11 ms·

So robocalls are the result of: - Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero - Cost of automation going to basically zero - Phone calls that can come f

by cletus 8y ago

So robocalls are the result of: - Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero - Cost of automation going to basically zero - Phone calls that can come from the Internet so there are no national boundaries anymore - Caller ID operating on essentially the honor system - Bad actors (telephone companies) benefitting from this traffic by charging for it - Larger players having no incentive to punish bad actors There's a reason why most messages are now sent on whitelist instead of blacklist systems. For whitelist systems to work you need to be able to enforce identity or have a significant cost to sending messages. Frankly I don't even want to receive phone calls on my "phone". If I did I'd be more than happy with a contacts only whitelist. Why I can't get this is beyond me. EDIT: for those mentioning the doctor's office and other non-whitelist cases, just send non-whitelisted callers to voicemail. If you need to answer the phone then OK, I guess this won't work for you. But for the majority of people for the majority of their time, whitelisted contacts only with the rest going to voicemail will work.

autotune 8y ago
iPhone at least has the option for a contacts only whitelist, I only get notifications from contacts and everything else gets ignored. No point in even considering answering a call from someone I don’t know, if it’s truly important they can leave a message and I respond asap.
- tprynn 8y ago
  That's only true with Do Not Disturb, which also silences all other notifications as well, a major drawback (for me, at least).
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    If your other contacts have "VIP" status in the contact list, they will automatically go through. I'm not sure if it works for non-Apple apps, though.
city41 8y ago
I probably make two or three phone calls a year. And that’s just to companies behind the times not offering chat support. I think it’s high time we just deprecate phones altogether. It’s pretty crazy I use a 10 digit number to identify myself. ICQ did that and it was considered archaic.
petters 8y ago
> Why I can't get this is beyond me. The first setting in my default Android phone app is to block unknown callers. What specifically do you want?
- jliptzin 8y ago
  Is that just blocking calls with unknown caller ID or calls that are not in your contacts list?
  - abawany 8y ago
    In my phone with LineageOS, the option was to block anyone who was not in the contacts list.
- tobib 8y ago
  Phone numbers are being spoofed so while you might block the majority of those calls you won't be able to block all of them. The problem has to be solved upstream.
- moate 8y ago
  That's a blacklist, "Don't accept calls from X". A white list would be "only accept calls from Y". That's what GP seems to be asking for.
  - jacoblambda 8y ago
    Block unknown callers is a whitelist though. It's literally "block everyone not in my contact list".
    - inetknght 8y ago
      ...until and unless the phone number is spoofed. Then the blacklist is getting onto the whitelist.
      - grecy 8y ago
nonbel 8y ago
It never made much sense to me that the providers would not offer some kind of robocall-free plan. I would instantly switch to avoid getting any more of these spoofed calls, which would block the vast majority of robocalls. It turns out that it is government regulation somehow preventing this: >"The FCC last year authorized voice service providers to block more types of calls in which the Caller ID has been spoofed or in which the number on the Caller ID is invalid." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/robocallers-evolved-to-sidestep-new-call-blocking-rules-ags-tell-fcc/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/robocallers-evol...
- Buetol 8y ago
  FYI, in France, the ISP called "Free" provides an option to block marketing calls in their box but many still go through http://portail.free.fr/m/l-aktu-free/astuces/6159173_20151005_demarchage-harcelement-protegez-vos-lignes-freebox-et-free-mobile-des-nuisances-telephoniques.html http://portail.free.fr/m/l-aktu-free/astuces/6159173_2015100...
- bloopernova 8y ago
  I pay t-mobile $4/month for their advanced spam-call blocking feature, and it works very well. I now get maybe 1 spam call every 2 weeks, compared against my worthless work number that has no such blocking which gets maybe 6 spam calls a day.
  - grumblez 8y ago
    FYI: T-Mobile's app that they charge $4/month for is a reskin of the Hiya app (https://hiya.com/ https://hiya.com/) that's only $1.25/month when paid yearly.
    - ArtDev 8y ago
      I just installed it. It identifies many of my recent robocalls as spam. Thanks! It also allows me to block numbers from my sim area code. This is where most spam calls spoof to be coming from. When I recently called T-mobile to ask for them to do this, they said they couldn't help me.
escherplex 8y ago
