14 ms·

Nexus phones now identify suspected spam callers

303 points by bishnu 10y ago

ghouse 10y ago
Tipping point for me last week: I now receive more spam phone calls than I do spam email.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  Odd; at my all-time highest, I would get maybe one a week. My wife gets at least one a week.
  - fizzbatter 10y ago
    Cell or landline? I've had a Google (Voice) number for... hard to even say now, 8 years? And i.. well, i think i've only gotten a few calls to that number, ever. In fact, i have a normal cell number (i don't link my google and cell provider numbers), and i get texted spam to it maybe twice a year, but i can't recall anything really.. ever, to my Google number. To my knowledge i don't have any anti-spam settings enabled on Google Voice (though, they do exist). I wonder what the root cause for this is? I often forget that "in this day and age", call spam is still an issue.
    - pavel_lishin 10y ago
      Cell. I haven't had a landline since we got one in college, in the early 2000's, mostly because it came free with the internet service, and I was going to plug in an answering machine with amusing messages.
- nickysielicki 10y ago
  Same here, does anyone know what the heck is going on? Why has there been such a surge in the past year or two? My uncle was an early supporter of Ooma and my parents have a box that provides their landline number that they've had for 25+ years, and they don't pay anything in terms of a monthly fee. In spite of how great of a deal it is, the spam calls have gotten to be so bad that my parents are considering getting rid of it. It's not worth the hassle, even when it's essentially free. At least half the calls that come in are spam. (Quick aside: Ooma deserves praise for their product. I hope they succeed and can pivot properly to other products as telephones naturally die. They contribute back to the FOSS Asterisk project and their products are reliable. Here's a cool blog post I've come across where someone hooks their Ooma box into a local server running Asterisk. You could probably do some really cool home-automation with this: http://www.adrianandgenese.com/blogger/2010/04/23/how-to-setup-asterisk-with-ooma-voip-and-a-linksys-spa-3102/ http://www.adrianandgenese.com/blogger/2010/04/23/how-to-set... )
  - enjo 10y ago
    The Do Not Call list at some point simply stopped working. I file several complaints a week, and haven't even gotten a response in months.
    - profmonocle 10y ago
      The DNC list is only effective against legitimate organizations because the only weapon it has are fines. Most of the spam calls I get are credit card scams, free cruise scams, etc. These people are already committing fraud, so DNC fines aren't going to deter them.
    - Merad 10y ago
      I believe I read that many phone spammers are based outside the US now and so have no concern with US law compliance. They just spoof US based caller ID numbers.
  - enjo 10y ago
    The Do Not Call list at some point simply stopped working. I file several complaints a week, and haven't even gotten a response in months.
- putlake 10y ago
  Same here. I own about 50 domains and I've not had privacy on many of them. My Google voice number, which is also my business number, is listed on these domain contacts and I get more spam phone calls than regular calls on that. Most of the calls are from "one way funding" and "this is shelly, your local yahoo and google listings specialist."
  - crikli 10y ago
    Same shit here. Didn't realize Google voice was the compromised source.
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      Same, with lots of hang-up [automated?] calls. They die after a few rings and never leave voice mail, unless it's voice mail with silence only. Kaiser also leaves me voicemails in English and Spanish, and sometime waits for me to press a number. Very annoying.
  - walrus01 10y ago
    Introduce Shelly to Lenny: http://reddit.com/r/itslenny/ http://reddit.com/r/itslenny/
fapjacks 10y ago
I use Extreme Call Blocker for Android. Best three dollars I ever spent in my life. My phone doesn't make any noise or visual interruptions unless the number is in my contacts list. Additionally, it answers the phone and immediately hangs it up, which prevents the number from going to voicemail. I adore knowing that strange numbers are essentially calling a sinkhole when they dial my number.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Until some stranger attempts to call you to tell you your kid cycled under bus #9 and is on the way to the hospital.
  - fapjacks 10y ago
    I guess that'll teach my imaginary kid to look both ways before crossing the street.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Unless you're an orphan with no known family feel free to substitute any other relative.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
What's the procedure for removing yourself from the suspected spam caller database if you're incorrectly placed on it?
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  I'd take a 1 in 10 false postive ratio over a questionable 'pay for removal' system.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    Would you take a 1/100 if you were guaranteed to be initially marked as a spammer?
    - unprepare 10y ago
      yes. I dont make outgoing calls to people i dont know.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  step 1: Stop spamming people.
- akerro 10y ago
  You make a complain and Google ignores you forever, you make 10 more complains, all of them are ignored, you're frustrated so you have to change your phone number. Same procedure when Google blocks your Gmail, youtube, analytics or adwords with unpaid money on it.
dilemma 10y ago
My Windows Phone already does this!
- roscoebeezie 10y ago
  This is actually the first time I've heard this. Like really.
- simula67 10y ago
  From a quick Googling it seems Windows phones allow you to block calls from a particular number : http://www.windowscentral.com/how-to-block-calls-nokia-lumia http://www.windowscentral.com/how-to-block-calls-nokia-lumia Google's implementation also warns you about potential spam callers. Google maintains a list of spam callers and you can report phone numbers to this list.
  - dilemma 10y ago
    Windows Phone identifies spam callers and lets you report numbers as spam. Like I said, my Windows Phone already does this!
est 10y ago
The function existed in Chinese phone/ROMs for quite some time now. Some of the intercepters will display which type of spam, place it originates and the exact business entity name of the caller.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  That doesn't work (well, not reliably) in the USA because the name/number presented in the caller ID can have little relation to the actual name/number of the caller. I wonder if Google is doing anything beyond simply crowdsourcing spam reports based on CallerID, at least for Google Voice numbers since they own that network so may have access to some data (ANI?) that's not normally available on regular phone lines?
