city. We get blitzed for days with robocalls from politicians that aren't legally prohibited.

For the other stuff, I've found it to be very effective to learn a few German phrases and reply loudly with them. You get marked as a bad lead.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#45

Post by Gargoyle888 »

teddyh wrote: post #33
Gargoyle888 wrote: post #30

There is a technical solution to this. Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash was created to stop email spam but is equally valid for phone calls. It /could/ be fully implemented by your phone carrier.

If it is “ equally valid ”, why didn’t it succeed in stopping spam? Is the reason it failed maybe equally valid when applied to phones?

My guess is that - with email, both the sender and the receiver must be using clients that are capable of negotiating the challenge-response wall.

Interestingly, with phone service, the recipient doesn't need anything (other than to tell their phone provider to turn it on if it's provided as an option.)

Of course, this doesn't completely answer your question but it does mean that the decision and implementation of the technology needed to provide this kind of wall is in the hands of phone companies rather than the unruly mass of ignorant individuals who use email.

But then, the phone companies who could implement such a scheme probably don't have a financial incentive to do so.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#46

Post by morganvachon »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #32

Have we really reached the point where a reputable publication liked Wired magazine is using clickbait titles?

I was wondering the same thing. I almost reflexively avoided the link because of the title's phrasing.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#47

Post by maxerickson »

coldpie wrote: post #43
yebyen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right. I work in a call center (not calling on the phones, I keep up the infrastructure) where we do mostly market research for our clients which involves calling their customers. Utility companies, medical offices, consulting services, they will all honor do-not-call requests and so will any legitimate call center business. That is thankless work, the people on the phones are mostly not scum, but the number of…

Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.

Forgive me for being all preachy, but I think the majority of people taking outbound call center jobs aren't exactly swimming in better choices. They also probably aren't going to reevaluate everything because somebody emoted at them.

The other side of it is that being polite or neutral probably costs you less time and energy than embracing your rage.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#48

Post by yebyen »

coldpie wrote: post #43
yebyen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right. I work in a call center (not calling on the phones, I keep up the infrastructure) where we do mostly market research for our clients which involves calling their customers. Utility companies, medical offices, consulting services, they will all honor do-not-call requests and so will any legitimate call center business. That is thankless work, the people on the phones are mostly not scum, but the number of…

Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.

You know, a lot of these calls are personally relevant too. Would you rather pick up the phone and wait on hold for 45 minutes to talk to someone at your gas company again after they already didn't fix your problem last week, or would you like to get a call asking how your service appointment went so you can say "Unresolved issues. Please escalate" and get a call later from someone who can actually fix it while their boss is watching?

For the record, I subscribe to the George Carlin definition of A Phone Call, "The brief exchange of a few vital pieces of information." I am with you, I honestly don't want to get phone calls from anyone for pretty much any reason.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=A+Phone+Call

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#49

Post by coldpie »

maxerickson wrote: post #47
coldpie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.

Forgive me for being all preachy, but I think the majority of people taking outbound call center jobs aren't exactly swimming in better choices. They also probably aren't going to reevaluate everything because somebody emoted at them. The other side of it is that being polite or neutral probably costs you less time and energy than embracing your rage.

I'm generally on the side of people who are just doing their jobs and have to do something shitty that is out of their control. Getting angry at a store clerk because of their store's return policy is dumb. But when your job is specifically to annoy me, you can fuck right off, and I'll let you know. I'd rather have these people on the dole than calling me.

You're right that it'd save me some effort being less rage-y about this, but if you're going to be distracting me and wasting my time, I'm going to give you some form of payback.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#50

Post by coldpie »

yebyen wrote: post #48
coldpie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.

You know, a lot of these calls are personally relevant too. Would you rather pick up the phone and wait on hold for 45 minutes to talk to someone at your gas company again after they already didn't fix your problem last week, or would you like to get a call asking how your service appointment went so you can say "Unresolved issues. Please escalate" and get a call later from someone who can actually fix it while their…

Sure, there isn't always a hard-and-fast line between spam calls and legitimate calls. Asking how a service appointment went seems personally relevant to me. Asking if I'd like to sign up for my ISP's TV service isn't. It's the latter call that enrages me.
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