A smart phone app which behaves as a firewall requiring callers to enter, say, a three character PIN code before phone rings may be useful. Incorporate two message files, one for leaving messages from those who know the PIN code and one those who don't, would allow for any contingencies. A front end answering machine box for the home with the same functionalities may be useful as well.
- Loughla 8y ago
  So shift the burden of calling to literally everyone who is acting well? Why would I want to remember a unique PIN for everyone I know? Also, isn't that just taking the 9 digit phone number and turning it into a 12 digit?
  - penagwin 8y ago
    Plus how would we share this "pin"? Maybe we could append it to the phone number, like "+1 (616) 281 - 2123#32343" - Oh wait, it's already a number, what's the point of adding more onto it? It would literally turn into the same system that we have, as you have to share the pin with everyone anyway.
    - Evidlo 8y ago
      It's different because then not every "number" will result in a call being placed. Determining whether a number is valid requires making a call, which ties up robocallers.
  - escherplex 8y ago
    Bad actors exist and they're cleaver. Plus these days you don't have to remember anything. Adding an updatable PIN field to a personal call file in such an app coupled with a software protocol with a pop-up button labeled say 'PIN entry' which appears once a contact device answers (say, with a message enter PIN) that can transmit the PIN number would be sufficiently user-friendly for such an app. Better than receiving junk calls while waiting indefinitely for regulations with teeth from dysfunctional legislatures.
  - 8y ago
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
The only reason that matters here is bad actors. What kind of lack of compassion do you have to have to participate in an organisation that generates something universally hated.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  There's some kind of mental disconnect involved. I once knew a guy who ran a spam operation from Chicago. I was in his office once and he showed me something on his computer. In doing so I could see that his mail in-box had over 29,000 unread messages. I asked him how he deals with all those spam messages. He didn't think it was a big deal at all. Spam simply didn't bother him, and he believed in his heart that spam doesn't really bother anyone else, either.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    This idea is summarized in a famous quote: >"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
It would be nice if someone would create a device to exchange contact info with businesses to close the loop on managing the whitelist for new, infrequent associations. I should be able to go to a receptionist, mechanic, or contractor and accept identifying info from a Bluetooth device or a standardized non-URL QR code payload to let them contact me in the future. Then we could more conveniently manage authentication ourselves and cut the bad actors out of the process.
- eropple 8y ago
  You can embed a vCard in a QR code right now. Your phone should handle it correctly.
  - andrewla 8y ago
    That's a neat feature that I didn't even know existed. Sure enough, fives seconds on a random qr code site (https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/#vcard https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/#vcard) and my iPhone's camera offered to add it as a contact. I wonder why this isn't first-class (in terms of exporting); something I can expose directly as "this is me" or to pass off an existing contact via a quick visual swap. I guess I'll generate one for me and store it in the notes app, which is sort of a catchall for this sort of thing.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  That only works until the receptionist, mechanic, contractor, business can no longer be trusted. I took my cat in for an oil change over the weekend. That resulted in three spam texts and two spam e-mails from VCA. Time to change vets.
  - lapnitnelav 8y ago
    How often do you need to change the oil on a cat? Every 10K Meow-les? And to be on topic, you'd need a trusted 3rd party to manage those. But lately we've seen you can't trust them to secure / not resell your data anyway.
BeefySwain 8y ago
> For whitelist systems to work you need to be able to enforce identity or have a significant cost to sending messages. s/whitelist/blacklist ?
zackmorris 8y ago
Since caller id was implemented so poorly: https://www.onsip.com/blog/how-caller-id-works-why-it-might-take-months-to-update https://www.onsip.com/blog/how-caller-id-works-why-it-might-... Maybe it would be nice if we had something kind of like a CAPTCHA, where an app on your phone would say "please dial <random-number> and say your name to complete your call" and the person would have to dial it and say who they are to talk to you. Totally knee-jerk idea I realize, but I literally get 10 SCAM LIKELY calls for every real call now, rendering my phone almost unusable. Huh, I just did a quick search and it looks like it might already be possible to install an app to do something like this. Anyone know if this works? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099