ohazi 10y ago
Every time I get a call from a number I don't recognize I do this ridiculous dance where I try to Google the number (usually on my phone) before the ringing stops. If it shows up on enough spam caller sites (whocallsme, etc), I don't answer and add the number to my "SPAM" contact that currently contains about a billion phone numbers. It's ridiculous that it took Google so long to implement such a basic feature on their phones.
- mszcz 10y ago
  Oh, I love calls from telemarketers ;) It's a sport for me, a fun pass time. I'm trying to sell them shit before they have a chance to finish their pitch. Or I hang up on myself (hangup when I'm speaking) and see how many times they call me back (current record is at 4 before the guy figured it out). Or pretend that I don't own a phone while on a phonecall with them. Or ask them for their personal cell number so I can call during lunch and discuss this. BTW Randy Pausch gets credit for most of those.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    They usually get paid by the hour, and if you're on HN there's a decent chance your time is way more valuable than theirs. It'd be cheaper to use a service like Jolly Roger to keep them busy: http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/ http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/
    - mszcz 10y ago
      Probably true. However, those calls usually last couple of minutes tops and I'm always in a good mood afterwards. To me it's more of a IRL equivalent of watching cat gifs to reset your brain every now and then ;) I don't mind them getting paid as long as I can have a good time at their expense. And hey, maybe me laughing at them will cause them to reconsider their chosen profession (but not holding my breath). EDIT: typo.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        > And hey, maybe me laughing at them will cause them to reconsider their chosen profession (but not holding my breath). Maybe their 'chosen profession' has less in terms of freedom of choice than you think it does. There are only so many low-wage jobs available and I figure most call center operators are happy with the crappy job they've got rather than with the high moral standards one they don't or can't get.
blackoil 10y ago
Isn't Truecaller doing this and more on all Android/WP phones for years?
- Johnny555 10y ago
  But that means giving yet another company access to all of your phone call and SMS data. Since Google already has that information, I'd rather that they provide this service rather than letting a 3rd party scan my calls and SMS's.
  - cronjobber 10y ago
    > Since Google already has that information Sure?
    - Johnny555 10y ago
      Yes, quite sure since I use Google Voice so all of my calls and SMS's go through their infrastructure. And even if I didn't use GV, I use their dialer, SMS, and contacts app, so they already can already see all of my calls, SMS's, and contacts.
AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
Of course, it's not hard for them to use a different caller ID for each call they make...
- j_koreth 10y ago
  And this raises the question on what's happens if Google suspects you to be a spammer.
agildehaus 10y ago
Caller ID can be spoofed rather easily. This will only lead to more spoofing. And are political calls and surveys considered spam? I certainly consider them spam.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  They are, but only if they are not paying the spam detection service. It's kind of like the BBB.
x0054 10y ago
I think iOS 10 does this as well. The funny thing is, a lot of the time I get spam phone calls that are in Spanish (I don't speak Spanish much) or when I pick up the phone, they just cut off the line. So they waste my time and theirs.
- cmurf 10y ago
  I think these are demographic specific scams, and you aren't the target demographic. Scams that target women, old people, or maybe even it's a pre-scam where it's just trying to find out if there's a human on the other end of the call and these numbers get more money when sold.
allendoerfer 10y ago
Spam calling seems to be a big deal in the US. Not at all where I live. Is it because of different features of the network or because there are cheap English speakers in other countries?
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  It's because the relevant regulatory apparatus has been captured by the to-be-regulated industry in the USA. There's no technological gap that prevents us from dropping a smart bomb on telemarketers within minutes of their first spam call. We just don't care.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    "DEATH TO SPAMMERS" [1] 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665847-daemon?from_search=true https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665847-daemon?from_sear...
  - cmurf 10y ago
    I got a call from someone who told me I had a virus and had to install some software so they could fix it. I told him he should find a new job instead of trying to steal other people's money. He repeated his script. I repeated mine. And after the third time he went off script and asked me, "can you tell me where I can find a better job?" So there you go. Money making good people do bad things again.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    Are you sure about that? In 2012 the FTC had a robocall summit with a variety of speakers. I watched the live feed and it seemed like they were quite sincere about tracking people down. It was just a hard problem given the rise of things like VOIP.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  To answer my own question: Receivers pay, not callers.
kqr2 10y ago
sonic.net uses nomorobo to filter out spam callers and it seems to be pretty effective. https://www.nomorobo.com/ https://www.nomorobo.com/
cmurf 10y ago
I think it's ridiculous you have to have a Nexus phone to get this capability. Anyone with a Google account and Android should be able to get this functionality. Right now with Google Voice I get a dozen hang up calls per day, it's always from a different number. When I don't answer, Ive got a dozen 2 second long voice mails. I used to spend a lot of time setting these to spam or being blocked, but between Google Voice and Hangouts simply asinine and beyond incompetent integration where some calls show up in Google Voice but not Hangouts and vice versa, I'm losing interest. So recently I just decided to make the default behavior for the Google Voice number not ring any of my phones or Hangouts, but set up contact groups where friends and family should ring through. Well that's not working, I'm still getting spam and hangup calls, and some friends ring through, others don't, and client calls don't. It's really craptastic.
