13 ms·

Eliminating Robocalls

280 points by johns 8y ago

StudentStuff 8y ago
Getting STIR & SHAKEN implemented so we have proper trust of the caller ID is going to be a massive undertaking for the industry as a whole. T-Mobile and Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case). STIR/SHAKEN also can break call forwarding, as a forwarded call may get stripped of the forwarded from header by an intermediary carrier, resulting in an unvalidated caller ID getting passed, causing the call to not ring the destination. Overall, the telcom industry is stuck in the past, with security being a joke. TLS Registration & SRTP are rarely used, most carriers sling calls bare over the internet hoping for the best.
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  > T-Mobile and Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case). Why would that be? I know nothing of STIR & SHAKEN, but if it's meant to reduce spam, I would think all legitimate operators would want it to work in an interoperable way.
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    Why would you think that?
    - CharlesColeman 8y ago
      Because individually they'll do a worse job of mitigating spam than if they try to mitigate it collectively.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        They’ll collaborate, as soon as they figure out how to charge for spam filtering.
      - mwfunk 8y ago
        This is almost certainly true, but they might make more money if (for example) one carrier's half-assed spam mitigation technology is shown to work better than a competing carrier's quarter-assed spam mitigation technology. From the perspective of some analysts, collaborating with competitors over a technology that might otherwise be used as a competitive advantage is leaving money on the table, even if the end result is a worse situation for everyone. And from an analyst's perspective, shareholders are the company's customers, not the people who use their services. Which has a certain logic to it, but we'll see if these companies care more about their customers or their shareholders.
        w0de0 8y ago
        Clear example of the prisoner's dilemma.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        Doesn't reducing spam phone calls directly hurt their bottom line?
        pfranz 8y ago
        Depends if they're thinking short term or long term. I think I've seen numbers showing phone calls are dropping already. Increasing spam will exacerbate that.
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        So let's say that I've got a network that can carry calls. I rent access by the month. The fewer calls, the less infrastructure I need to be able to handle them, but the rent doesn't change. Why would I want spam calls on my network? Unless they're paying me by the call or something, that's the last thing I want.
- kyrra 8y ago
  The FCC has a page tracking the response by the major carriers[0]. Also, from what the FCC chair is saying, while nothing is forcing the carriers to play nicely, he is basically warning them if they don't work together to create/implement a spec to help with the problem, the FCC will force something (that probably won't be as easy to deal with). WSJ had a podcast interviewing him recently about it[1]. [0] https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication [1] (interview starts 23 minutes in) http://www.wsj.com/podcasts/instant-message/20-tesla-got-a-brand-new-car/6603B252-8C58-4CAF-A7A0-25FEE391B3EC http://www.wsj.com/podcasts/instant-message/20-tesla-got-a-b...
  - floatrock 8y ago
    > the FCC will force something (that probably won't be as easy to deal with) After the net neutrality debacle, including the FBI investigation into public comment fraud [0], I'm writing off whatever "corporate difficulty" Ajit Pai is threatening as a snowball's chance in hell. As long as he's chair, that agency is squarely in the "regulatory capture" box. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/fbi-investigating-identity-theft-in-net-neutrality-comments-report-says/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/fbi-investigatin...
- jpalomaki 8y ago
  If the operators don’t act, maybe the traditional phone calls become obsolete and people switch to Facetime/WhatsApp/GoogleTechDuJour.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Some people might say this has already happened. For me, it's very very rare for an incoming voice call to be a friend - 99.9% of them are from businesses, and I prioritise them accordingly. I sometimes realise my phone is on silent, and think "Oh yeah, I was out to dinner or at the movies 3 or 4 days ago, and didn't remember to turn the ringer back on..."
- aero142 8y ago
  Does my phone know if the caller ID is STIR/SHAKEN certified? I can already send numbers that are not in my caller ID to my voicemail directly. I would love to be able to do this for the unverified callerId numbers. Maybe if enough people did it, the phone companies would have to add it to prevent their calls from hitting the trash bin.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    Google should shame the carriers by putting a red padlock next to unverified numbers.
Noah-Huppert 8y ago
I wrote a tool which uses Twilio to screen out robocalls: https://github.com/noah-huppert/human-call-filter https://github.com/noah-huppert/human-call-filter
- dgnorton 8y ago
  Ditto, except the one I wrote only works for landlines. https://github.com/dgnorton/norobo https://github.com/dgnorton/norobo
  - Noah-Huppert 8y ago
    Cool! Definitely very helpful. I still get tons of robo calls on the landline.
  - justusthane 8y ago
    That is very cool. I love how retrofuturistic it feels.
- bin01 8y ago
  Very neat! Given that an average user doesn't receive many calls a day, it would be cheaper to operate if this could be implemented completely serverless using Cloud Firestore & Cloud Functions.
- sephlietz 8y ago
  Are you aware of any robocallers that have answered your "simple arithmetic question" correctly?
  - Noah-Huppert 8y ago
    Not that have targeted me! If you have encountered any robo callers who have please let me know. My idea was that if the robo callers get past the simple arithmetic questions I would give them harder ones like "which of these items doesn't belong? 1) ball 2) blue 3) red 4) green?" or other SAT / standardized test questions.
minikites 8y ago
Was there a reason the author redacted parts of the robocall phone numbers? They're robocalls, the numbers should be garbage by definition.
- cbhl 8y ago
  Probably to avoid tipping off the robo-callers' authors
  - penagwin 8y ago
    Tip them off in what way? They couldn't possibly do anything meaningful.
    - jameshart 8y ago
      In theory, since the numbers are essentially made up for each outbound call, the combination of spoof source numbers and call times would be enough for some robocaller/s to correlate with their outbound call logs and discover which number it was that they dialled that reached the CEO of Twilio. That seems like useful info? In fact the timestamps and partial numbers are probably good enough for that.
- rrauenza 8y ago
  They're often spoofed numbers of actual real numbers.
- noah256 8y ago
  The point of the article is that the phone numbers that robocalls come from are trivially spoofed. So, it's plausible that these are real people's phones being spoofed, and it would be quite rude to them to publish their phone numbers in a way that could be read as indicating the number is a robot.
  - minikites 8y ago
    So it's preventing the equivalent of dialing random numbers and hoping it's a real person?
rhacker 8y ago
I'm waaay past trusting that network. I tell companies to text or email me. And texting is also starting to get spammed out. Right now, I can't even use apps like Hiya that implement prefix blocking. My method right now is to forward ALL calls to a google voice number, and those are transcribed or what-have-you. If you don't leave a message, I don't care about you. We need a signal, at the highest of levels to basically make the decision on what's going to happen to the phone network, because honestly, a brand new system is what I expect at this point, not a patch.
- jessriedel 8y ago
  Gmail's spam detection basically eliminated spam on email, and it seems best characterized as a patch.
- fossuser 8y ago
  Yes - a contact whitelist is all I want from iOS with two features: a button to temporarily allow all calls for 30min (for Uber/door dash) and the option to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within 2min of the first. All other calls should go to voicemail by default. The way Apple allows you to interact with CallKit makes this hard to implement because a blacklist of numbers is required and a blacklist of all numbers is huge.
  - hyperjeff 8y ago
    Isn't this exact feature available via Do Not Disturb? I have DND on 24/7, and you can quickly turn it off for Lyft/etc if needed. If you make groups within your contacts you can even hone the whitelist and can fairly quickly mod it.
