4 ms·

I had to fend off calls like this a lot when living with my mom. I estimate most calls made are scams. It is sad the government doesn't care about quality in co

by ohiovr 8y ago

I had to fend off calls like this a lot when living with my mom. I estimate most calls made are scams. It is sad the government doesn't care about quality in communications.

rtkwe 8y ago
It's a byproduct of one very important regulation. Phone companies are required to connect calls they receive, ie they can't block calls coming into their network from other exchanges. This is a pretty important anti-monopoly rule because it prevents big companies like AT&T from freezing out small competitors like the early VOIP players or from trying to squeeze out each other by degrading service for calls not originating in their network. An unfortunate side effect is they are somewhat limited in their ability to block or filter calls and to enforce caller ID. All it takes is one cooperative operator for a spammer to bypass any protections put in place among the large carriers. There was a neat reply all episode about someone abusing this connection requirement to make money just by sending out calls to 1-800 numbers, keeping people on the line and getting a cut from the originating exchange. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/104-case-phantom-caller https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/104-case-phantom-calle...
- ohiovr 8y ago
  A phone number rating system could be developed where if they get negged enough the number just comes in as "spam call" instead of the next town near you.
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    That already exists for Android but it only fixes those not doing CID spoofing. I get a lot of calls marked as spam but it won't and hasn't fixed the problem of spoofed caller ID numbers though which are those calls that match the first 6 digits of your phone number. Those they just constantly rotate and change to match the number they're calling at the moment. I've had a few people call me and even my work desk number after some cid spoofer has used those numbers.

by ohiovr 8y ago

I had to fend off calls like this a lot when living with my mom. I estimate most calls made are scams. It is sad the government doesn't care about quality in communications.

rtkwe 8y ago

It's a byproduct of one very important regulation. Phone companies are required to connect calls they receive, ie they can't block calls coming into their network from other exchanges. This is a pretty important anti-monopoly rule because it prevents big companies like AT&T from freezing out small competitors like the early VOIP players or from trying to squeeze out each other by degrading service for calls not originating in their network. An unfortunate side effect is they are somewhat limited in their ability to block or filter calls and to enforce caller ID. All it takes is one cooperative operator for a spammer to bypass any protections put in place among the large carriers. There was a neat reply all episode about someone abusing this connection requirement to make money just by sending out calls to 1-800 numbers, keeping people on the line and getting a cut from the originating exchange. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/104-case-phantom-caller https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/104-case-phantom-calle...

ohiovr 8y ago
A phone number rating system could be developed where if they get negged enough the number just comes in as "spam call" instead of the next town near you.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  That already exists for Android but it only fixes those not doing CID spoofing. I get a lot of calls marked as spam but it won't and hasn't fixed the problem of spoofed caller ID numbers though which are those calls that match the first 6 digits of your phone number. Those they just constantly rotate and change to match the number they're calling at the moment. I've had a few people call me and even my work desk number after some cid spoofer has used those numbers.