- NeutronBoy 10y ago
  > I think it's ridiculous you have to have a Nexus phone to get this capability. Anyone with a Google account and Android should be able to get this functionality. It's probably part of the Dialler app, which many other manufacturers replace with their own application.
- godzillabrennus 10y ago
  It's worth what you pay for it. That said they should charge me for more features! If it had pro features that worked for $35/year I'd do it.
  - cmurf 10y ago
    It's not worth what I don't pay for it anymore. Nothing is worth this. Mosquito bites are free too, and also not worth it. I'd pay $35 a year for the f'n basic features it has now to work as they should, but don't. I'd pay a one time fee of $35 to see Hangouts die a fast death.
    - godzillabrennus 10y ago
      Hangouts is terrible. It has caused me to stop using Gtalk. Facebook messenger works better.
uptown 10y ago
I get 'em all. Almost never answer, and block every number. I've tracked the origin of a few of them down. Found the personal cell phone of the CEO of one of the companies that was behind one daily call that changed numbers everyday. That was a fu conversation, and it did stop the call, but hopefully if both Google and Apple implement this (as is planned in iOS10) it'll end this avenue of abuse.
- bglazer 10y ago
  Can you explain how you got the CEO's cell phone number? That sounds pretty amusing, honestly.
gesman 10y ago
Any unknown caller that starts his conversation with "Congratulations! ..." deserves public waterboarding.
- cmurf 10y ago
  Well, at least your advocacy of torture offers some transparency...
- dang 10y ago
  Nobody likes those calls, but please don't use HN comments to vent.
givinguflac 10y ago
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller...
ersii 10y ago
Does anyone know more on how this works? The original post references that "Caller ID must be enabled". Is this feature going to send all my incoming phone call numbers to Google - to compare it against a list of "known/suspected spammers"? Will this only work in the United States or will it work internationally?
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  If you have Caller ID enabled on a Nexus device, all of your incoming phone call numbers are already being sent to Google. Google almost certainly uses this metadata to try to identify spammers, like Gmail uses all of your mail to detect spam. The same caller calling many of their users in short succession could be more likely to be a spam caller, for instance.
- asher_ 10y ago
  Called ID looks up phone numbers and replaces them with the names of businesses. It does send the phone number to Google to look it up, and it does work internationally. I've lived in both Australia and Vietnam with great results. The feature has been available for a long time and is fantastic in my opinion. When an unknown number dials it gets replaced on the screen in ~1-2 seconds with the business name, which is really useful.
nstj 10y ago
iOS 10 brings functionality similar to this. [0] [0]: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS10.html https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/relea... > CallKit. CallKit also introduces app extensions that enable call blocking and caller identification. You can create an app extension that can associate a phone number with a name or tell the system when a number should be blocked.
jmspring 10y ago
Will this include unsolicited google adwords calls?
douche 10y ago
Turning the ringer off also works. I don't get talking on the phone. It's the lowest quality form of communication - it's ephemeral, and unlike actual face-to-face communications, all nuance and body language goes out the window. Not to mention the all-too-often piss-poor audio quality, mics that don't work half the time, and the "Can you hear me now? What was the last thing you heard?" and "Sorry, I was on mute" dances.
- necessity 10y ago
  Some things are too long to type.
  - douche 10y ago
    I've yet to see anything that can't be more clearly, unambiguously, and quickly expressed in text or perhaps with a picture. If it's taking too long to type, my suggestion would be to get better at typing, or distill out the wheat from the chaff of what you're trying to say. That's what really drives me up the wall with speech - the information density is typically incredibly low, and too often people let noises tumble out of their face-holes without trying to piece together a coherent thought. I realize that's harsh, but I've lost patience for rambling, stream-of-conscience external monologues. Which promptly dissolve back into the hot air from whence they came, since there is not a readily reviewable, indexed, searchable record created automatically in the process of such bloviation.
    - res0nat0r 10y ago
      I'm sure speaking that response vs. typing that would have taken a lot less time. ;)
      - grawlinson 10y ago
        A few minutes of "um, uh, ... rustling papers yes, I need uh, 20 of uhhhhh" vs a simple written message that's short, sweet and straight to the point? Most phone conversations seem to be more of the former.
dredmorbius 10y ago
Phone spam has all but killed phones. Pervasive surveillance has done the rest. Maybe not for everyone. Yet. But where a phone was for a time a liberating device, it's become what many of its early (and I'm talking about late 19c and early 20c critics said, not late 20/early 21) critics claimed: an insistant, rude, inconsiderate, and noxious nuisance. A phone can ring at any time, from a call initiated anywhere in the world. Low (or zero) costs mean the caller has very little reason not to call, and even a very slight probability of a positive financial return can support all measure of spam. The fact that carrying a phone subjects you to sub-minute location tracking, puts an always-on microphone in your pocket, and leaks your identity, location, habits, and interests to the highest bidder (or marginally competent hacker) makes that a non-starter. For the past several years, I've simply not carried a phone when I could possibly manage to, and the liberation is tremendous. (The trauma of having been on-call for years may or may not have contributed to my intense distaste for the devices.) There are other options -- virtually any modern electronic kit has multiple messaging capabilities, from email to IRC to various messaging applications to full VOIP and voice/video messaging. Carrying a non-phone Android tablet affords some utility without the tremendous disutilities of a phone. But, and this speaks to recent pain, the device (a Samsung Tab A 9.7" WiFi-only) is itself locked down -- not rootable, bootloader locked, and so far as I can tell, no CyanogenMod images available for it. I'd bought it whilst travelling under some duress, as an affordable and, so far as I could tell, least-bad option. But without the ability to actually control the system, I'm still subject to spam, crud, poor management tools (simply being able to allocate and manage storage rationally appears beyonds its meagre capabilities), etc. What Google are offering is very little, very late. And the fact that other telcos are failing to step up and address the massive disutilities of their projects is another immense failing of the market. Realising these are the same unspeakable idiots who'll be shoving Internet of Shit devices down our every orifice makes me cry for the future.