    - fossuser 8y ago
      No - DND blocks all notifications in addition to calls which makes it not usable. I still want notifications for other things (especially text).
    - avodonosov 8y ago
Abundnce10 8y ago
All I really want to do is allow calls through to my phone that are stored in my contacts. If they're not in my contacts, I'd prefer not to be notified and have it sent to voicemail.
- cronix 8y ago
  One problem is they can easily spoof the number. I've received 2 calls from Bank of America's 800 number, that weren't actually from Bank of America (they were pretending there was a problem with my account...phishing for info...). They were in my address book, and showed up as such. You can't trust caller ID. They might not have your friends phone numbers, but you probably also have other major institutions that you trust in there as well. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-answer-the-phone-when-your-bank-calls-2017-03-30 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-answer-th...
  - orev 8y ago
    The fact that it is not perfect is pretty irrelevant to the need for this kind of basic functionality. I'm going to assume iPhone here because I'd be surprised if Android doesn't have this capability.
    - cronix 8y ago
      Andoird does. I think they added it in Lolipop about 5 years ago (only allowing calls/notifications from contacts). You have to set up do not disturb and then go and make exceptions for contacts.
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    The solution to this is never give out any PII when receiving a call. Ask what theyre calling about, then hang up and dial back. Yeah, you enter the hours long call queue, but you're not giving out your info to a potential spoofer. Also, don't call the number they give you on the phone. Look up the number for your bank (usually easy enough to find on the back of your debit/credit card). Same is true for any organization that potentially has info that could be used for identity theft. Hang up and call them back independently.
tchaffee 8y ago
I just never answer calls or listen to voicemail anymore. I use WhatsApp etc. and give folks that ID. Maybe in a few years the phone companies will implement some of cool stuff mentioned in the article but until then phone calls from everyone are blacklisted.
hartator 8y ago
I disagree with the solution. A simple App that send to voicemail numbers not in my contacts will be far than enough. And it won’t require to change the whole infrastructure!
- vitaflo 8y ago
  You can already do this in iOS. Set your phone on Do Not Disturb and then in the iOS settings tell it to allow numbers in your contact list to get through even when DND is on. I've done this for years and never get robocalls.
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    This also affects other notifications (sms, other app notifications) which might not work for most people. Especially for people that are on PagerDuty, this solution just wont work.
dividuum 8y ago
Sounds like a technical solution for a problem that just needs regulation and laws. I'm in Germany. I never had a ad/scam call on my cellphone number in basically 20 years. I get some kind of poll call every two months on my landline number. That's all.
- orev 8y ago
  We do have laws, but they cannot be easily enforced because many of the scams originate in foreign countries who proxy to VOIP providers in the US to make the calls. Some of them, like the Microsoft scam, even conscript unwitting people into the job and/or threaten them to do it, while telling them that it's not a scam because everyone in the US is rich and don't need all that money. Maybe Germany just isn't a desirable target for them.
- nemothekid 8y ago
  Don't quote me on this, but I do believe there are regulations and laws preventing this - but just as the article states they are impossible to enforce given our current infrastructure. Fines are meaningless to a blackhat organization doing spoof calls over VoIP somewhere in India.
  - undeadsushi 8y ago
    Last Week with John Oliver & Reply All both went into details with there most recent episodes, but something changed in federal policy with the Do Not Call list.
- deleted 8y ago
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phaer 8y ago
I read a lot about the plague that robocalls are on international forums, especially from the U.S. But I live in central Europe, Austria, and received only two SPAM calls in my whole life, both by what seemed to be actual human agents on the other side and hear from similar amounts from friends I've asked about the phenomena. Can someone explain why it seems such hard to resolve problem elsewhere while it seems hardly a problem at all here? Is there a difference in infrastructure, a difference in legislature, ...?
- runarberg 8y ago
  Agreed. I experienced a bit of a culture shock moving from Northern Europe to USA. Robocalls are a real pain here in the USA and I don’t know why. I’ve learned that I should never answer a call from a number I don’t know (not that easy), but it doesn’t have to be this way. I also get a number of text messages trying to phish me into buying drugs or sex. It’s totally nuts.
  - froindt 8y ago
    > I've learned that I should never answer a call from a number I don’t know (not that easy), but it doesn’t have to be this way. Not only that, but you basically need to program in all the random numbers you do business with to make sure you don't miss something important. Dentist, doctor, real estate agent, mortgage officer, the random office you're only going to visit once who did your MRI. And still, someone can just as easily spoof one of those numbers (even purely by coincidence) and you'll pick up.
- tyingq 8y ago
  Maybe just the market fragmentation. For example, a lot of the robocalls in the US are trying to sell extended warranties for vehicles, student loan debt services, health/life insurance, scammy tech support, etc. If you target the US, your sales pitch can be in one language, with roughly one set of commission paying providers, and super cheap VoIP calls. I assume that would be harder in Europe due to language, state provided services for health+education, more strict laws on loans and warranties, differing costs for local VoIP numbers, etc. You would likely have to tailor for each country.
godzillabrennus 8y ago
I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice number. It's past time for Apple to integrate spam call filtering into iOS and Android users have no excuse for not using Google Voice.
- tomcam 8y ago
  I would LOVE to use my Google Voice number for just this reason. I find the sound quality to be bad no matter what mic I use. If there's a higher tier with better voice quality I can pay for that's fine. My net connection is at least 25Mbps to 65Mbps and I'm in the Seattle area. Do you have any tips on what I can do to get better quality?
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    This, plus annoying latency. Makes conversations awkward, especially with people I don’t know well.
- MuffinFlavored 8y ago
  > iOS What about downloading Hiya?
- fphhotchips 8y ago
  > Android users have no excuse for not using Google Voice. Except that it's not available outside the US. The other 95% of us can pound sand, apparently.
  - maguirre 8y ago
    Or if you are in the US and have a project Fi number
  - eloisant 8y ago
lucb1e 8y ago
I've never received a robocall and the whole thing seems dystopian. Is it something uniquely American? Is there EU legislation that prevents this, such as the "don't call me" register (bel me niet register)? I'm not on that, though. General anti-spam laws then? (Since it's unsolicited commercial communications directed at consumers). Genuinely curious what's different.
- frosted-flakes 8y ago
  Canada and the USA also have national Do Not Call laws, and telemarketers are not allowed to cold call numbers that are on the list (in Canada, there are certain exceptions such as local newspapers selling subscriptions, charities soliciting donations, and companies that do telephone surveys, e.g. Ipsos-Reid). It works, too, because I never, ever receive legit telemarketing calls. But the DNC list doesn't do anything to stop phishing/scam calls because apparently criminals don't care about DNC laws (obviously). They always spoof local numbers, but never have a caller ID name. This means I can pretty safely ignore all calls without caller ID names, unless I'm expecting a call. The problem is, these scammers spam voicemail inboxes too, and on my phone and carrier (Android on Koodo in Canada) the only way to dismiss the "New Voicemail" notification is to call my voicemail number and listen to it. I don't care about voicemail, so I disabled it.
gist 8y ago
I am guessing that the direction this is heading in is twilio somehow coming up with a solution that they can implement and sell to someone. Maybe the multi part blog post is part of the way to gather thoughts in order to learn more and incorporate ideas and reactions from people.