- devcpp 8y ago
  It's insanely easy for a program to recognize individual digits and then type them out. Saying a name would also be trivial (recorded, generated, etc). Audio captchas have existed for a while, they have been an alternative for a long time, and they are even more annoying than images. What we need is an abuse prevention system involving authentication. You can get reported for robo calls, and if enough different accounts you called have reported you, you get reviewed/banned/throttled. Let's not reinvent the wheel, it's been the standard way to deal with spam all over the web. But it requires rethinking the way we use phones, and a whole new infrastructure. It also brings some anonymity concerns but half-measures are just an arms race.
  - AJ007 8y ago
    I think you are right about this. The previous response said they received 10 spam calls for every 1 real one. I'm probably about the same. My email spam isn't even close to that. 50 to 1, inbox, maybe? This situation is far more dire for the telco's and their debt holders than they are catching on to. The telephone number, portable or not, is what anchors their customers. When it is gone, you've got a commodity.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  say your name to complete your call" and the person would have to dial it and say who they are to talk to you. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this. My in-laws have this feature on their landline from their local telco. Completely annoying, but I don't want to talk to them anyway.
egypturnash 8y ago
Contacts-only whitelist with some work: Default ring: silence, no vibration. Custom ringtone for everyone you actually want to pick up the phone and talk to. Yeah you gotta spend some time setting it up for your existing contacts, then spend 5s selecting a ring when you add a new contact.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  This seems like an iOS specific work-around. On other platforms they simply give you the choice to block non-contact calls. I can do so on my Pixel by leaving Do-Not-Disturb on with Contacts Only.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - timstapl 8y ago
    I've done this on my Pixel 2 for some time, however it no longer appears to work. Have you experienced issues with this on recent android updates?
atombender 8y ago
Whitelisting is problematic because there are so many cases where it's impractical or impossible to add a contact first: Doctor's office calling to confirm your appointment; restaurant confirming a seat reservation; delivery guy is outside and can't find your doorbell; Lyft/Uber/whatever is nearby and is looking for you; pharmacy calling to inform about a prescription being ready; some store calling to inform that your order is ready to be picked up; insurance company calling about some claim; etc. These examples are from my own life, and they happen several times a month. I hardly ever make calls myself, but I do have to be able to receive important calls. Obviously some use cases can be fixed with text messaging and app, and increaasingly they are, but there are always going to be exceptions. Directing to voicemail is also a solution to some of these, but voicemail acts as a filter: The caller may decide to not bother leaving a message.
- darepublic 8y ago
  Need intelligent chat agents to receive calls on your behalf and act appropriate, just as you would -- arranging legit appointments, coordinating pick up times with the spouse and trolling offshore scammers by dangling red herring personal info to keep their resources tied as long as possible.
  - Causality1 8y ago
    AI assistants are all well and good but I find you continually run into seemingly simple situation that completely flummox them. I experienced this myself recently when I discovered that, despite nearly a decade of development, Google Assistant can't handle the command "navigate to the McDonald's closest to the Best Buy"
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    "Once again, sir, we're terribly sorry that Alexa misunderstood your daycare provider due to their accent. Due to your loss, please accept this $20 Audible credit to your account."
- Leace 8y ago
  > Doctor's office calling to confirm your appointment; restaurant confirming a seat reservation; delivery guy is outside and can't find your doorbell; Lyft/Uber/whatever is nearby and is looking for you; pharmacy calling to inform about a prescription being ready; some store calling to inform that your order is ready to be picked up; insurance company calling about some claim; etc. The problem is phone number that is short and easy to guess. Imagine replacing them with a longer token that would be generated each time you want to give someone else a way to contact you (e.g. displaying a QR barcode on your phone and letting the other party scan it). Then you'd share a unique identifier with all that parties. Delivery guy can get a token that expires after a while. If someone abuses their ability of contacting someone, the token would get revoked. I leave the details and implementation as an exercise for the reader ;)
