US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force • Hacker News Board

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#91

Post by mumblemumble » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #81

sonofhans wrote: post #42

Some weeks ago I broke my iPhone and had it replaced. During the process I had to get re-authorized with Verizon. They tried to call my partner to get her permission, since she's the account owner. Of course she never picked up the phone, because it was from an unknown caller. The irony is incredible: the literal phone company cannot use their own product to contact their own customers, because they have let that pro…

Could she not leave a message? I have the same setup as someone here mentioning Tasker. I route all calls to voice mail, where I can decide if I need to call back. If they are not willing to leave a voice mail with a return number and reason, the call was not that important.

I do the same thing. But I also have a habit of letting the voicemails sit around for days if they're not from someone I know. I'm not going to stop what I'm doing and listen to the voicemail, because, 19 times out of 20, it's just another robocall.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#92

Post by dymk » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #75

dymk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because lots of legitimate callers to me are located in the US, calling from a cell phone or landline, and I don't have them in my contacts. For instance, contractors coming to do work on the house may be calling from any number of cell phones, or people buying things from Craigslist. For Craigslist, if I were to filter out all the non-US originating calls and texts, would probably result in all the spam being droppe…

Seems like maybe a good business would be listing peoples known numbers and making a caller ID app that it outside the carriers’ control that relies on … I dunno a web of trust and crowdsourced data and reputation?

The problem still is with number spoofing, and STIR/SHAKEN seems to not be sufficiently rolled out and enforced

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN

Many of the spam calls I receive come from my own area code, with the number spoofed.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#93

Post by LordDragonfang » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #37

krisoft wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the the third option of course: not tracking users.

A lot of non-technical organizations deem it safer (and cheaper) to just block EU users than to study the law, become domain experts, and implement lawyer-approved mechanisms to become compliant. The reality is, however, unless you have a major presence in the EU, or are the size of Google or Facebook... you can freely ignore the GDPR without consequence. EU laws do not apply across the ocean.

Once again, that ignores the third option, simply not embedding javascript tracking bloat in your site, or at least serving that version to the EU (since they've clearly already spent the technical resources of identifying it and serving a different response).

You don't need to be a legal expert to just not collect data you don't need.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#94

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #78

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My wide-open Verizon cell-phone number is my least preferred method of contact by far, due to the fact that I cannot trust that unknown numbers are high-value incoming calls. I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all, and hence their inability to effectively fight spam. Otherwise, what would stop the situation from becoming like email, where email is mo…

> I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all... If only they were required to use caller ID to reliably tell us who is calling...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#95

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

sonofhans wrote: post #42

Some weeks ago I broke my iPhone and had it replaced. During the process I had to get re-authorized with Verizon. They tried to call my partner to get her permission, since she's the account owner. Of course she never picked up the phone, because it was from an unknown caller. The irony is incredible: the literal phone company cannot use their own product to contact their own customers, because they have let that pro…

It's the modern version of the Problem of Evil.

Are the carriers willing to stop robocalls and spam texts, but not able? The very idea is absurd, as it's their network. As others have pointed out it can't be that hard to identify and interdict abusive behavior on such a massive scale.

Are they able, but not willing? Then they're complicit, and should face wire fraud charges.

Are they both able and willing? Then why don't they?

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#96

Post by WaitWaitWha » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

My setup seems to work well for me.

I have my mobile phone, which I never published. Only my family has it.

I have a VoIP number tied to my mobile phone, and desktop computer. This allows me to take calls with my headset on, not just on my mobile.

All calls from numbers not in my contacts list go to the VoIP voice mail, which gets auto-transcribed. (If it is English, it works well, but any other languages it fails.)

If someone really wants to talk to me, they will leave a name, reason for the call, and the number I can call them back.

I also use Tasker[0] on my Android mobile. The carrier charges a monthly fee to have the feature to identify spammers and auto-reject them.

   Type
   Incoming
   Number
   !C:ANY

This rejects all calls that are not in the contacts list.

[0] https://tasker.joaoapps.com/

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#97

Post by orev » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

Phone companies are trying to turn this problem into a revenue generation “opportunity”. Not only do they get paid for the calls that traverse their network, but now they also want you to sign up for their “premium” blocking services, at a monthly cost, to stop them. This screams for not only a crackdown on the bad carriers who initiate the calls, but also on the big telcos who are double-dipping.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#98

Post by LordDragonfang » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

Innominate wrote: post #70

powerhour wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be disruptive to users, companies go out of their way to make it disruptive. As others here have said, companies can just stop adding code to track users and stop storing so much information. It's actually way less work.

The GDPR covers tracking of users, but is much more broad in scope. Simply not tracking users doesn't stop the GDPR from applying. The GDPR provides a framework by which bad actors can do their thing legally without too much trouble. To a good actor, who only stores the data they actually need and doesn't track users, the GDPR still applies and is just as big a pain in the ass.

Legitimate interest is excluded from the GDPR, so what kind of "good actors" are you describing that are hobbled by the GDPR? Be specific, please.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#99

Post by trebbble » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #86

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could she not leave a message? I have the same setup as someone here mentioning Tasker. I route all calls to voice mail, where I can decide if I need to call back. If they are not willing to leave a voice mail with a return number and reason, the call was not that important.

I have never in my life received or listened to a voice message. To me that's something from 90s movies. Weird how different things can be.

I don't listen to mine—I read them. Built-in feature on my phone, these days. iPhone, but I'd be surprised if Android doesn't have it, too. Quick glance is enough to tell if any of the recent ones were anything other than junk.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#100

Post by 300bps » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

brk wrote: post #18

It is unfortunate that the cellular companies have allowed their core product (voice calls) to be so devalued that they need to be forced to solve this problem instead of just doing it naturally. The carriers are clearly customer-hostile, as this is really a very solvable problem. Instead, we now are moving to alternate mechanisms to manage audio calls (eg: Signal, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.). My wide-open Verizon cell…

>My wide-open Verizon cell-phone number is my least preferred method of contact by far, due to the fact that I cannot trust that unknown numbers are high-value incoming calls. I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all, and hence their inability to effectively fight spam. Otherwise, what would stop the situation from becoming like email, where email is mo…

I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all

Is it a legal requirement to allow spoofed caller ID from bad actors?

Spoofed IP addresses used to be a much bigger problem on the Internet than they are today (many examples but see Smurf Attack).

We collectively implemented security to reduce the threat. Phone companies could do the same for spoofed caller ID for companies that consistently abuse it.