tareqak 8y ago
I don't get that many robocalls anymore after I signed up for https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/ . I also make a point of reporting unwanted calls there too (I got two pretending to be from the IRS saying that I was about to be sued). I know that people find it annoying to go through the process of reporting the call, but I consider it to be one of those things that fall under the "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" bucket. It'd be nice if there were donotcall.gov apps for Android and iOS though.
- profmonocle 8y ago
  It's great that the DNC has worked for you, unfortunately it's not much help for me since all my robocallers are criminals trying to steal from me. Naturally, people unafraid of being arrested for fraud are unafraid of DNC fines. I've been on the DNC for years, and a couple years ago I decided to change my number, since my old one was getting 4-5 robocalls per day, always from different numbers.
  - tareqak 8y ago
    That sounds horrible. I wonder if there is a way to surrender that number to the FBI, so that they could investigate further. Even one call every other day would be too much to report manually for me in terms of effort.
    - cheerlessbog 8y ago
      Judging by these comments and my own experience, their investigations are not being held up by lack of suitable victims.
    - masonic 8y ago
      Because "that number" is generally fake. Caller ID became meaningless once VOIP was allowed to spoof it. Can we build a new system atop ANI?
      - mehrdadn 8y ago
flavor8 8y ago
Reply All (podcast) had a recent episode about the increase in robocalls. It's a fun listen. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-conundrum#episode-player https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-conun... (The TLDR is a law changed.) Also, I've had success running Calls Blacklist (app) on my android phone - it's set up so that it will block any call that's not from one of my contacts. I haven't had a spam call since I started using it.
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Taniwha 8y ago
I get none, our house has an asterisk box that does voicemail and provides individual VM for everyone at home - it means that anyone calling in has to dial a single digit extension, I haven't had a robocall in years
jeena 8y ago
Is there a way to only let the phone ringing if it's a number which is in your address book?
- arawde 8y ago
  In Android Pie, Do Not Disturb mode makes it so you are only notified of calls from your contacts. All other calls are received silently.
paulie_a 8y ago
If it is an area code outside of 4-5 I block it. If it isn't in my phonebook but in that range, I check the voicemail then 99 percent of the time I block it. Sometimes I answer and mess with the caller to waste their energy and ruin their numbers. What irritates me is the spoofing of numbers. That should be a felony and charged in criminal court. They steal real people's numbers briefly in my experience. Either arrest and throw the person calling in prison or blacklist that Carrier. And fine the carrier you use for allowing it to even happen. EDIT: on a side note you are not able to block Texas and Florida. I could block those two entire states without worries and I'd receive a lot less calls.
rp36 8y ago
Interestingly, Robocall algorithms use phone numbers closer to my phone number (either real of fake) and since I live in different Area code, it is much easier to block the numbers. Though it is not recommended to pick up the phone, I have had some success by picking up the phone, wasting the agent's time and letting them know that my car is real old and would not need extended warranty.
- cheerlessbog 8y ago
  That is interesting. I looked at my missed calls and they are all either my local area code or 866. It makes me want to swap my mobile number for one from, say, Hawaii, which I doubt I ever get a legitimate call from, then filter out that area code. Looks like it might work.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Same here, but unfortunately Apple provides no mechanism to do so. Even RoboKiller, a third party app, has limited success with neighborhood spoofing, as it’s called. I’m perfectly fine with blocking the entire NNN beginning prefix of my number but there appears to be no way to do it (they can only do NNN-NNNN). RoboKiller says it’s a limitation in the iOS API they have access to.
gesman 8y ago
Here's very simple idea for Apple: Let only calls from known contacts ring, the rest auto-goes to voicemail. Why is this so F*ING hard for Apple to implement?
- drexlspivey 8y ago
  Because it's already there, it's called Do Not Disturb mode
  - johntash 8y ago
    DND also prevents notifications/texts/etc. I think both IOS and Android have that issue.
  - gesman 8y ago
    This is not even close to what I described.
spammersharass 8y ago
Unfortunately I burned myself by naively calling with my number (not from a pay-phone or "Restricted" / *67) and they have my name and tried intimidating me by pointing out the fact that they know where I live. BUT that aside, if you guys want to have a chance at harassing scammers / spammers back here's a number: (877)-346-1581. I _believe_ this is "Acostings" a call center featured in this [0] podcast where the podcasters LITERALLY flew to India to "confront" them. They pretend to be Apple support to get you to buy gift cards and give them the codes. The CEO's name is "Deepak Vera" (I think, if they truly are Acostings), ask for him and you'll quickly see how irked and pissed they'll get. DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY INFO. DO NOT CALL FROM YOUR OWN NUMBER. 0: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance
amthewiz 8y ago
I'd love to take the robo-callers on a long winding road to nowhere. Is there a conversational AI robo-answering app based on something like Google Duplex? If not, should I build one?
amelius 8y ago
The solution is to use a whitelist for phonecalls.
jedberg 8y ago
I was hoping this would be a blog post on using Twillio to block robo callers.
cdransf 8y ago
I use Robokiller on iOS -- it screens the calls and answers spam with prerecorded scripts paced to match response times and then sends me the recording of the interaction.
- hermitdev 8y ago
  What strikes me with robocalls that leave messages - they cut off by "talking" too early so I cannot identify who they are, yet if I answer, I get nothing but silence if I answer with "Hello? Hello?" Calm and slowly paced. That's my personal rule. I say hello slowly twice, and if theres silence, I hang up. Dont care if I start to hear a connection as I'm going to hang up. You called me, have someone on the line. My time is worth money to me. I am not amswering the phone to be put on hold for the next representative. Fuck off and call me when you have someone ready to talk to me.
  - cdransf 8y ago
    I generally don't answer any number that's not in my contacts. If I don't know who it is they can leave a message or I'll look up the number and block it proactively.
jnaddef 8y ago
> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration calls and impair the economics of robocalls. Do they really expect us to believe the reason they bill by the minute is to fight against robocalls?
willart4food 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbgAD1oehQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbgAD1oehQ > FCC Chairman Ajit Pai explains the importance of the FCC's proposed new rules banning illegal spoofed text messages and international calls. The proposed rules would enable the agency to address consumer concerns about unwanted text messages and scam calls from overseas.
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hawkice 8y ago
I've actually blocked all telephone calls. This might be ill-advised, but I haven't been burned by it yet.
noahmbarr 8y ago
I wonder what % of robocalls are run on Twilio. My sense is a non-insignificant #
instaheat 8y ago
I've posted about this before. There is a solution to this. Google "Robocalls Cash" and you'll see it has been featured in several news outlets. https://robocalls.cash/ref/keven/ https://robocalls.cash/ref/keven/
mirimir 8y ago
Maybe there ought to be a robocall service for ~anonymously targeting the callback numbers provided in robocalls. Many years ago, I setup an autodialer to hit an 800 number provided by a persistent robocaller. And pretty soon, they stopped calling me.
nmstoker 8y ago
Seems like this is much worse in the US - I've had the same number in the UK since 2000 and not had a robocall EVER. The occasional human spam call comes in (like once every two or three months) but I tend to just hang up and usually Google offers to block them (my Pixel 2 has the spam call blocker built in)
toephu2 8y ago