beefsack 10y ago
In Australia, I've signed up my numbers to the Do Not Call Register[1] and it's actually been pretty effective. I actually couldn't tell you the last time I had an unsolicited call like that. [1] https://www.donotcall.gov.au/ https://www.donotcall.gov.au/
bikamonki 10y ago
If you are an Android user and you like programming you MUST install Automagic. It is, by far, the most useful app in my phone. You can automate pretty much any task on your droid, like say: if number from incoming call is in whitelist send me alert, if not hang and reply with sms "Send name and number I will call back".
Animats 10y ago
This means your incoming call data goes to Google. Previously, only the carrier saw it. Now they can use that info for marketing purposes.
Animats 10y ago
Caller ID info ought to appear with a data quality indicator. The trust value of the least-trusted SS7 node in the chain is the data quality.
Cedrickenos 10y ago
Every time I get a call from a number I don't recognize I do this ridiculous dance where I try to Google the number (usually on my phone) before the ringing stops. If it shows up on enough spam caller sites (whocallsme, etc), I don't answer and add the number to my "SPAM" contact that currently contains about a billion phone numbers. It's ridiculous that it took Google so long to implement such a basic feature on their phones.
harryf 10y ago
In Switzerland this has been possible for quite some time now on both iOS and Android by installing the local.ch app - http://tel.local.ch/en/advertising-calls http://tel.local.ch/en/advertising-calls
Cedrickenos 10y ago
I think it's ridiculous you have to have a Nexus phone to get this capability. Anyone with a Google account and Android should be able to get this functionality. Right now with Google Voice I get a dozen hang up calls per day, it's always from a different number. When I don't answer, Ive got a dozen 2 second long voice mails. I used to spend a lot of time setting these to spam or being blocked, but between Google Voice and Hangouts simply asinine and beyond incompetent integration where some calls show up in Google Voice but not Hangouts and vice versa, I'm losing interest. So recently I just decided to make the default behavior for the Google Voice number not ring any of my phones or Hangouts, but set up contact groups where friends and family should ring through. Well that's not working, I'm still getting spam and hangup calls, and some friends ring through, others don't, and client calls don't. It's really craptastic.
Jeanninelst 10y ago
I think it's ridiculous you have to have a Nexus phone to get this capability. Anyone with a Google account and Android should be able to get this functionality. Right now with Google Voice I get a dozen hang up calls per day, it's always from a different number. When I don't answer, Ive got a dozen 2 second long voice mails. I used to spend a lot of time setting these to spam or being blocked, but between Google Voice and Hangouts simply asinine and beyond incompetent integration where some calls show up in Google Voice but not Hangouts and vice versa, I'm losing interest. So recently I just decided to make the default behavior for the Google Voice number not ring any of my phones or Hangouts, but set up contact groups where friends and family should ring through. Well that's not working, I'm still getting spam and hangup calls, and some friends ring through, others don't, and client calls don't. It's really craptastic.
Jeanninelst 10y ago
It's sort of breathtaking to think I've gone from a time when people were suspicious about the usefulness of computers to one where a phone telling you the call you're getting is probably useless is a basic feature that it's ridiculous to not have. WTG engineering!
saghul 10y ago
Honest question: are spam calls common in the US? I don't remember when / if I got any in Spain, Netherlands or UK (places I've lived and had cellphones for a prolonged time), I do remember, however, that when I managed to score a US number with Google Voice I'd regularly get weird spammy voicemails. If that is the case, I wonder why that is!
- bbrks 10y ago
  Spam calls are a nuisance in the UK too. Especially on landlines. If you threaten them with reporting to the TPS (Telephone preference service) and they're not just a robot, they sometimes stop bothering you.
- gadders 10y ago
  I get PPI and ambulance chasing car insurance calls all the time in the UK.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    I've had the same UK mobile number for... 16 years, and I get perhaps one spam call per year. As far as I know, numbers aren't recycled, so maybe the number is in such an old range that spammers don't bother calling it. I'm careful about who I give the number to, but I do share it.
    - gadders 10y ago
      I've had mine 20 years.I probably get 1-2 calls a month, some of which I dodge using True Caller.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Never got a single spam call or text in Germany either. I did get a bunch of credit card phishing texts while visiting the US (on a US SIM) and one or two calls from strange numbers that I didn't answer. No problems with a UK mobile number while I lived there. Seems like mostly landlines are affected there?
- 10y ago
PostThisTooFast 10y ago
Too bad they're not smart enough to put the headphone jack on the correct end of the camera (the BOTTOM, in case you're not capable of thinking things through).
gadders 10y ago
For those on a non-Nexus android phone, True Caller does this function pretty well for me in the UK.
criddell 10y ago
Why is it so hard for the phone company to provide accurate caller id data? I can understand the need to block outgoing caller id info and I have no problem with that. But I also have the right to not answer anonymous calls.
ableal 10y ago
"Prank call" apps in the store do not help either.
lintiness 10y ago
now if they could only get that camera to work ...

