8 ms·
The article doesn't describe how the technology works. Due to the slow speed (100 voicemail/min) its likely what they are doing is initiating a call far enough
by extrapickles 9y ago
The article doesn't describe how the technology works.
Due to the slow speed (100 voicemail/min) its likely what they are doing is initiating a call far enough for the phone system to busy out your phone, then very quickly placing a second call that the phone system sends straight to voicemail as your phone is busy. Once this call starts to hit voicemail, the original call is dropped.
I doubt phone companies let people directly send voicemail to people as they wouldn't be billing for that.
- eli 9y agoIf I call my T-Mobile voicemail I can leave a message on someone else's T-Mobile line. Definitely possible.
- zeronight 9y agoVoicemail are just other phone numbers, most of the time they are internal to the network though.
- Crosseye_Jack 9y agoIn the uk we have had the ability to send direct voicemail for years, one operator actively marketed the system before text messages took off as a method to message another orange customer without having to ring their phone. EDIT: just called my voicemail and the option to direct leave a voice mail for someone else is right on the main menu (Three UK).
- cschmittiey 9y agoFor what it's worth, I've been able to do this in the US as well -- don't remember which carrier, I think Tracfone
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- abalashov 9y agowhat they are doing is initiating a call far enough for the phone system to busy out your phone, then very quickly placing a second call that the phone system sends straight to voicemail as your phone is busy. I can tell you that's exactly what they are doing.
- smacktoward 9y agoThis is fascinating. It never occurred to me until now that there might be a window in the call process between "line is flagged as busy" and "phone rings." I assume we're talking about a very narrow window here, right? How narrow? Is it something that has always existed, or something that crept in because of the transition from phone-as-mechanical-device to phone-as-software?
- tormeh 9y agoCould be a second or two. The traditional phone systems are dog slow. Often takes 15 secs from A starts ringing to B does.
- spc476 9y agoI can confirm. At work I have to deal with call processing [1], and the time guard [2] is 15 seconds on the originating side [3] for CDMA [4]. [1] We provide enhanced caller ID---a name in addition to the phone number. Our new product will also mark known telemarketers. [2] The amount of time we have to do what we do [3] The calling party---the one initiating the phone call. [4] which may be enough to identify the carrier we work with.
- semi-extrinsic 9y agoAs long as it's a fairly consistently timed window (and I assume it is), it doesn't matter if it's just a few milliseconds. On a related note, I'm still surprised to find that telephone operators haven't fixed the scenario "someone calls me and I just miss it, I call them back while they're trying to call me for the second time, and we both get a busy signal". As a naive outsider, seems like it wouldn't take much to just connect those two calls.
- moomin 9y agoIf that is how it works, I can't see how they'll manage to argue these aren't calls in a court.
- extrapickles 9y agoEven with the carrier/country specific techniques everyone is mentioning, they all involve calling, so they should fall under existing law too.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago>I can't see how they'll manage to argue these aren't calls in a court // I'd have thought on the basis that a telephone call involves two parties in simultaneous communication, the caller and callee, and that a voicemail box isn't a party when a message is being left; the recipient collecting the mail does so of their own volition; the communication is not a phone call, it's asynchronous. Whether that will wash probably depends on caselaw that I have no knowledge of.
- glasz 9y agoi am working on an application that sends calls straight to voicemail. there's "an api" for that in germany, meaning you put special codes between area code and number.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 9y agoHow do you sleep at night?
- glasz 9y agoit's ok. but the issue is randomly calling ppl. not the call itself. at least in germany random/cold calls are forbidden so you can only call people who agreed to it prior.
- devrandomguy 9y agoOpt in or opt out?
- nils-m-holm 9y agoOpt-in, but nobody cares. They will just use your number anyway and, when confronted, claim that you "must have opted in at some point". They will then promise to remove your number from their list and promptly call you again a few days later.
- tomjen3 9y agoHow would this work when my phone declines their call? I assume it would hang up on the first call, then be available to hand up on the second call? Because if not, I need to disable my voicemail.
- extrapickles 9y agoThis entire process occurs before your phone is even aware of the call to decline it. They are taking advantage of the fact that it takes at minimum a few dozen milliseconds to route a call to your phone. If you have one of the carriers others have mentioned, they are calling your voicemail directly, completely bypassing your phone.
- spc476 9y agoA few seconds actually. There's quite a bit of features that need to be checked along the path (said as someone working in the telecom industry providing name information).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- olegkikin 9y agoBut the first call would ring then.
- theclaw 9y agoNo, the two calls are dialled concurrently with a skew such that call A finishes dialling moments before call B. Call B immediately goes to voicemail because the line is locked setting up call A. Call A disconnects before the phone starts to ring, but after the network has routed call B to voicemail. Edit: clarified.
- manquer 9y agothis can then be easily fixed by the networks. Delay the second call request until the first call actually rings.
- caseysoftware 9y agoThat's exactly how it works. While I was at Twilio, we figured out how to do it - mostly from a customer abusing the system - and shut them down at the time. The problem was that it wasn't complicated enough that it would take long for others to figure out. The problem I noted at the time is that since we only charged for minutes during the call, the first call - which was dialed and immediately dropped - would never get a charge, only the second would.
- opendomain 9y agoI am a big fan of twillio, but I suspect that they or companies like it are contributing to the problem. I would like everyone that uses a telephone API to be required to register a bond. If they are found abusing the system, they will lose the bond and be banned from using ANY companies telephone system. That telephony companies do not take the opportunity fix tbe actual problem makes me think a court may be able to find they are complicit.
- betenoire 9y agoWhat bond amount will both let a young entrepreneur play and learn and at the same time prevent a scammer with (relatively speaking) much deeper pockets?
- terminado 9y agoeveryone that uses a telephone API How does one enforce such a thing, around the world, where interoperable telephone systems interact across multiple jurisdictions, some of which might not be as advanced, in technical terms, as others? What constitutes abuse? Which countries will this apply to first? Who is capable of making such a thing possible?
- analog31 9y agoThat could reasonably be regarded as wire fraud, a la prank calling.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y agoPrank calling isn't illegal unless it's harassment.
- grovegames 9y agoWhen I worked for a telco, you could easily call the voice mail main line, and then just use options to leave a voicemail in any mailbox. Easy peasy.
- IgorPartola 9y agoBack in the day, I remember Verizon Mobile had a thing where you could dial into your voicemail and then they had an option to leave a voicemail for another VZN subscriber just by punching in their number. I used this a couple of times to listen to an unknown caller's outgoing message.
- briandear 9y agoSo if that is the case, these companies ARE violating the law because they are actually calling you. I hope they get slaughtered in court.
- evan_ 9y ago> I doubt phone companies let people directly send voicemail to people as they wouldn't be billing for that. I mean- they could just bill for that. Like, offer a product that would send a voicemail message directly. Evil but I would not put it past a cell carrier.