This is why I leave my phone on silent 24/7 (no vibrate either). If someone from my Contacts calls me, then I see the missed call and know to call them back when I have time. However I live my life on my time, nothing is ever so important I have to drop whatever I am doing to pick up someone else's call right away. You might say, what if there was an emergency? Well how many times has someone called you about an emergency where you could actually do something about it? Maybe some have, but I bet most haven't.
- abrookewood 8y ago
  What happens when one of your friends behaves in exactly the same way? Do the two of you ever manage to actually talk to each other?
  - cheerlessbog 8y ago
    It is possible to leave a message, or text to arrange a time.
  - system2 8y ago
    Texting. You send a text, receive a text or vice versa. Then you can actually arrange a call if you want to catch up. I have some friends call me, and I call them back. If they don't call me back they at least send me a message telling me when they can be free. I guess this is becoming a norm among most people.
- peripitea 8y ago
  I do the same but I use DND 24/7 but with calls from contacts as the only exception - those ring as normal. I get phone calls from people I know so rarely that it's not a significant hindrance.
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ceoddevelopment 8y ago
These were legally terminated by google actually. They took on the role and served out the subpoenas. No one ever tends to going against google after the murders and the blackmails that they are serving up subpoeba to check ina (<-this was inkevted by google) (to china) for. Thats just not here that it got around. Deny the Tencent and Alphabet subpoena, please. Scam me. That's illegal. This may get banned. He is doing 666. Annie is doing rape. And youtube is doing babylon.Good day but hopefully not goodbye.
ceoddevelopment 8y ago
aww my post
sureaboutthis 8y ago
I consider articles like this, which don't answer the point in the title, and then say you have to wait for Part 2 to presumably get the answer, no better than Robocalls and spam.
ungzd 8y ago
BTW, in Russia labor is cheap so spam phone calls are usually done by people, not robots. I have to keep phone always in silent mode due to lots of such spam, sometimes 2-3 calls per day from different companies.
jader201 8y ago
It’s 2019. Why has Apple/Android not added the ability to reject (or at least send directly to voice mail) all calls outside of contacts, and make this the default setting? Seems like this would solve almost all of these problems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118664
- pard68 8y ago
  Have you checked lately? I can't speak for Apple but my Android (S7) and my wife's (unsure of the make) both have these types of options. My wife has all numbers not in her contacts go to voicemail. My phone just hangs up on any unknown number.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  I have an app that does this but then they just leave voicemail and it's basically the same problem wasting time listening to them and deleting them again.
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Great article, but I jumped there hoping that Twilio had a solution to offer. Not yet, it seems. I've been pestered by Robocalls for the last few years. Lately, I did the mistake of shopping online for health insurance, and signing up with a provider (I ended up not purchasing it from them). Since then (three weeks ago), I've received ~20 calls per day, half of it from robots, half from humans. These people should f*ing go to jail. All of them.
- manfredo 8y ago
  Jesus, 10 robocalls a day? I thought I was unlucky when I got 2 or 3 in one day. Did you end up using an automated answering service?
oldgradstudent 8y ago
The death penalty for robocalls coming from inside the US, and drone strikes and extraordinary rendition for robocalls originating outside the US are out of the question, right? But seriously, why is it so difficult to eliminate these robocalls. Each operation has to have employees, a call center (to handle the marks), payment processing, etc. It seems like a very easy target.
- bradthater 8y ago
  A lot of these robocall call centers are operating illegally in foreign countries that skirt their own laws, with export partners within the US that pop up and disappear quicker than the government can than they can be hunted. If you are interested there is a really good podcast by Reply All about tracking down one in person. Episode #102 and #103, some of their best stuff to be frank.
  - oldgradstudent 8y ago
    Just started the first one. Fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/103-long-distance-part-ii https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/103-long-distance-part...
lowlevel 8y ago
I have resorted to using DND mode as a whitelist. If a caller does not identify with a number in my contacts list, the phone doesn't ring. I feel whitelisting is the only thing that's going to stop the calls... extreme or not.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  I would do this, but at least on iOS, this silences text messages and other app notifications, including other messengers.
davidhyde 8y ago
> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration calls and impair the economics of robocalls. That sounds like marketing BS to me. Why can’t they just create a one way fingerprint of the audio and block duplicates.
- mnw21cam 8y ago
  Because you need to pick up the phone in order to get any audio to make a fingerprint of.
kinard 8y ago
Great blog post, actually looking forward to the second part.
tomerbd 8y ago
"TrueCaller" App
- TheHypnotist 8y ago
  TrueCaller seems to work great if you keep their spam list updated and allow them to screen your calls. I have no complaints.
mcv 8y ago
I wonder why I'm not getting this barrage of robocalls. I live in Netherland, not the US, so presumably that's why, but are robocalls not a thing in Europe? Do we not have these kind of predatory companies? Do we have surprisingly effective legislation to stop robocalls? The only phone spam I'm getting are people trying to sell me new energy contracts (that's something that happens when you have a company for some reason), and tons of British recruiters trying to get me to work in Belgium or Germany for some reason. Very rarely, I get a tech support call from Microsoft India. But always it's real people, not a robocall.
- kalado 8y ago
  They are a thing in europe, but you have to make the mistake of entering your phone number on some sketchy homepage for it to start.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    You're lucky! In the US, you have to make the mistake of giving your phone number to nearly any business.
- bgeeek 8y ago
  Yes, they are a thing in Europe too. It's not just to do with entering numbers in "sketchy" websites. It's who resold or leaked your details, what apps you have installed on your phone, or if you were just unlucky. They are trying to get vaguely smart too - whereas before a number would call from quite far away, so you could assume it was a robocaller. Now, they can be close to your location, which is a bit spooky.
  - mcv 8y ago
    It's apparently easy to get my phone number from the Chamber of Commerce, which is where those energy peddlers get it. Seems like an easy source of phone numbers for robocallers too. And it's not like I'm very careful with my phone number; I've entered it on tons of websites. Still no robocallers for me. Maybe European data protection measures do work.
abacate 8y ago
As usual, it's not that complicated, and it's not that simple. The simple solution would be for the network providers to validate the caller ID numbers for its subscribers, but that requires changes to punish the ones that don't do it. I've worked with telephony for 15 years and I know the big providers do this for most common telecom protocols, but VoIP providers tend to be more lax. But that's where they shouldn't, and the ones that break this shouldn't be allowed on the network.
- WhyEmail 8y ago
  Yeah, but they can at least do the following things: - Don't connect calls coming from numbers they own that they have not assigned - Don't connect calls from a number to itself (my wife recently received a phone call from "herself". Then she received 20 more phone calls from irate people sure that she spammed them) - Don't connect calls where the calling number is coming from an invalid area code or LATA - Don't connect calls where the calling number is a string of only digits. There are no people or businesses with this type of name, most likely. This would solve between 10-50% of the spam calls I get, I'm pretty sure.
JohnFen 8y ago
I've solved the robocall problem personally, by simply not answering my phone. I'll answer the call if I'm expecting one, if it's from someone who has texted me that they're going to call (this covers 99% of the legit calls I get), or if it's from one of a very tiny number of people who might call me due to an emergency. Otherwise, it goes straight to voicemail and (thanks to Tasker) doesn't even make my phone ring.