303 points by bishnu 10y ago

ghouse 10y ago

Tipping point for me last week: I now receive more spam phone calls than I do spam email.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
Odd; at my all-time highest, I would get maybe one a week. My wife gets at least one a week.
- fizzbatter 10y ago
  Cell or landline? I've had a Google (Voice) number for... hard to even say now, 8 years? And i.. well, i think i've only gotten a few calls to that number, ever. In fact, i have a normal cell number (i don't link my google and cell provider numbers), and i get texted spam to it maybe twice a year, but i can't recall anything really.. ever, to my Google number. To my knowledge i don't have any anti-spam settings enabled on Google Voice (though, they do exist). I wonder what the root cause for this is? I often forget that "in this day and age", call spam is still an issue.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    Cell. I haven't had a landline since we got one in college, in the early 2000's, mostly because it came free with the internet service, and I was going to plug in an answering machine with amusing messages.
nickysielicki 10y ago
Same here, does anyone know what the heck is going on? Why has there been such a surge in the past year or two? My uncle was an early supporter of Ooma and my parents have a box that provides their landline number that they've had for 25+ years, and they don't pay anything in terms of a monthly fee. In spite of how great of a deal it is, the spam calls have gotten to be so bad that my parents are considering getting rid of it. It's not worth the hassle, even when it's essentially free. At least half the calls that come in are spam. (Quick aside: Ooma deserves praise for their product. I hope they succeed and can pivot properly to other products as telephones naturally die. They contribute back to the FOSS Asterisk project and their products are reliable. Here's a cool blog post I've come across where someone hooks their Ooma box into a local server running Asterisk. You could probably do some really cool home-automation with this: http://www.adrianandgenese.com/blogger/2010/04/23/how-to-setup-asterisk-with-ooma-voip-and-a-linksys-spa-3102/ http://www.adrianandgenese.com/blogger/2010/04/23/how-to-set... )
- enjo 10y ago
  The Do Not Call list at some point simply stopped working. I file several complaints a week, and haven't even gotten a response in months.
  - profmonocle 10y ago
    The DNC list is only effective against legitimate organizations because the only weapon it has are fines. Most of the spam calls I get are credit card scams, free cruise scams, etc. These people are already committing fraud, so DNC fines aren't going to deter them.
  - Merad 10y ago
    I believe I read that many phone spammers are based outside the US now and so have no concern with US law compliance. They just spoof US based caller ID numbers.
- enjo 10y ago
  The Do Not Call list at some point simply stopped working. I file several complaints a week, and haven't even gotten a response in months.
putlake 10y ago
Same here. I own about 50 domains and I've not had privacy on many of them. My Google voice number, which is also my business number, is listed on these domain contacts and I get more spam phone calls than regular calls on that. Most of the calls are from "one way funding" and "this is shelly, your local yahoo and google listings specialist."
- crikli 10y ago
  Same shit here. Didn't realize Google voice was the compromised source.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Same, with lots of hang-up [automated?] calls. They die after a few rings and never leave voice mail, unless it's voice mail with silence only. Kaiser also leaves me voicemails in English and Spanish, and sometime waits for me to press a number. Very annoying.
- walrus01 10y ago
  Introduce Shelly to Lenny: http://reddit.com/r/itslenny/ http://reddit.com/r/itslenny/

fapjacks 10y ago

I use Extreme Call Blocker for Android. Best three dollars I ever spent in my life. My phone doesn't make any noise or visual interruptions unless the number is in my contacts list. Additionally, it answers the phone and immediately hangs it up, which prevents the number from going to voicemail. I adore knowing that strange numbers are essentially calling a sinkhole when they dial my number.

jacquesm 10y ago
Until some stranger attempts to call you to tell you your kid cycled under bus #9 and is on the way to the hospital.
- fapjacks 10y ago
  I guess that'll teach my imaginary kid to look both ways before crossing the street.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Unless you're an orphan with no known family feel free to substitute any other relative.

pavel_lishin 10y ago

What's the procedure for removing yourself from the suspected spam caller database if you're incorrectly placed on it?

cmdrfred 10y ago
I'd take a 1 in 10 false postive ratio over a questionable 'pay for removal' system.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  Would you take a 1/100 if you were guaranteed to be initially marked as a spammer?
  - unprepare 10y ago
    yes. I dont make outgoing calls to people i dont know.
honkhonkpants 10y ago
step 1: Stop spamming people.
akerro 10y ago
You make a complain and Google ignores you forever, you make 10 more complains, all of them are ignored, you're frustrated so you have to change your phone number. Same procedure when Google blocks your Gmail, youtube, analytics or adwords with unpaid money on it.