deleted 8y ago
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tracker1 8y ago
I'm pretty sure there are already apps for Android that can do what you are asking. I use google voice, which tends to block most of the crap.
nathan_long 8y ago
The nightmare case for whitelisting is an emergency call from or on behalf of your spouse or child using a stranger's phone. This is why I don't want a whitelist. What I want is for spammers specifically to be identifiable and blockable, or for their business to be made prohibitively expensive. I didn't get spam calls on my cell phone 15 years ago, and as you say, what has changed is largely economics. Why can't we work to adjust the economics back?
- neuralRiot 8y ago
  I only answer calls from contacts, i ran into this scenario a few weeks ago, my wife lost her phone and wanted to contact me to locate it with "find my iphone" she just text me from her coworker's phone, no problem at all.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    Sounds like some next century level “how to track anyone”. Just send an SMS from a random (non-spoofed) phone number, ask to do a “find my iPhone.”
    - neuralRiot 8y ago
      Yeah, that would sound suspicious but she just let me know that she was calling from a diferent number.
- ilikehurdles 8y ago
  I treat my phone as if it’s on a whitelist anyway. I can’t imagine how people do otherwise. If it’s an unknown number, I reject it. If they leave a voicemail, I’ll get notified and I’ll check it pretty soon after the call. Every day I get no less than two unwanted calls from scams and robocallers. I don’t have time for that.
  - nathan_long 8y ago
    I do that, too. But I didn't always have to, and I shouldn't have to, that's my point.
biztos 8y ago
That sounds plausible, but then why are robocalls not a problem in Europe? I have two EU numbers and have never gotten a robocall on either of them. I have never heard of anyone getting a robocall in Europe, and while that might just be anecdata I think I would have heard something after two decades, especially in privacy-minded Germany. When I get off the plane in San Francisco and activate my American SIM card, I usually have my first robocall before I get my first beer. And my mother gets so many on her land line, she always screens her calls. What is Europe doing right here that America is doing wrong?
- silvestrov 8y ago
  Denmark: almost all (cold) sales calls are forbidden by law. Exceptions are sales of books, newspapers, insurance, and research (e.g. Gallup). There is also a "do not call" list that blocks all such calls. In Danish: https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoeringsloven/spam-og-uanmodede-henvendelser/telefonsalg/ https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe...
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    The exclusions sound... arbitrary? I get the research exemption, and i’m Happy about a politics exemption, but why books, newspapers and insurance? Why not bicycles or theatre or education?
    - flemming_geir 8y ago
      Probably just grandfathered in. I'm guessing at the time of legislation, these things were commonly sold via cold sales calls.
- flerchin 8y ago
  Language barrier.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  France gets them a lot. Often it’s “DHL” calling and you have to pay some fee to release a package. Likely because cheap francophone labour is available in similar time zones.
deleted 8y ago
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CharlesColeman 8y ago
> Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero I think this is the crux of the issue, and I don't think it's a situation that any non-spammer end-user wants. There's a definite non-zero cost to receiving a phone call. I think we'd fix the robocall problem in a heartbeat if a small artificial charge was billed by the receiving phone company each time they connected a call (or rang a customer's phone, not sure about the precise terminology).
ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
I was getting 10+ spam calls a day a couple of months back. They all originated from overseas numbers and I was pissed off that there isn’t a way with iOS at least to block certain countries. Like no one from Malta is ever going to call me so why can’t I just block Malta. I resorted to using Do not Disturb mode allowing my contact list to ring. It’s worked out great, I have missed a couple of blocked caller numbers that I would have liked to have taken but they always leave messages. And the spam calls have more or less dried up now.
suggestionman 8y ago
block all calls coming from India problem. solved.
dbspin 8y ago
You mention 'no national boundaries anymore'. But robocalls are extremely rare in Europe. Presumably both for legislative and commercial reasons. None the less this is an existence proof that they aren't some kind of inevitability of mobile technology.
calvertdw 8y ago
> - Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero > - Bad actors (telephone companies) benefitting from this traffic by charging for it I don't think these are compatible.