280 points by johns 8y ago

Getting STIR & SHAKEN implemented so we have proper trust of the caller ID is going to be a massive undertaking for the industry as a whole. T-Mobile and Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case). STIR/SHAKEN also can break call forwarding, as a forwarded call may get stripped of the forwarded from header by an intermediary carrier, resulting in an unvalidated caller ID getting passed, causing the call to not ring the destination. Overall, the telcom industry is stuck in the past, with security being a joke. TLS Registration & SRTP are rarely used, most carriers sling calls bare over the internet hoping for the best.

CharlesColeman 8y ago
> T-Mobile and Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case). Why would that be? I know nothing of STIR & SHAKEN, but if it's meant to reduce spam, I would think all legitimate operators would want it to work in an interoperable way.
- jjoonathan 8y ago
  Why would you think that?
  - CharlesColeman 8y ago
    Because individually they'll do a worse job of mitigating spam than if they try to mitigate it collectively.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      They’ll collaborate, as soon as they figure out how to charge for spam filtering.
    - mwfunk 8y ago
      This is almost certainly true, but they might make more money if (for example) one carrier's half-assed spam mitigation technology is shown to work better than a competing carrier's quarter-assed spam mitigation technology. From the perspective of some analysts, collaborating with competitors over a technology that might otherwise be used as a competitive advantage is leaving money on the table, even if the end result is a worse situation for everyone. And from an analyst's perspective, shareholders are the company's customers, not the people who use their services. Which has a certain logic to it, but we'll see if these companies care more about their customers or their shareholders.
      - w0de0 8y ago
        Clear example of the prisoner's dilemma.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      Doesn't reducing spam phone calls directly hurt their bottom line?
      - pfranz 8y ago
        Depends if they're thinking short term or long term. I think I've seen numbers showing phone calls are dropping already. Increasing spam will exacerbate that.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        So let's say that I've got a network that can carry calls. I rent access by the month. The fewer calls, the less infrastructure I need to be able to handle them, but the rent doesn't change. Why would I want spam calls on my network? Unless they're paying me by the call or something, that's the last thing I want.
kyrra 8y ago
The FCC has a page tracking the response by the major carriers[0]. Also, from what the FCC chair is saying, while nothing is forcing the carriers to play nicely, he is basically warning them if they don't work together to create/implement a spec to help with the problem, the FCC will force something (that probably won't be as easy to deal with). WSJ had a podcast interviewing him recently about it[1]. [0] https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication [1] (interview starts 23 minutes in) http://www.wsj.com/podcasts/instant-message/20-tesla-got-a-brand-new-car/6603B252-8C58-4CAF-A7A0-25FEE391B3EC http://www.wsj.com/podcasts/instant-message/20-tesla-got-a-b...
- floatrock 8y ago
  > the FCC will force something (that probably won't be as easy to deal with) After the net neutrality debacle, including the FBI investigation into public comment fraud [0], I'm writing off whatever "corporate difficulty" Ajit Pai is threatening as a snowball's chance in hell. As long as he's chair, that agency is squarely in the "regulatory capture" box. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/fbi-investigating-identity-theft-in-net-neutrality-comments-report-says/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/fbi-investigatin...
jpalomaki 8y ago
If the operators don’t act, maybe the traditional phone calls become obsolete and people switch to Facetime/WhatsApp/GoogleTechDuJour.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Some people might say this has already happened. For me, it's very very rare for an incoming voice call to be a friend - 99.9% of them are from businesses, and I prioritise them accordingly. I sometimes realise my phone is on silent, and think "Oh yeah, I was out to dinner or at the movies 3 or 4 days ago, and didn't remember to turn the ringer back on..."
aero142 8y ago
Does my phone know if the caller ID is STIR/SHAKEN certified? I can already send numbers that are not in my caller ID to my voicemail directly. I would love to be able to do this for the unverified callerId numbers. Maybe if enough people did it, the phone companies would have to add it to prevent their calls from hitting the trash bin.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Google should shame the carriers by putting a red padlock next to unverified numbers.

Noah-Huppert 8y ago

I wrote a tool which uses Twilio to screen out robocalls: https://github.com/noah-huppert/human-call-filter https://github.com/noah-huppert/human-call-filter

dgnorton 8y ago
Ditto, except the one I wrote only works for landlines. https://github.com/dgnorton/norobo https://github.com/dgnorton/norobo
- Noah-Huppert 8y ago
  Cool! Definitely very helpful. I still get tons of robo calls on the landline.
- justusthane 8y ago
  That is very cool. I love how retrofuturistic it feels.
bin01 8y ago
Very neat! Given that an average user doesn't receive many calls a day, it would be cheaper to operate if this could be implemented completely serverless using Cloud Firestore & Cloud Functions.
sephlietz 8y ago
Are you aware of any robocallers that have answered your "simple arithmetic question" correctly?
- Noah-Huppert 8y ago
  Not that have targeted me! If you have encountered any robo callers who have please let me know. My idea was that if the robo callers get past the simple arithmetic questions I would give them harder ones like "which of these items doesn't belong? 1) ball 2) blue 3) red 4) green?" or other SAT / standardized test questions.

minikites 8y ago

Was there a reason the author redacted parts of the robocall phone numbers? They're robocalls, the numbers should be garbage by definition.

cbhl 8y ago
Probably to avoid tipping off the robo-callers' authors
- penagwin 8y ago
  Tip them off in what way? They couldn't possibly do anything meaningful.
  - jameshart 8y ago
    In theory, since the numbers are essentially made up for each outbound call, the combination of spoof source numbers and call times would be enough for some robocaller/s to correlate with their outbound call logs and discover which number it was that they dialled that reached the CEO of Twilio. That seems like useful info? In fact the timestamps and partial numbers are probably good enough for that.
rrauenza 8y ago
They're often spoofed numbers of actual real numbers.
noah256 8y ago
The point of the article is that the phone numbers that robocalls come from are trivially spoofed. So, it's plausible that these are real people's phones being spoofed, and it would be quite rude to them to publish their phone numbers in a way that could be read as indicating the number is a robot.
- minikites 8y ago
  So it's preventing the equivalent of dialing random numbers and hoping it's a real person?

rhacker 8y ago

I'm waaay past trusting that network. I tell companies to text or email me. And texting is also starting to get spammed out. Right now, I can't even use apps like Hiya that implement prefix blocking. My method right now is to forward ALL calls to a google voice number, and those are transcribed or what-have-you. If you don't leave a message, I don't care about you. We need a signal, at the highest of levels to basically make the decision on what's going to happen to the phone network, because honestly, a brand new system is what I expect at this point, not a patch.