dilemma 10y ago

My Windows Phone already does this!

roscoebeezie 10y ago
This is actually the first time I've heard this. Like really.
simula67 10y ago
From a quick Googling it seems Windows phones allow you to block calls from a particular number : http://www.windowscentral.com/how-to-block-calls-nokia-lumia http://www.windowscentral.com/how-to-block-calls-nokia-lumia Google's implementation also warns you about potential spam callers. Google maintains a list of spam callers and you can report phone numbers to this list.
- dilemma 10y ago
  Windows Phone identifies spam callers and lets you report numbers as spam. Like I said, my Windows Phone already does this!

est 10y ago

The function existed in Chinese phone/ROMs for quite some time now. Some of the intercepters will display which type of spam, place it originates and the exact business entity name of the caller.

Johnny555 10y ago
That doesn't work (well, not reliably) in the USA because the name/number presented in the caller ID can have little relation to the actual name/number of the caller. I wonder if Google is doing anything beyond simply crowdsourcing spam reports based on CallerID, at least for Google Voice numbers since they own that network so may have access to some data (ANI?) that's not normally available on regular phone lines?

ohazi 10y ago

Every time I get a call from a number I don't recognize I do this ridiculous dance where I try to Google the number (usually on my phone) before the ringing stops. If it shows up on enough spam caller sites (whocallsme, etc), I don't answer and add the number to my "SPAM" contact that currently contains about a billion phone numbers. It's ridiculous that it took Google so long to implement such a basic feature on their phones.

mszcz 10y ago
Oh, I love calls from telemarketers ;) It's a sport for me, a fun pass time. I'm trying to sell them shit before they have a chance to finish their pitch. Or I hang up on myself (hangup when I'm speaking) and see how many times they call me back (current record is at 4 before the guy figured it out). Or pretend that I don't own a phone while on a phonecall with them. Or ask them for their personal cell number so I can call during lunch and discuss this. BTW Randy Pausch gets credit for most of those.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  They usually get paid by the hour, and if you're on HN there's a decent chance your time is way more valuable than theirs. It'd be cheaper to use a service like Jolly Roger to keep them busy: http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/ http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/
  - mszcz 10y ago
    Probably true. However, those calls usually last couple of minutes tops and I'm always in a good mood afterwards. To me it's more of a IRL equivalent of watching cat gifs to reset your brain every now and then ;) I don't mind them getting paid as long as I can have a good time at their expense. And hey, maybe me laughing at them will cause them to reconsider their chosen profession (but not holding my breath). EDIT: typo.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      > And hey, maybe me laughing at them will cause them to reconsider their chosen profession (but not holding my breath). Maybe their 'chosen profession' has less in terms of freedom of choice than you think it does. There are only so many low-wage jobs available and I figure most call center operators are happy with the crappy job they've got rather than with the high moral standards one they don't or can't get.

blackoil 10y ago

Isn't Truecaller doing this and more on all Android/WP phones for years?

Johnny555 10y ago
But that means giving yet another company access to all of your phone call and SMS data. Since Google already has that information, I'd rather that they provide this service rather than letting a 3rd party scan my calls and SMS's.
- cronjobber 10y ago
  > Since Google already has that information Sure?
  - Johnny555 10y ago
    Yes, quite sure since I use Google Voice so all of my calls and SMS's go through their infrastructure. And even if I didn't use GV, I use their dialer, SMS, and contacts app, so they already can already see all of my calls, SMS's, and contacts.

AWildDHHAppears 10y ago

Of course, it's not hard for them to use a different caller ID for each call they make...

j_koreth 10y ago
And this raises the question on what's happens if Google suspects you to be a spammer.

agildehaus 10y ago

Caller ID can be spoofed rather easily. This will only lead to more spoofing. And are political calls and surveys considered spam? I certainly consider them spam.

dexterdog 10y ago
They are, but only if they are not paying the spam detection service. It's kind of like the BBB.

x0054 10y ago

I think iOS 10 does this as well. The funny thing is, a lot of the time I get spam phone calls that are in Spanish (I don't speak Spanish much) or when I pick up the phone, they just cut off the line. So they waste my time and theirs.

cmurf 10y ago
I think these are demographic specific scams, and you aren't the target demographic. Scams that target women, old people, or maybe even it's a pre-scam where it's just trying to find out if there's a human on the other end of the call and these numbers get more money when sold.

allendoerfer 10y ago

Spam calling seems to be a big deal in the US. Not at all where I live. Is it because of different features of the network or because there are cheap English speakers in other countries?

honkhonkpants 10y ago
It's because the relevant regulatory apparatus has been captured by the to-be-regulated industry in the USA. There's no technological gap that prevents us from dropping a smart bomb on telemarketers within minutes of their first spam call. We just don't care.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  "DEATH TO SPAMMERS" [1] 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665847-daemon?from_search=true https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665847-daemon?from_sear...
- cmurf 10y ago
  I got a call from someone who told me I had a virus and had to install some software so they could fix it. I told him he should find a new job instead of trying to steal other people's money. He repeated his script. I repeated mine. And after the third time he went off script and asked me, "can you tell me where I can find a better job?" So there you go. Money making good people do bad things again.
- wpietri 10y ago
  Are you sure about that? In 2012 the FTC had a robocall summit with a variety of speakers. I watched the live feed and it seemed like they were quite sincere about tracking people down. It was just a hard problem given the rise of things like VOIP.
allendoerfer 10y ago
To answer my own question: Receivers pay, not callers.