by cletus 8y ago

autotune 8y ago

iPhone at least has the option for a contacts only whitelist, I only get notifications from contacts and everything else gets ignored. No point in even considering answering a call from someone I don’t know, if it’s truly important they can leave a message and I respond asap.

tprynn 8y ago
That's only true with Do Not Disturb, which also silences all other notifications as well, a major drawback (for me, at least).
- reaperducer 8y ago
  If your other contacts have "VIP" status in the contact list, they will automatically go through. I'm not sure if it works for non-Apple apps, though.

city41 8y ago

I probably make two or three phone calls a year. And that’s just to companies behind the times not offering chat support. I think it’s high time we just deprecate phones altogether. It’s pretty crazy I use a 10 digit number to identify myself. ICQ did that and it was considered archaic.

petters 8y ago

> Why I can't get this is beyond me. The first setting in my default Android phone app is to block unknown callers. What specifically do you want?

jliptzin 8y ago
Is that just blocking calls with unknown caller ID or calls that are not in your contacts list?
- abawany 8y ago
  In my phone with LineageOS, the option was to block anyone who was not in the contacts list.
tobib 8y ago
Phone numbers are being spoofed so while you might block the majority of those calls you won't be able to block all of them. The problem has to be solved upstream.
moate 8y ago
That's a blacklist, "Don't accept calls from X". A white list would be "only accept calls from Y". That's what GP seems to be asking for.
- jacoblambda 8y ago
  Block unknown callers is a whitelist though. It's literally "block everyone not in my contact list".
  - inetknght 8y ago
    ...until and unless the phone number is spoofed. Then the blacklist is getting onto the whitelist.
    - grecy 8y ago

nonbel 8y ago

It never made much sense to me that the providers would not offer some kind of robocall-free plan. I would instantly switch to avoid getting any more of these spoofed calls, which would block the vast majority of robocalls. It turns out that it is government regulation somehow preventing this: >"The FCC last year authorized voice service providers to block more types of calls in which the Caller ID has been spoofed or in which the number on the Caller ID is invalid." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/robocallers-evolved-to-sidestep-new-call-blocking-rules-ags-tell-fcc/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/robocallers-evol...

Buetol 8y ago
FYI, in France, the ISP called "Free" provides an option to block marketing calls in their box but many still go through http://portail.free.fr/m/l-aktu-free/astuces/6159173_20151005_demarchage-harcelement-protegez-vos-lignes-freebox-et-free-mobile-des-nuisances-telephoniques.html http://portail.free.fr/m/l-aktu-free/astuces/6159173_2015100...
bloopernova 8y ago
I pay t-mobile $4/month for their advanced spam-call blocking feature, and it works very well. I now get maybe 1 spam call every 2 weeks, compared against my worthless work number that has no such blocking which gets maybe 6 spam calls a day.
- grumblez 8y ago
  FYI: T-Mobile's app that they charge $4/month for is a reskin of the Hiya app (https://hiya.com/ https://hiya.com/) that's only $1.25/month when paid yearly.
  - ArtDev 8y ago
    I just installed it. It identifies many of my recent robocalls as spam. Thanks! It also allows me to block numbers from my sim area code. This is where most spam calls spoof to be coming from. When I recently called T-mobile to ask for them to do this, they said they couldn't help me.

escherplex 8y ago

A smart phone app which behaves as a firewall requiring callers to enter, say, a three character PIN code before phone rings may be useful. Incorporate two message files, one for leaving messages from those who know the PIN code and one those who don't, would allow for any contingencies. A front end answering machine box for the home with the same functionalities may be useful as well.