jessriedel 8y ago
Gmail's spam detection basically eliminated spam on email, and it seems best characterized as a patch.
fossuser 8y ago
Yes - a contact whitelist is all I want from iOS with two features: a button to temporarily allow all calls for 30min (for Uber/door dash) and the option to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within 2min of the first. All other calls should go to voicemail by default. The way Apple allows you to interact with CallKit makes this hard to implement because a blacklist of numbers is required and a blacklist of all numbers is huge.
- hyperjeff 8y ago
  Isn't this exact feature available via Do Not Disturb? I have DND on 24/7, and you can quickly turn it off for Lyft/etc if needed. If you make groups within your contacts you can even hone the whitelist and can fairly quickly mod it.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    No - DND blocks all notifications in addition to calls which makes it not usable. I still want notifications for other things (especially text).
  - avodonosov 8y ago

Abundnce10 8y ago

All I really want to do is allow calls through to my phone that are stored in my contacts. If they're not in my contacts, I'd prefer not to be notified and have it sent to voicemail.

cronix 8y ago
One problem is they can easily spoof the number. I've received 2 calls from Bank of America's 800 number, that weren't actually from Bank of America (they were pretending there was a problem with my account...phishing for info...). They were in my address book, and showed up as such. You can't trust caller ID. They might not have your friends phone numbers, but you probably also have other major institutions that you trust in there as well. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-answer-the-phone-when-your-bank-calls-2017-03-30 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-answer-th...
- orev 8y ago
  The fact that it is not perfect is pretty irrelevant to the need for this kind of basic functionality. I'm going to assume iPhone here because I'd be surprised if Android doesn't have this capability.
  - cronix 8y ago
    Andoird does. I think they added it in Lolipop about 5 years ago (only allowing calls/notifications from contacts). You have to set up do not disturb and then go and make exceptions for contacts.
- hermitdev 8y ago
  The solution to this is never give out any PII when receiving a call. Ask what theyre calling about, then hang up and dial back. Yeah, you enter the hours long call queue, but you're not giving out your info to a potential spoofer. Also, don't call the number they give you on the phone. Look up the number for your bank (usually easy enough to find on the back of your debit/credit card). Same is true for any organization that potentially has info that could be used for identity theft. Hang up and call them back independently.

tchaffee 8y ago

I just never answer calls or listen to voicemail anymore. I use WhatsApp etc. and give folks that ID. Maybe in a few years the phone companies will implement some of cool stuff mentioned in the article but until then phone calls from everyone are blacklisted.

hartator 8y ago

I disagree with the solution. A simple App that send to voicemail numbers not in my contacts will be far than enough. And it won’t require to change the whole infrastructure!

vitaflo 8y ago
You can already do this in iOS. Set your phone on Do Not Disturb and then in the iOS settings tell it to allow numbers in your contact list to get through even when DND is on. I've done this for years and never get robocalls.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  This also affects other notifications (sms, other app notifications) which might not work for most people. Especially for people that are on PagerDuty, this solution just wont work.

dividuum 8y ago

Sounds like a technical solution for a problem that just needs regulation and laws. I'm in Germany. I never had a ad/scam call on my cellphone number in basically 20 years. I get some kind of poll call every two months on my landline number. That's all.

orev 8y ago
We do have laws, but they cannot be easily enforced because many of the scams originate in foreign countries who proxy to VOIP providers in the US to make the calls. Some of them, like the Microsoft scam, even conscript unwitting people into the job and/or threaten them to do it, while telling them that it's not a scam because everyone in the US is rich and don't need all that money. Maybe Germany just isn't a desirable target for them.
nemothekid 8y ago
Don't quote me on this, but I do believe there are regulations and laws preventing this - but just as the article states they are impossible to enforce given our current infrastructure. Fines are meaningless to a blackhat organization doing spoof calls over VoIP somewhere in India.
- undeadsushi 8y ago
  Last Week with John Oliver & Reply All both went into details with there most recent episodes, but something changed in federal policy with the Do Not Call list.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

phaer 8y ago

I read a lot about the plague that robocalls are on international forums, especially from the U.S. But I live in central Europe, Austria, and received only two SPAM calls in my whole life, both by what seemed to be actual human agents on the other side and hear from similar amounts from friends I've asked about the phenomena. Can someone explain why it seems such hard to resolve problem elsewhere while it seems hardly a problem at all here? Is there a difference in infrastructure, a difference in legislature, ...?

runarberg 8y ago
Agreed. I experienced a bit of a culture shock moving from Northern Europe to USA. Robocalls are a real pain here in the USA and I don’t know why. I’ve learned that I should never answer a call from a number I don’t know (not that easy), but it doesn’t have to be this way. I also get a number of text messages trying to phish me into buying drugs or sex. It’s totally nuts.
- froindt 8y ago
  > I've learned that I should never answer a call from a number I don’t know (not that easy), but it doesn’t have to be this way. Not only that, but you basically need to program in all the random numbers you do business with to make sure you don't miss something important. Dentist, doctor, real estate agent, mortgage officer, the random office you're only going to visit once who did your MRI. And still, someone can just as easily spoof one of those numbers (even purely by coincidence) and you'll pick up.
tyingq 8y ago
Maybe just the market fragmentation. For example, a lot of the robocalls in the US are trying to sell extended warranties for vehicles, student loan debt services, health/life insurance, scammy tech support, etc. If you target the US, your sales pitch can be in one language, with roughly one set of commission paying providers, and super cheap VoIP calls. I assume that would be harder in Europe due to language, state provided services for health+education, more strict laws on loans and warranties, differing costs for local VoIP numbers, etc. You would likely have to tailor for each country.

godzillabrennus 8y ago

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice number. It's past time for Apple to integrate spam call filtering into iOS and Android users have no excuse for not using Google Voice.

tomcam 8y ago
I would LOVE to use my Google Voice number for just this reason. I find the sound quality to be bad no matter what mic I use. If there's a higher tier with better voice quality I can pay for that's fine. My net connection is at least 25Mbps to 65Mbps and I'm in the Seattle area. Do you have any tips on what I can do to get better quality?
- gnicholas 8y ago
  This, plus annoying latency. Makes conversations awkward, especially with people I don’t know well.
MuffinFlavored 8y ago
> iOS What about downloading Hiya?
fphhotchips 8y ago
> Android users have no excuse for not using Google Voice. Except that it's not available outside the US. The other 95% of us can pound sand, apparently.
- maguirre 8y ago
  Or if you are in the US and have a project Fi number
- eloisant 8y ago

lucb1e 8y ago

I've never received a robocall and the whole thing seems dystopian. Is it something uniquely American? Is there EU legislation that prevents this, such as the "don't call me" register (bel me niet register)? I'm not on that, though. General anti-spam laws then? (Since it's unsolicited commercial communications directed at consumers). Genuinely curious what's different.

frosted-flakes 8y ago
Canada and the USA also have national Do Not Call laws, and telemarketers are not allowed to cold call numbers that are on the list (in Canada, there are certain exceptions such as local newspapers selling subscriptions, charities soliciting donations, and companies that do telephone surveys, e.g. Ipsos-Reid). It works, too, because I never, ever receive legit telemarketing calls. But the DNC list doesn't do anything to stop phishing/scam calls because apparently criminals don't care about DNC laws (obviously). They always spoof local numbers, but never have a caller ID name. This means I can pretty safely ignore all calls without caller ID names, unless I'm expecting a call. The problem is, these scammers spam voicemail inboxes too, and on my phone and carrier (Android on Koodo in Canada) the only way to dismiss the "New Voicemail" notification is to call my voicemail number and listen to it. I don't care about voicemail, so I disabled it.

