5 ms·

What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted

What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Is there a law against this or something? Nomorobo, Robokiller, Hiya all do an okay job as blacklisting applications but that seems like the wrong way to go about it. Some suggest using do not disturb to do this, but that blocks all notifications (including from texts) so it is not a viable solution.

ars 8y ago
You can already do that in Android (which is the majority of people). Not solved. People have phones that are not smart phones. Caller ID is frequency faked.
wlesieutre 8y ago
Voicemails are still annoying, I have a red alert badge on the home screen and have to go in, check that it's not real, and delete it. Would love to be able to junk filter incoming voicemail based on the transcript. Anything with "card services calling about your credit card account" or "qualify for a medical grade back or knee brace" goes straight to trash. Of course that only works for a few months until scammers adapt and somehow make their calls less understandable to the speech to text or vary up their script more often, but we fought the same battle with email and seem to have done pretty well. Couldn't say when the last time I got a spam email in my inbox was.
- plushpuffin 8y ago
  I downloaded an app that automates the process of disabling voicemail entirely. I don't need it. Anyone whose call I miss can just send me a text or email. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.teltech.novm https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.teltech.nov...
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    I get some useful ones like appointment confirmations that I doubt are set up to text me if I don't pick up
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  I find that the scam calls I get don't leave a lot of voicemails
- gnicholas 8y ago
  Don't forget about calls about "your Visa Mastercard".
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  I’ve set up a DID that is just a voicemail box on VoIP.ms. All unanswered calls get forwarded to it. I get an email mp3 of voicemails. They don’t get deleted. And I can still access my voicemail easily if i’m Overseas or need to reference them in the future. Costs about $1/month. And for people I really don’t like... I just hand out that straight to voicemail number.
epriest 8y ago
Here's how to actually "solve" this problem on an iPhone: - Pay $1.99 to buy a silent ringtone from the ringtone store. - Make that your default ringtone. - Give everyone who you want to be able to call you an audible ringtone.
- platetone 8y ago
  still would vibrate, right? but this is a really clever idea...
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    You can totally disable vibrate on ring.
- gruez 8y ago
  >- Pay $1.99 to buy a silent ringtone from the ringtone store. I would refuse to do that on principle.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    You can make your own Ringtones on the iPhone, you don't need to pay for them on the Ringtone Store.
  - zepto 8y ago
    Well then make your own. If your time it takes to do so is worth less than $1.99, then your principles will have saved you money.
- post_break 8y ago
  iPhones still take up the whole screen when a call comes in however.
- gyrgtyn 8y ago
  You can put your phone on do not disturb and allow calls from <group>
- 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
guitarbill 8y ago
You'd still miss out, like with the surgeon's example of a patient calling. It doesn't need a technological solution at all. In the UK and Germany, there were some calls, but it was rare, not even once a month. Do-not-call lists are enforced, and e.g. the ICO can fine directors of companies, not just the companies. Reporting nuisance calls can be done on a website, immediately. Then again, in the US, everything requires a phone number, which is problem number 1, even having mail sent to my house. Why exactly? Second, I would pay for a wildcard phone number service that forwards to my mobile, and lets me track leaked info like I do with wildcard email domains.
- michaelt 8y ago
  The UK system is good, but there are still robocalls and scam calls occasionally. If you can make your scam calls from a foreign telephone network with spoofed caller ID, or your scam is good enough you can profitably do it from prepaid anonymous SIMs, regulators claim they're powerless.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    Agree, there's still room for blocking tech. Blocking calls from outside the country is simpler though. I still think privacy laws are more effective. The only time I've had really bad robocalls was when I transferred a domain. Now, ICANN are muppets and wilfully ignore GDPR et al. Okay, so WHOIS "protection", right? But insultingly, transferring domains doesn't work with WHOIS protection, and you need to supply a real number. (Oh well, at least in the UK I can still buy pre-paid SIM cards with only cash in every major supermarket chain.)
- clhodapp 8y ago
  > Then again, in the US, everything requires a phone number, which is problem number 1, even having mail sent to my house. Why exactly? So they have the option to SMS-spam you and resell your info (thus creating robocalls), of course. Even the coffee shop near my office wants me to register with them for a "rewards card" now. It's disgusting.
- GordonS 8y ago
tjoff 8y ago
Is there a law against this or something? Common sense? In what universe is that a solution?
Shivetya 8y ago
We found out that a business we asked to call us shows up with no caller id, it was because of Google services. Plus in many cellular networks its not common for the caller id information to be passed. While I would like more tools on phones by various providers this problem as a whole needs to be solved by those routing the calls. How that works I don't know, I always thought ANI was the end all solution but IP calling circumvents that?
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  A major Canadian wireless provider used to have a screwed up ANI system where it just reported the area code and exchange code followed by 9999. Enough information for them to bill my provider, but not enough to let me know who’s calling.
WorldMaker 8y ago
I've been saying for a while that Phone UX on our handheld computers is an amazing mistake. There's no other application on any computing device that we allow to be an uneasily dismissable, focus stealing modal with sound alarms in 2019. Sure, phone calls have historical weight behind them, but it is past time to rethink the UX for current usage.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  If you want to see how good UX can be on a mobile device, download Microsoft Remote Desktop for android and remote into a Microsoft Windows Server instance. I just want that experience, though preferably with a Linux system, that happens to have a "phone" application. Did anyone ever make a "desktop" phone?
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Microsoft Lumia 950 got incredibly close to being a "desktop" phone. Continuum was ahead of the curve. It was really cool being able to Miracast to any capable screen and expand the phone out onto a larger screen, even if you still only had access to "mobile" apps on that larger screen, most just worked fine. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for even more of a "desktop phone" experience. The interesting part too is right now people are playing with Windows 10 on ARM on the Lumia 950 hardware (which is supposed to be a generation too old in ARM processor, but seems in practice to work just fine). The latest Windows 10 on ARM builds have x86 emulation and Win32 support and suddenly you also have access to 32-bit Windows apps going back forever on the device. (One video has someone load up even Steam and Fallout 1 on that hardware.) So they truly are "desktop" phones today, just maybe too late for that to be useful to phone market.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    Yes. It was the ICL One Per Desk. (-:
acdha 8y ago
> What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Now you missed the reminder from your dentist, a call from that relative whose new number you forgot to save, and you have 600 recruiters and other stale business contacts in your address book because you wanted to hear from them but you're still getting spam calls because the spammers were smart enough to start spoofing numbers like the local utility companies for your area code. There are many technical fixes which sound good until you think about what an adversary with a profit margin would do to work around them. What will work is fixing the underlying telephone system so Caller ID / ANI are reliable enough to use for filtering and law enforcement. The major telephone companies didn't want to spend the money last time, and they profit from all of these calls now, but if it became a regulatory requirement that would change.
- dfxm12 8y ago
  Now you missed the reminder from your dentist, a call from that relative whose new number you forgot to save These are the types of people who leave voicemails. Robocallers are not...
  - acdha 8y ago
    … and? The point is that trying to maintain a 100% accurate list of numbers from which you want to receive calls from is a non-trivial amount of work AND it's useless as long as the spammer can just forge the number of someone legitimate.
  - bryondowd 8y ago
    In my experience, the robocallers are more likely to leave voicemail. You just get the first 10 seconds of their recording chopped off and the rest in your mailbox. So now you've just moved your issue from live calls to having to check your mailbox periodically to see if there's anything important mixed with the spam. Plus the added possibility that a legit caller doesn't leave a message, and something important gets delayed due to an inability to contact you.
- 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ars 8y ago