kqr2 10y ago

sonic.net uses nomorobo to filter out spam callers and it seems to be pretty effective. https://www.nomorobo.com/ https://www.nomorobo.com/

cmurf 10y ago

I think it's ridiculous you have to have a Nexus phone to get this capability. Anyone with a Google account and Android should be able to get this functionality. Right now with Google Voice I get a dozen hang up calls per day, it's always from a different number. When I don't answer, Ive got a dozen 2 second long voice mails. I used to spend a lot of time setting these to spam or being blocked, but between Google Voice and Hangouts simply asinine and beyond incompetent integration where some calls show up in Google Voice but not Hangouts and vice versa, I'm losing interest. So recently I just decided to make the default behavior for the Google Voice number not ring any of my phones or Hangouts, but set up contact groups where friends and family should ring through. Well that's not working, I'm still getting spam and hangup calls, and some friends ring through, others don't, and client calls don't. It's really craptastic.

NeutronBoy 10y ago
> I think it's ridiculous you have to have a Nexus phone to get this capability. Anyone with a Google account and Android should be able to get this functionality. It's probably part of the Dialler app, which many other manufacturers replace with their own application.
godzillabrennus 10y ago
It's worth what you pay for it. That said they should charge me for more features! If it had pro features that worked for $35/year I'd do it.
- cmurf 10y ago
  It's not worth what I don't pay for it anymore. Nothing is worth this. Mosquito bites are free too, and also not worth it. I'd pay $35 a year for the f'n basic features it has now to work as they should, but don't. I'd pay a one time fee of $35 to see Hangouts die a fast death.
  - godzillabrennus 10y ago
    Hangouts is terrible. It has caused me to stop using Gtalk. Facebook messenger works better.

uptown 10y ago

I get 'em all. Almost never answer, and block every number. I've tracked the origin of a few of them down. Found the personal cell phone of the CEO of one of the companies that was behind one daily call that changed numbers everyday. That was a fu conversation, and it did stop the call, but hopefully if both Google and Apple implement this (as is planned in iOS10) it'll end this avenue of abuse.

bglazer 10y ago
Can you explain how you got the CEO's cell phone number? That sounds pretty amusing, honestly.

gesman 10y ago

Any unknown caller that starts his conversation with "Congratulations! ..." deserves public waterboarding.

cmurf 10y ago
Well, at least your advocacy of torture offers some transparency...
dang 10y ago
Nobody likes those calls, but please don't use HN comments to vent.

givinguflac 10y ago

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller...

ersii 10y ago

Does anyone know more on how this works? The original post references that "Caller ID must be enabled". Is this feature going to send all my incoming phone call numbers to Google - to compare it against a list of "known/suspected spammers"? Will this only work in the United States or will it work internationally?

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
If you have Caller ID enabled on a Nexus device, all of your incoming phone call numbers are already being sent to Google. Google almost certainly uses this metadata to try to identify spammers, like Gmail uses all of your mail to detect spam. The same caller calling many of their users in short succession could be more likely to be a spam caller, for instance.
asher_ 10y ago
Called ID looks up phone numbers and replaces them with the names of businesses. It does send the phone number to Google to look it up, and it does work internationally. I've lived in both Australia and Vietnam with great results. The feature has been available for a long time and is fantastic in my opinion. When an unknown number dials it gets replaced on the screen in ~1-2 seconds with the business name, which is really useful.

nstj 10y ago

iOS 10 brings functionality similar to this. [0] [0]: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS10.html https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/relea... > CallKit. CallKit also introduces app extensions that enable call blocking and caller identification. You can create an app extension that can associate a phone number with a name or tell the system when a number should be blocked.

jmspring 10y ago

Will this include unsolicited google adwords calls?

douche 10y ago

Turning the ringer off also works. I don't get talking on the phone. It's the lowest quality form of communication - it's ephemeral, and unlike actual face-to-face communications, all nuance and body language goes out the window. Not to mention the all-too-often piss-poor audio quality, mics that don't work half the time, and the "Can you hear me now? What was the last thing you heard?" and "Sorry, I was on mute" dances.

necessity 10y ago
Some things are too long to type.
- douche 10y ago
  I've yet to see anything that can't be more clearly, unambiguously, and quickly expressed in text or perhaps with a picture. If it's taking too long to type, my suggestion would be to get better at typing, or distill out the wheat from the chaff of what you're trying to say. That's what really drives me up the wall with speech - the information density is typically incredibly low, and too often people let noises tumble out of their face-holes without trying to piece together a coherent thought. I realize that's harsh, but I've lost patience for rambling, stream-of-conscience external monologues. Which promptly dissolve back into the hot air from whence they came, since there is not a readily reviewable, indexed, searchable record created automatically in the process of such bloviation.
  - res0nat0r 10y ago
    I'm sure speaking that response vs. typing that would have taken a lot less time. ;)
    - grawlinson 10y ago
      A few minutes of "um, uh, ... rustling papers yes, I need uh, 20 of uhhhhh" vs a simple written message that's short, sweet and straight to the point? Most phone conversations seem to be more of the former.