gist 8y ago

I am guessing that the direction this is heading in is twilio somehow coming up with a solution that they can implement and sell to someone. Maybe the multi part blog post is part of the way to gather thoughts in order to learn more and incorporate ideas and reactions from people.

tareqak 8y ago

I don't get that many robocalls anymore after I signed up for https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/ . I also make a point of reporting unwanted calls there too (I got two pretending to be from the IRS saying that I was about to be sued). I know that people find it annoying to go through the process of reporting the call, but I consider it to be one of those things that fall under the "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" bucket. It'd be nice if there were donotcall.gov apps for Android and iOS though.

profmonocle 8y ago
It's great that the DNC has worked for you, unfortunately it's not much help for me since all my robocallers are criminals trying to steal from me. Naturally, people unafraid of being arrested for fraud are unafraid of DNC fines. I've been on the DNC for years, and a couple years ago I decided to change my number, since my old one was getting 4-5 robocalls per day, always from different numbers.
- tareqak 8y ago
  That sounds horrible. I wonder if there is a way to surrender that number to the FBI, so that they could investigate further. Even one call every other day would be too much to report manually for me in terms of effort.
  - cheerlessbog 8y ago
    Judging by these comments and my own experience, their investigations are not being held up by lack of suitable victims.
  - masonic 8y ago
    Because "that number" is generally fake. Caller ID became meaningless once VOIP was allowed to spoof it. Can we build a new system atop ANI?
    - mehrdadn 8y ago

flavor8 8y ago

Reply All (podcast) had a recent episode about the increase in robocalls. It's a fun listen. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-conundrum#episode-player https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-conun... (The TLDR is a law changed.) Also, I've had success running Calls Blacklist (app) on my android phone - it's set up so that it will block any call that's not from one of my contacts. I haven't had a spam call since I started using it.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Taniwha 8y ago

I get none, our house has an asterisk box that does voicemail and provides individual VM for everyone at home - it means that anyone calling in has to dial a single digit extension, I haven't had a robocall in years

jeena 8y ago

Is there a way to only let the phone ringing if it's a number which is in your address book?

arawde 8y ago
In Android Pie, Do Not Disturb mode makes it so you are only notified of calls from your contacts. All other calls are received silently.

paulie_a 8y ago

If it is an area code outside of 4-5 I block it. If it isn't in my phonebook but in that range, I check the voicemail then 99 percent of the time I block it. Sometimes I answer and mess with the caller to waste their energy and ruin their numbers. What irritates me is the spoofing of numbers. That should be a felony and charged in criminal court. They steal real people's numbers briefly in my experience. Either arrest and throw the person calling in prison or blacklist that Carrier. And fine the carrier you use for allowing it to even happen. EDIT: on a side note you are not able to block Texas and Florida. I could block those two entire states without worries and I'd receive a lot less calls.

rp36 8y ago

Interestingly, Robocall algorithms use phone numbers closer to my phone number (either real of fake) and since I live in different Area code, it is much easier to block the numbers. Though it is not recommended to pick up the phone, I have had some success by picking up the phone, wasting the agent's time and letting them know that my car is real old and would not need extended warranty.

cheerlessbog 8y ago
That is interesting. I looked at my missed calls and they are all either my local area code or 866. It makes me want to swap my mobile number for one from, say, Hawaii, which I doubt I ever get a legitimate call from, then filter out that area code. Looks like it might work.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
Same here, but unfortunately Apple provides no mechanism to do so. Even RoboKiller, a third party app, has limited success with neighborhood spoofing, as it’s called. I’m perfectly fine with blocking the entire NNN beginning prefix of my number but there appears to be no way to do it (they can only do NNN-NNNN). RoboKiller says it’s a limitation in the iOS API they have access to.

gesman 8y ago

Here's very simple idea for Apple: Let only calls from known contacts ring, the rest auto-goes to voicemail. Why is this so F*ING hard for Apple to implement?

drexlspivey 8y ago
Because it's already there, it's called Do Not Disturb mode
- johntash 8y ago
  DND also prevents notifications/texts/etc. I think both IOS and Android have that issue.
- gesman 8y ago
  This is not even close to what I described.

spammersharass 8y ago

Unfortunately I burned myself by naively calling with my number (not from a pay-phone or "Restricted" / *67) and they have my name and tried intimidating me by pointing out the fact that they know where I live. BUT that aside, if you guys want to have a chance at harassing scammers / spammers back here's a number: (877)-346-1581. I _believe_ this is "Acostings" a call center featured in this [0] podcast where the podcasters LITERALLY flew to India to "confront" them. They pretend to be Apple support to get you to buy gift cards and give them the codes. The CEO's name is "Deepak Vera" (I think, if they truly are Acostings), ask for him and you'll quickly see how irked and pissed they'll get. DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY INFO. DO NOT CALL FROM YOUR OWN NUMBER. 0: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance

amthewiz 8y ago

I'd love to take the robo-callers on a long winding road to nowhere. Is there a conversational AI robo-answering app based on something like Google Duplex? If not, should I build one?

amelius 8y ago

The solution is to use a whitelist for phonecalls.

jedberg 8y ago

I was hoping this would be a blog post on using Twillio to block robo callers.

cdransf 8y ago

I use Robokiller on iOS -- it screens the calls and answers spam with prerecorded scripts paced to match response times and then sends me the recording of the interaction.

hermitdev 8y ago
What strikes me with robocalls that leave messages - they cut off by "talking" too early so I cannot identify who they are, yet if I answer, I get nothing but silence if I answer with "Hello? Hello?" Calm and slowly paced. That's my personal rule. I say hello slowly twice, and if theres silence, I hang up. Dont care if I start to hear a connection as I'm going to hang up. You called me, have someone on the line. My time is worth money to me. I am not amswering the phone to be put on hold for the next representative. Fuck off and call me when you have someone ready to talk to me.
- cdransf 8y ago
  I generally don't answer any number that's not in my contacts. If I don't know who it is they can leave a message or I'll look up the number and block it proactively.

jnaddef 8y ago

> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration calls and impair the economics of robocalls. Do they really expect us to believe the reason they bill by the minute is to fight against robocalls?

willart4food 8y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbgAD1oehQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbgAD1oehQ > FCC Chairman Ajit Pai explains the importance of the FCC's proposed new rules banning illegal spoofed text messages and international calls. The proposed rules would enable the agency to address consumer concerns about unwanted text messages and scam calls from overseas.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hawkice 8y ago

I've actually blocked all telephone calls. This might be ill-advised, but I haven't been burned by it yet.

noahmbarr 8y ago

I wonder what % of robocalls are run on Twilio. My sense is a non-insignificant #

instaheat 8y ago

I've posted about this before. There is a solution to this. Google "Robocalls Cash" and you'll see it has been featured in several news outlets. https://robocalls.cash/ref/keven/ https://robocalls.cash/ref/keven/

mirimir 8y ago

Maybe there ought to be a robocall service for ~anonymously targeting the callback numbers provided in robocalls. Many years ago, I setup an autodialer to hit an 800 number provided by a persistent robocaller. And pretty soon, they stopped calling me.