You can already do that in Android (which is the majority of people). Not solved. People have phones that are not smart phones. Caller ID is frequency faked.

wlesieutre 8y ago

Voicemails are still annoying, I have a red alert badge on the home screen and have to go in, check that it's not real, and delete it. Would love to be able to junk filter incoming voicemail based on the transcript. Anything with "card services calling about your credit card account" or "qualify for a medical grade back or knee brace" goes straight to trash. Of course that only works for a few months until scammers adapt and somehow make their calls less understandable to the speech to text or vary up their script more often, but we fought the same battle with email and seem to have done pretty well. Couldn't say when the last time I got a spam email in my inbox was.

plushpuffin 8y ago
I downloaded an app that automates the process of disabling voicemail entirely. I don't need it. Anyone whose call I miss can just send me a text or email. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.teltech.novm https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.teltech.nov...
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  I get some useful ones like appointment confirmations that I doubt are set up to text me if I don't pick up
mrguyorama 8y ago
I find that the scam calls I get don't leave a lot of voicemails
gnicholas 8y ago
Don't forget about calls about "your Visa Mastercard".
Scoundreller 8y ago
I’ve set up a DID that is just a voicemail box on VoIP.ms. All unanswered calls get forwarded to it. I get an email mp3 of voicemails. They don’t get deleted. And I can still access my voicemail easily if i’m Overseas or need to reference them in the future. Costs about $1/month. And for people I really don’t like... I just hand out that straight to voicemail number.

epriest 8y ago

Here's how to actually "solve" this problem on an iPhone: - Pay $1.99 to buy a silent ringtone from the ringtone store. - Make that your default ringtone. - Give everyone who you want to be able to call you an audible ringtone.

platetone 8y ago
still would vibrate, right? but this is a really clever idea...
- rtkwe 8y ago
  You can totally disable vibrate on ring.
gruez 8y ago
>- Pay $1.99 to buy a silent ringtone from the ringtone store. I would refuse to do that on principle.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  You can make your own Ringtones on the iPhone, you don't need to pay for them on the Ringtone Store.
- zepto 8y ago
  Well then make your own. If your time it takes to do so is worth less than $1.99, then your principles will have saved you money.
post_break 8y ago
iPhones still take up the whole screen when a call comes in however.
gyrgtyn 8y ago
You can put your phone on do not disturb and allow calls from <group>
8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

guitarbill 8y ago

You'd still miss out, like with the surgeon's example of a patient calling. It doesn't need a technological solution at all. In the UK and Germany, there were some calls, but it was rare, not even once a month. Do-not-call lists are enforced, and e.g. the ICO can fine directors of companies, not just the companies. Reporting nuisance calls can be done on a website, immediately. Then again, in the US, everything requires a phone number, which is problem number 1, even having mail sent to my house. Why exactly? Second, I would pay for a wildcard phone number service that forwards to my mobile, and lets me track leaked info like I do with wildcard email domains.