Loughla 8y ago
So shift the burden of calling to literally everyone who is acting well? Why would I want to remember a unique PIN for everyone I know? Also, isn't that just taking the 9 digit phone number and turning it into a 12 digit?
- penagwin 8y ago
  Plus how would we share this "pin"? Maybe we could append it to the phone number, like "+1 (616) 281 - 2123#32343" - Oh wait, it's already a number, what's the point of adding more onto it? It would literally turn into the same system that we have, as you have to share the pin with everyone anyway.
  - Evidlo 8y ago
    It's different because then not every "number" will result in a call being placed. Determining whether a number is valid requires making a call, which ties up robocallers.
- escherplex 8y ago
  Bad actors exist and they're cleaver. Plus these days you don't have to remember anything. Adding an updatable PIN field to a personal call file in such an app coupled with a software protocol with a pop-up button labeled say 'PIN entry' which appears once a contact device answers (say, with a message enter PIN) that can transmit the PIN number would be sufficiently user-friendly for such an app. Better than receiving junk calls while waiting indefinitely for regulations with teeth from dysfunctional legislatures.
- 8y ago

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

The only reason that matters here is bad actors. What kind of lack of compassion do you have to have to participate in an organisation that generates something universally hated.

reaperducer 8y ago
There's some kind of mental disconnect involved. I once knew a guy who ran a spam operation from Chicago. I was in his office once and he showed me something on his computer. In doing so I could see that his mail in-box had over 29,000 unread messages. I asked him how he deals with all those spam messages. He didn't think it was a big deal at all. Spam simply didn't bother him, and he believed in his heart that spam doesn't really bother anyone else, either.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  This idea is summarized in a famous quote: >"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

It would be nice if someone would create a device to exchange contact info with businesses to close the loop on managing the whitelist for new, infrequent associations. I should be able to go to a receptionist, mechanic, or contractor and accept identifying info from a Bluetooth device or a standardized non-URL QR code payload to let them contact me in the future. Then we could more conveniently manage authentication ourselves and cut the bad actors out of the process.

eropple 8y ago
You can embed a vCard in a QR code right now. Your phone should handle it correctly.
- andrewla 8y ago
  That's a neat feature that I didn't even know existed. Sure enough, fives seconds on a random qr code site (https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/#vcard https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/#vcard) and my iPhone's camera offered to add it as a contact. I wonder why this isn't first-class (in terms of exporting); something I can expose directly as "this is me" or to pass off an existing contact via a quick visual swap. I guess I'll generate one for me and store it in the notes app, which is sort of a catchall for this sort of thing.
reaperducer 8y ago
That only works until the receptionist, mechanic, contractor, business can no longer be trusted. I took my cat in for an oil change over the weekend. That resulted in three spam texts and two spam e-mails from VCA. Time to change vets.
- lapnitnelav 8y ago
  How often do you need to change the oil on a cat? Every 10K Meow-les? And to be on topic, you'd need a trusted 3rd party to manage those. But lately we've seen you can't trust them to secure / not resell your data anyway.

BeefySwain 8y ago

> For whitelist systems to work you need to be able to enforce identity or have a significant cost to sending messages. s/whitelist/blacklist ?

zackmorris 8y ago

Since caller id was implemented so poorly: https://www.onsip.com/blog/how-caller-id-works-why-it-might-take-months-to-update https://www.onsip.com/blog/how-caller-id-works-why-it-might-... Maybe it would be nice if we had something kind of like a CAPTCHA, where an app on your phone would say "please dial <random-number> and say your name to complete your call" and the person would have to dial it and say who they are to talk to you. Totally knee-jerk idea I realize, but I literally get 10 SCAM LIKELY calls for every real call now, rendering my phone almost unusable. Huh, I just did a quick search and it looks like it might already be possible to install an app to do something like this. Anyone know if this works? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

