5 ms·
Our company actually has a really good view into where robocalls are coming from and what they are doing because we own a tremendous amount of phone numbers in
by tbrock 8y ago
Our company actually has a really good view into where robocalls are coming from and what they are doing because we own a tremendous amount of phone numbers in the US (100s of thousands - millions at peak). We can basically see when this is happening and a robo-caller is targeting an area code, zip code, state, etc...
When we get called from a number we don't know we used to simply reject the call. Now, as of this week, we are publishing the metadata to a kafka topic so that we might be able to do some post-processing on these events which might help identify these robot callers earlier. We've already learned that the volume of robo-calls decreases dramatically on the weekends.
The hope is that we'd at the very least learn something about how they operate but at the very best possibly provide an api that allowed people to check if a number was currently considered a robo-caller or if their city, state, zip was currently under attack. That way, for example, the makers of robo-killer, etc... could provide better protection. Perhaps we could even create a live map of the attacks.
I'll follow up when we do and post something to HN.
- gjs278 8y agorobocall people are just spoofing random numbers
- wesleytodd 8y agoWhich company?
- swampthinker 8y agoHustle https://www.hustle.com/ https://www.hustle.com/
- johnmarcus 8y agoyour homepages is 404'ing from the ycombo-hug. you may want to put cloudflare or cloudfront ahead of it.
- swampthinker 8y agoNot my company, just know where he works.
- sacul 8y ago(This turned into a bit of a rant...) So, AFAICT, Hustle provides a service that's nearly as bad as robocalls. From their front page: "Hustle works because people read and respond to texts—and to communication that feels more human." So it's a bait and switch, just like a robocall: you contact me in a way that makes you feel personal, approachable and reasonable to me so that you can gain my attention. Look, try to see this from my perspective. Without saying anything about the honor and motives of those behind Hustle, it's like I'm being attacked from all sides - Facebook, Robocalls, and now Hustle - to gain my attention. This has always been the case, perhaps, but our modern technology – coupled with a knowledge of human psychology – is a powerful tool (weapon?) for gaining access. Here's an idea: I don't want to be assaulted all the time via the always-on electronic device I have in my pocket! I still want to have access whenever I want it. Maybe I can't have it both ways?
- jerf 8y agoI am currently being hammered by robocalls, in relative terms at least. I can't remember the last time I got an unsolicited text. An anecdote to be sure, but I don't hear anyone complaining right now about unsolicited texts, so it doesn't seem like Hustle is the problem. "I still want to have access whenever I want it. Maybe I can't have it both ways?" You can, actually, and it isn't that hard. I have a strict "one strike and you're out" policy with my apps; if I see a notification I don't want, I either fix the notification preferences in the app right away, or if the app doesn't permit what I need, nuke the app's ability to notify. My phone is pretty quiet.
- rightbyte 8y agoI've never got any in Europe. Maybe the cheap spam bots are not localized? Only robot calls I get is after contacting customer support they autocall you and ask the enter a rating of the call.
- reaperducer 8y agoI don't hear anyone complaining right now about unsolicited texts Really? You must not be listening. Do a quick Google News search and you'll find dozens of articles about it. My T-Mobile hotspot has 133 unsolicited (and unread) text messages in it right now because spammers think it's a cell phone. During the last election I received 50 or 60 unsolicited political text messages from both parties on my work phone. Unsolicited text is a problem.
- DenisM 8y agoMake a firehose and sell it to {Google|Apple} so that they can use it to increase value of their phones to consumers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- albeebe1 8y agoYou're going to quickly find that the robocallers (that don't spoof their number) only use numbers for a very short period of time before moving onto another number. Then you'll have legitimate numbers that you've never seen before all of a sudden start blasting out calls such as school delay/cancellation calls and community crime/amber alerts.
- SheinhardtWigCo 8y agoFrom your company's website: > Our simple web and mobile apps allow your team to text 1000+ people an hour. Your contacts see a normal SMS from a local number. Does that mean you would appear on your own live map of attacks?