michaelt 8y ago
The UK system is good, but there are still robocalls and scam calls occasionally. If you can make your scam calls from a foreign telephone network with spoofed caller ID, or your scam is good enough you can profitably do it from prepaid anonymous SIMs, regulators claim they're powerless.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  Agree, there's still room for blocking tech. Blocking calls from outside the country is simpler though. I still think privacy laws are more effective. The only time I've had really bad robocalls was when I transferred a domain. Now, ICANN are muppets and wilfully ignore GDPR et al. Okay, so WHOIS "protection", right? But insultingly, transferring domains doesn't work with WHOIS protection, and you need to supply a real number. (Oh well, at least in the UK I can still buy pre-paid SIM cards with only cash in every major supermarket chain.)
clhodapp 8y ago
> Then again, in the US, everything requires a phone number, which is problem number 1, even having mail sent to my house. Why exactly? So they have the option to SMS-spam you and resell your info (thus creating robocalls), of course. Even the coffee shop near my office wants me to register with them for a "rewards card" now. It's disgusting.
GordonS 8y ago

tjoff 8y ago

Is there a law against this or something? Common sense? In what universe is that a solution?

Shivetya 8y ago

We found out that a business we asked to call us shows up with no caller id, it was because of Google services. Plus in many cellular networks its not common for the caller id information to be passed. While I would like more tools on phones by various providers this problem as a whole needs to be solved by those routing the calls. How that works I don't know, I always thought ANI was the end all solution but IP calling circumvents that?

Scoundreller 8y ago
A major Canadian wireless provider used to have a screwed up ANI system where it just reported the area code and exchange code followed by 9999. Enough information for them to bill my provider, but not enough to let me know who’s calling.

WorldMaker 8y ago

I've been saying for a while that Phone UX on our handheld computers is an amazing mistake. There's no other application on any computing device that we allow to be an uneasily dismissable, focus stealing modal with sound alarms in 2019. Sure, phone calls have historical weight behind them, but it is past time to rethink the UX for current usage.

mrguyorama 8y ago
If you want to see how good UX can be on a mobile device, download Microsoft Remote Desktop for android and remote into a Microsoft Windows Server instance. I just want that experience, though preferably with a Linux system, that happens to have a "phone" application. Did anyone ever make a "desktop" phone?
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Microsoft Lumia 950 got incredibly close to being a "desktop" phone. Continuum was ahead of the curve. It was really cool being able to Miracast to any capable screen and expand the phone out onto a larger screen, even if you still only had access to "mobile" apps on that larger screen, most just worked fine. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for even more of a "desktop phone" experience. The interesting part too is right now people are playing with Windows 10 on ARM on the Lumia 950 hardware (which is supposed to be a generation too old in ARM processor, but seems in practice to work just fine). The latest Windows 10 on ARM builds have x86 emulation and Win32 support and suddenly you also have access to 32-bit Windows apps going back forever on the device. (One video has someone load up even Steam and Fallout 1 on that hardware.) So they truly are "desktop" phones today, just maybe too late for that to be useful to phone market.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  Yes. It was the ICL One Per Desk. (-:

acdha 8y ago

> What confuses me about this is that Apple could solve this in two seconds by allowing contact whitelists where only incoming calls in your contacts are accepted and everything else is sent to voicemail or dropped. Now you missed the reminder from your dentist, a call from that relative whose new number you forgot to save, and you have 600 recruiters and other stale business contacts in your address book because you wanted to hear from them but you're still getting spam calls because the spammers were smart enough to start spoofing numbers like the local utility companies for your area code. There are many technical fixes which sound good until you think about what an adversary with a profit margin would do to work around them. What will work is fixing the underlying telephone system so Caller ID / ANI are reliable enough to use for filtering and law enforcement. The major telephone companies didn't want to spend the money last time, and they profit from all of these calls now, but if it became a regulatory requirement that would change.

dfxm12 8y ago
Now you missed the reminder from your dentist, a call from that relative whose new number you forgot to save These are the types of people who leave voicemails. Robocallers are not...
- acdha 8y ago
  … and? The point is that trying to maintain a 100% accurate list of numbers from which you want to receive calls from is a non-trivial amount of work AND it's useless as long as the spammer can just forge the number of someone legitimate.
- bryondowd 8y ago
  In my experience, the robocallers are more likely to leave voicemail. You just get the first 10 seconds of their recording chopped off and the rest in your mailbox. So now you've just moved your issue from live calls to having to check your mailbox periodically to see if there's anything important mixed with the spam. Plus the added possibility that a legit caller doesn't leave a message, and something important gets delayed due to an inability to contact you.
8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]