devcpp 8y ago
It's insanely easy for a program to recognize individual digits and then type them out. Saying a name would also be trivial (recorded, generated, etc). Audio captchas have existed for a while, they have been an alternative for a long time, and they are even more annoying than images. What we need is an abuse prevention system involving authentication. You can get reported for robo calls, and if enough different accounts you called have reported you, you get reviewed/banned/throttled. Let's not reinvent the wheel, it's been the standard way to deal with spam all over the web. But it requires rethinking the way we use phones, and a whole new infrastructure. It also brings some anonymity concerns but half-measures are just an arms race.
- AJ007 8y ago
  I think you are right about this. The previous response said they received 10 spam calls for every 1 real one. I'm probably about the same. My email spam isn't even close to that. 50 to 1, inbox, maybe? This situation is far more dire for the telco's and their debt holders than they are catching on to. The telephone number, portable or not, is what anchors their customers. When it is gone, you've got a commodity.
reaperducer 8y ago
say your name to complete your call" and the person would have to dial it and say who they are to talk to you. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this. My in-laws have this feature on their landline from their local telco. Completely annoying, but I don't want to talk to them anyway.

egypturnash 8y ago

Contacts-only whitelist with some work: Default ring: silence, no vibration. Custom ringtone for everyone you actually want to pick up the phone and talk to. Yeah you gotta spend some time setting it up for your existing contacts, then spend 5s selecting a ring when you add a new contact.

Someone1234 8y ago
This seems like an iOS specific work-around. On other platforms they simply give you the choice to block non-contact calls. I can do so on my Pixel by leaving Do-Not-Disturb on with Contacts Only.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- timstapl 8y ago
  I've done this on my Pixel 2 for some time, however it no longer appears to work. Have you experienced issues with this on recent android updates?

atombender 8y ago

Whitelisting is problematic because there are so many cases where it's impractical or impossible to add a contact first: Doctor's office calling to confirm your appointment; restaurant confirming a seat reservation; delivery guy is outside and can't find your doorbell; Lyft/Uber/whatever is nearby and is looking for you; pharmacy calling to inform about a prescription being ready; some store calling to inform that your order is ready to be picked up; insurance company calling about some claim; etc. These examples are from my own life, and they happen several times a month. I hardly ever make calls myself, but I do have to be able to receive important calls. Obviously some use cases can be fixed with text messaging and app, and increaasingly they are, but there are always going to be exceptions. Directing to voicemail is also a solution to some of these, but voicemail acts as a filter: The caller may decide to not bother leaving a message.

darepublic 8y ago
Need intelligent chat agents to receive calls on your behalf and act appropriate, just as you would -- arranging legit appointments, coordinating pick up times with the spouse and trolling offshore scammers by dangling red herring personal info to keep their resources tied as long as possible.
- Causality1 8y ago
  AI assistants are all well and good but I find you continually run into seemingly simple situation that completely flummox them. I experienced this myself recently when I discovered that, despite nearly a decade of development, Google Assistant can't handle the command "navigate to the McDonald's closest to the Best Buy"
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  "Once again, sir, we're terribly sorry that Alexa misunderstood your daycare provider due to their accent. Due to your loss, please accept this $20 Audible credit to your account."
Leace 8y ago
> Doctor's office calling to confirm your appointment; restaurant confirming a seat reservation; delivery guy is outside and can't find your doorbell; Lyft/Uber/whatever is nearby and is looking for you; pharmacy calling to inform about a prescription being ready; some store calling to inform that your order is ready to be picked up; insurance company calling about some claim; etc. The problem is phone number that is short and easy to guess. Imagine replacing them with a longer token that would be generated each time you want to give someone else a way to contact you (e.g. displaying a QR barcode on your phone and letting the other party scan it). Then you'd share a unique identifier with all that parties. Delivery guy can get a token that expires after a while. If someone abuses their ability of contacting someone, the token would get revoked. I leave the details and implementation as an exercise for the reader ;)

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tracker1 8y ago

I'm pretty sure there are already apps for Android that can do what you are asking. I use google voice, which tends to block most of the crap.

