Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

broadbandbreakfast.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 149 posts

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#51

Post by Marsymars »

gbourne1 wrote: post #46
otterpro wrote: post #3

I no longer can answer my phone. I get at least 20-40 spam/scam calls per day, and many are legitimate companies calling for loans and refinancing offers, which started after I got a home loan. I cannot seem to stop them from calling, and even though my phone number is listed in National Do Not Call Registry for many years, it hasn't worked at all. The only relief is that on my iPhone, I was able to block all calls n…

I too set it up so all unknown calls go to VM. I figure if legit they will leave a message. If two calls and no message I block the unknown number.

Roughly 100% of my spam calls come from spoofed numbers and don't repeat, so I never bother blocking anything.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#53

Post by edoceo »

DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #11

The solution is accessible law, not better anti-fraud tooling. Introduce a spam / fraud button, using it requires your pin and costs $10, but obliges your telecom provider to record the call (preferably including a few minutes before you hit the button), email you a signed recording and if found to be spam deposit $100 onto your account. Your provider may then hand the fee +10% for himself to whatever network the cal…

How are they listening to a few minutes before the button? A "temporary" recording of the first 2 minutes of every call? I feel like there would be some privacy concerns.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#54

Post by orbital-decay »

cj wrote: post #28
verall wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of scams unfortunately operate right on the line of legality like the car warranty morons

Sure, but that's okay because you don't need 100% of spam calls to be recognized as spam for the incentive to do its job. The system still sounds like it could still work even if a large percent of calls weren't flagged.

This works both ways, if the detection rate is low then nobody would press a "lose $10" button.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#55

Post by namibj »

edoceo wrote: post #53
DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #11

The solution is accessible law, not better anti-fraud tooling. Introduce a spam / fraud button, using it requires your pin and costs $10, but obliges your telecom provider to record the call (preferably including a few minutes before you hit the button), email you a signed recording and if found to be spam deposit $100 onto your account. Your provider may then hand the fee +10% for himself to whatever network the cal…

How are they listening to a few minutes before the button? A "temporary" recording of the first 2 minutes of every call? I feel like there would be some privacy concerns.

It'd suffice for them to sign the transmitted information (audio and required timing metadata for the packet stream) and make you do the temporary recording on your side, transmitting it back to the provider once you hit the button, to let them handle the backup/safekeeping aspects for you.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#56

Post by Luc »

pessimizer wrote: post #29
DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #11

The solution is accessible law, not better anti-fraud tooling. Introduce a spam / fraud button, using it requires your pin and costs $10, but obliges your telecom provider to record the call (preferably including a few minutes before you hit the button), email you a signed recording and if found to be spam deposit $100 onto your account. Your provider may then hand the fee +10% for himself to whatever network the cal…

I spent a little time unsuccessfully looking for a reference, but in some ancient Greek and early Roman governments, newly elected officials who were in charge of money were required to personally indemnify (become responsible for the professional liabilities of) their predecessor. If your predecessor committed fraud, you were 100% personally responsible for it. You would then gather the evidence and sue your predece…

That sounds like a great way to attract scammers and dissuade honest people, so if it's ever been tried it must have failed spectacularly (I also searched for variations of this idea but didn't turn up anything).

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#57

Post by Leif24 »

xethos wrote: post #42
otterpro wrote: post #3

I no longer can answer my phone. I get at least 20-40 spam/scam calls per day, and many are legitimate companies calling for loans and refinancing offers, which started after I got a home loan. I cannot seem to stop them from calling, and even though my phone number is listed in National Do Not Call Registry for many years, it hasn't worked at all. The only relief is that on my iPhone, I was able to block all calls n…

> My only solution that I could think of is to have a dedicated phone line just for friends/family/work, and a second line for banking/shopping/utilities/everything else. This fails the moment one of your "clean line" contacts downloads a sketchy app that sells all their contacts, and sells an updated list as your appear in their recent calls list - meaning it's not a one-time thing, it's for a few weeks after every…

It works if you only allow incoming calls from your contacts (e.g. whitelisted numbers) on friends/family/work line. If that number leaks, who cares? The random numbers will be blocked anyway. Probably would want to set it up so the 'public' line is silenced - just periodically check the VM box for anything important.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#58

Post by bickfordb »

Maybe this is a pipe dream, but wouldn't it be better to retire the legacy phone voice and messaging system altogether.

If 99.9% of us have internet phones, why aren't we using PKI, decentralized protocols, crowd sourced reputation to communicate instead of POTS phone numbers, SMS/iChat and relying on the carriers to police spam.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#59

Post by pixl97 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #44
bckr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have to do something this extreme. We have to give the system a total makeover. Somehow we also have to keep it from being fully centralized and have the big brother problem on the other side. Unfortunately these two goals are difficult to get through at the same time, with the system that we have.

If major states like California and New York pass it, and spam basically dies in those states, it wouldn't surprise me if it spreads across the country.

Assuming the nature of the spam and how it makes money.

Re: Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

#60

Post by pixl97 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #14
orev wrote: post #10

One of the biggest concerns I have with phone scams is that the people most vulnerable are the elderly, and they don’t have the knowledge on how to block these calls (if a technical solution is the only option). And further to that, the elderly are also the ones who cannot block unknown numbers, because doctors’ offices seem to have random numbers they call you from (they may have a pool of numbers but it’s not reaso…

AARP's magazine and bulletin[1] are pretty much filled with scam-awareness articles every issue. It's an absolutely major concern. ________________________________ Notes: 1. Incidentally, the first and second largest-circulation magazines in the US now: https://www.magazineline.com/blog/most-popular-magazines-in-... >.

It being a major concern doesn't mean there's any solution around said concerns. Give me 100 old peoples phone numbers and I bet I could convince 10 of them that I am AARP trying to make them safe and eventually get money out of them.
Post reply on HN