dredmorbius 10y ago

Phone spam has all but killed phones. Pervasive surveillance has done the rest. Maybe not for everyone. Yet. But where a phone was for a time a liberating device, it's become what many of its early (and I'm talking about late 19c and early 20c critics said, not late 20/early 21) critics claimed: an insistant, rude, inconsiderate, and noxious nuisance. A phone can ring at any time, from a call initiated anywhere in the world. Low (or zero) costs mean the caller has very little reason not to call, and even a very slight probability of a positive financial return can support all measure of spam. The fact that carrying a phone subjects you to sub-minute location tracking, puts an always-on microphone in your pocket, and leaks your identity, location, habits, and interests to the highest bidder (or marginally competent hacker) makes that a non-starter. For the past several years, I've simply not carried a phone when I could possibly manage to, and the liberation is tremendous. (The trauma of having been on-call for years may or may not have contributed to my intense distaste for the devices.) There are other options -- virtually any modern electronic kit has multiple messaging capabilities, from email to IRC to various messaging applications to full VOIP and voice/video messaging. Carrying a non-phone Android tablet affords some utility without the tremendous disutilities of a phone. But, and this speaks to recent pain, the device (a Samsung Tab A 9.7" WiFi-only) is itself locked down -- not rootable, bootloader locked, and so far as I can tell, no CyanogenMod images available for it. I'd bought it whilst travelling under some duress, as an affordable and, so far as I could tell, least-bad option. But without the ability to actually control the system, I'm still subject to spam, crud, poor management tools (simply being able to allocate and manage storage rationally appears beyonds its meagre capabilities), etc. What Google are offering is very little, very late. And the fact that other telcos are failing to step up and address the massive disutilities of their projects is another immense failing of the market. Realising these are the same unspeakable idiots who'll be shoving Internet of Shit devices down our every orifice makes me cry for the future.

beefsack 10y ago

In Australia, I've signed up my numbers to the Do Not Call Register[1] and it's actually been pretty effective. I actually couldn't tell you the last time I had an unsolicited call like that. [1] https://www.donotcall.gov.au/ https://www.donotcall.gov.au/

bikamonki 10y ago

If you are an Android user and you like programming you MUST install Automagic. It is, by far, the most useful app in my phone. You can automate pretty much any task on your droid, like say: if number from incoming call is in whitelist send me alert, if not hang and reply with sms "Send name and number I will call back".

Animats 10y ago

This means your incoming call data goes to Google. Previously, only the carrier saw it. Now they can use that info for marketing purposes.

Animats 10y ago

Caller ID info ought to appear with a data quality indicator. The trust value of the least-trusted SS7 node in the chain is the data quality.

Cedrickenos 10y ago

harryf 10y ago

In Switzerland this has been possible for quite some time now on both iOS and Android by installing the local.ch app - http://tel.local.ch/en/advertising-calls http://tel.local.ch/en/advertising-calls

Cedrickenos 10y ago

Jeanninelst 10y ago

It's sort of breathtaking to think I've gone from a time when people were suspicious about the usefulness of computers to one where a phone telling you the call you're getting is probably useless is a basic feature that it's ridiculous to not have. WTG engineering!

saghul 10y ago

Honest question: are spam calls common in the US? I don't remember when / if I got any in Spain, Netherlands or UK (places I've lived and had cellphones for a prolonged time), I do remember, however, that when I managed to score a US number with Google Voice I'd regularly get weird spammy voicemails. If that is the case, I wonder why that is!

bbrks 10y ago
Spam calls are a nuisance in the UK too. Especially on landlines. If you threaten them with reporting to the TPS (Telephone preference service) and they're not just a robot, they sometimes stop bothering you.
gadders 10y ago
I get PPI and ambulance chasing car insurance calls all the time in the UK.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  I've had the same UK mobile number for... 16 years, and I get perhaps one spam call per year. As far as I know, numbers aren't recycled, so maybe the number is in such an old range that spammers don't bother calling it. I'm careful about who I give the number to, but I do share it.
  - gadders 10y ago
    I've had mine 20 years.I probably get 1-2 calls a month, some of which I dodge using True Caller.
lorenzhs 10y ago
Never got a single spam call or text in Germany either. I did get a bunch of credit card phishing texts while visiting the US (on a US SIM) and one or two calls from strange numbers that I didn't answer. No problems with a UK mobile number while I lived there. Seems like mostly landlines are affected there?
10y ago

PostThisTooFast 10y ago

Too bad they're not smart enough to put the headphone jack on the correct end of the camera (the BOTTOM, in case you're not capable of thinking things through).

gadders 10y ago

For those on a non-Nexus android phone, True Caller does this function pretty well for me in the UK.

criddell 10y ago

Why is it so hard for the phone company to provide accurate caller id data? I can understand the need to block outgoing caller id info and I have no problem with that. But I also have the right to not answer anonymous calls.

ableal 10y ago

"Prank call" apps in the store do not help either.

lintiness 10y ago

now if they could only get that camera to work ...