nathan_long 8y ago

The nightmare case for whitelisting is an emergency call from or on behalf of your spouse or child using a stranger's phone. This is why I don't want a whitelist. What I want is for spammers specifically to be identifiable and blockable, or for their business to be made prohibitively expensive. I didn't get spam calls on my cell phone 15 years ago, and as you say, what has changed is largely economics. Why can't we work to adjust the economics back?

neuralRiot 8y ago
I only answer calls from contacts, i ran into this scenario a few weeks ago, my wife lost her phone and wanted to contact me to locate it with "find my iphone" she just text me from her coworker's phone, no problem at all.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Sounds like some next century level “how to track anyone”. Just send an SMS from a random (non-spoofed) phone number, ask to do a “find my iPhone.”
  - neuralRiot 8y ago
    Yeah, that would sound suspicious but she just let me know that she was calling from a diferent number.
ilikehurdles 8y ago
I treat my phone as if it’s on a whitelist anyway. I can’t imagine how people do otherwise. If it’s an unknown number, I reject it. If they leave a voicemail, I’ll get notified and I’ll check it pretty soon after the call. Every day I get no less than two unwanted calls from scams and robocallers. I don’t have time for that.
- nathan_long 8y ago
  I do that, too. But I didn't always have to, and I shouldn't have to, that's my point.

biztos 8y ago

That sounds plausible, but then why are robocalls not a problem in Europe? I have two EU numbers and have never gotten a robocall on either of them. I have never heard of anyone getting a robocall in Europe, and while that might just be anecdata I think I would have heard something after two decades, especially in privacy-minded Germany. When I get off the plane in San Francisco and activate my American SIM card, I usually have my first robocall before I get my first beer. And my mother gets so many on her land line, she always screens her calls. What is Europe doing right here that America is doing wrong?

silvestrov 8y ago
Denmark: almost all (cold) sales calls are forbidden by law. Exceptions are sales of books, newspapers, insurance, and research (e.g. Gallup). There is also a "do not call" list that blocks all such calls. In Danish: https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoeringsloven/spam-og-uanmodede-henvendelser/telefonsalg/ https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe...
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  The exclusions sound... arbitrary? I get the research exemption, and i’m Happy about a politics exemption, but why books, newspapers and insurance? Why not bicycles or theatre or education?
  - flemming_geir 8y ago
    Probably just grandfathered in. I'm guessing at the time of legislation, these things were commonly sold via cold sales calls.
flerchin 8y ago
Language barrier.
Scoundreller 8y ago
France gets them a lot. Often it’s “DHL” calling and you have to pay some fee to release a package. Likely because cheap francophone labour is available in similar time zones.

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CharlesColeman 8y ago

> Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero I think this is the crux of the issue, and I don't think it's a situation that any non-spammer end-user wants. There's a definite non-zero cost to receiving a phone call. I think we'd fix the robocall problem in a heartbeat if a small artificial charge was billed by the receiving phone company each time they connected a call (or rang a customer's phone, not sure about the precise terminology).

ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago

I was getting 10+ spam calls a day a couple of months back. They all originated from overseas numbers and I was pissed off that there isn’t a way with iOS at least to block certain countries. Like no one from Malta is ever going to call me so why can’t I just block Malta. I resorted to using Do not Disturb mode allowing my contact list to ring. It’s worked out great, I have missed a couple of blocked caller numbers that I would have liked to have taken but they always leave messages. And the spam calls have more or less dried up now.

suggestionman 8y ago

block all calls coming from India problem. solved.

dbspin 8y ago

You mention 'no national boundaries anymore'. But robocalls are extremely rare in Europe. Presumably both for legislative and commercial reasons. None the less this is an existence proof that they aren't some kind of inevitability of mobile technology.

calvertdw 8y ago

> - Cost of phone calls decreasing to basically zero > - Bad actors (telephone companies) benefitting from this traffic by charging for it I don't think these are compatible.