nmstoker 8y ago

Seems like this is much worse in the US - I've had the same number in the UK since 2000 and not had a robocall EVER. The occasional human spam call comes in (like once every two or three months) but I tend to just hang up and usually Google offers to block them (my Pixel 2 has the spam call blocker built in)

toephu2 8y ago

This is why I leave my phone on silent 24/7 (no vibrate either). If someone from my Contacts calls me, then I see the missed call and know to call them back when I have time. However I live my life on my time, nothing is ever so important I have to drop whatever I am doing to pick up someone else's call right away. You might say, what if there was an emergency? Well how many times has someone called you about an emergency where you could actually do something about it? Maybe some have, but I bet most haven't.

abrookewood 8y ago
What happens when one of your friends behaves in exactly the same way? Do the two of you ever manage to actually talk to each other?
- cheerlessbog 8y ago
  It is possible to leave a message, or text to arrange a time.
- system2 8y ago
  Texting. You send a text, receive a text or vice versa. Then you can actually arrange a call if you want to catch up. I have some friends call me, and I call them back. If they don't call me back they at least send me a message telling me when they can be free. I guess this is becoming a norm among most people.
peripitea 8y ago
I do the same but I use DND 24/7 but with calls from contacts as the only exception - those ring as normal. I get phone calls from people I know so rarely that it's not a significant hindrance.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ceoddevelopment 8y ago

These were legally terminated by google actually. They took on the role and served out the subpoenas. No one ever tends to going against google after the murders and the blackmails that they are serving up subpoeba to check ina (<-this was inkevted by google) (to china) for. Thats just not here that it got around. Deny the Tencent and Alphabet subpoena, please. Scam me. That's illegal. This may get banned. He is doing 666. Annie is doing rape. And youtube is doing babylon.Good day but hopefully not goodbye.

ceoddevelopment 8y ago

aww my post

sureaboutthis 8y ago

I consider articles like this, which don't answer the point in the title, and then say you have to wait for Part 2 to presumably get the answer, no better than Robocalls and spam.

ungzd 8y ago

BTW, in Russia labor is cheap so spam phone calls are usually done by people, not robots. I have to keep phone always in silent mode due to lots of such spam, sometimes 2-3 calls per day from different companies.

jader201 8y ago

It’s 2019. Why has Apple/Android not added the ability to reject (or at least send directly to voice mail) all calls outside of contacts, and make this the default setting? Seems like this would solve almost all of these problems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118664

pard68 8y ago
Have you checked lately? I can't speak for Apple but my Android (S7) and my wife's (unsure of the make) both have these types of options. My wife has all numbers not in her contacts go to voicemail. My phone just hangs up on any unknown number.
mehrdadn 8y ago
I have an app that does this but then they just leave voicemail and it's basically the same problem wasting time listening to them and deleting them again.

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

Great article, but I jumped there hoping that Twilio had a solution to offer. Not yet, it seems. I've been pestered by Robocalls for the last few years. Lately, I did the mistake of shopping online for health insurance, and signing up with a provider (I ended up not purchasing it from them). Since then (three weeks ago), I've received ~20 calls per day, half of it from robots, half from humans. These people should f*ing go to jail. All of them.

manfredo 8y ago
Jesus, 10 robocalls a day? I thought I was unlucky when I got 2 or 3 in one day. Did you end up using an automated answering service?

oldgradstudent 8y ago

The death penalty for robocalls coming from inside the US, and drone strikes and extraordinary rendition for robocalls originating outside the US are out of the question, right? But seriously, why is it so difficult to eliminate these robocalls. Each operation has to have employees, a call center (to handle the marks), payment processing, etc. It seems like a very easy target.

bradthater 8y ago
A lot of these robocall call centers are operating illegally in foreign countries that skirt their own laws, with export partners within the US that pop up and disappear quicker than the government can than they can be hunted. If you are interested there is a really good podcast by Reply All about tracking down one in person. Episode #102 and #103, some of their best stuff to be frank.
- oldgradstudent 8y ago
  Just started the first one. Fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/103-long-distance-part-ii https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/103-long-distance-part...

lowlevel 8y ago

I have resorted to using DND mode as a whitelist. If a caller does not identify with a number in my contacts list, the phone doesn't ring. I feel whitelisting is the only thing that's going to stop the calls... extreme or not.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
I would do this, but at least on iOS, this silences text messages and other app notifications, including other messengers.

davidhyde 8y ago

> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration calls and impair the economics of robocalls. That sounds like marketing BS to me. Why can’t they just create a one way fingerprint of the audio and block duplicates.

mnw21cam 8y ago
Because you need to pick up the phone in order to get any audio to make a fingerprint of.

kinard 8y ago

Great blog post, actually looking forward to the second part.

tomerbd 8y ago

"TrueCaller" App

TheHypnotist 8y ago
TrueCaller seems to work great if you keep their spam list updated and allow them to screen your calls. I have no complaints.

mcv 8y ago

I wonder why I'm not getting this barrage of robocalls. I live in Netherland, not the US, so presumably that's why, but are robocalls not a thing in Europe? Do we not have these kind of predatory companies? Do we have surprisingly effective legislation to stop robocalls? The only phone spam I'm getting are people trying to sell me new energy contracts (that's something that happens when you have a company for some reason), and tons of British recruiters trying to get me to work in Belgium or Germany for some reason. Very rarely, I get a tech support call from Microsoft India. But always it's real people, not a robocall.

kalado 8y ago
They are a thing in europe, but you have to make the mistake of entering your phone number on some sketchy homepage for it to start.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  You're lucky! In the US, you have to make the mistake of giving your phone number to nearly any business.
bgeeek 8y ago
Yes, they are a thing in Europe too. It's not just to do with entering numbers in "sketchy" websites. It's who resold or leaked your details, what apps you have installed on your phone, or if you were just unlucky. They are trying to get vaguely smart too - whereas before a number would call from quite far away, so you could assume it was a robocaller. Now, they can be close to your location, which is a bit spooky.
- mcv 8y ago
  It's apparently easy to get my phone number from the Chamber of Commerce, which is where those energy peddlers get it. Seems like an easy source of phone numbers for robocallers too. And it's not like I'm very careful with my phone number; I've entered it on tons of websites. Still no robocallers for me. Maybe European data protection measures do work.

abacate 8y ago

As usual, it's not that complicated, and it's not that simple. The simple solution would be for the network providers to validate the caller ID numbers for its subscribers, but that requires changes to punish the ones that don't do it. I've worked with telephony for 15 years and I know the big providers do this for most common telecom protocols, but VoIP providers tend to be more lax. But that's where they shouldn't, and the ones that break this shouldn't be allowed on the network.

WhyEmail 8y ago
Yeah, but they can at least do the following things: - Don't connect calls coming from numbers they own that they have not assigned - Don't connect calls from a number to itself (my wife recently received a phone call from "herself". Then she received 20 more phone calls from irate people sure that she spammed them) - Don't connect calls where the calling number is coming from an invalid area code or LATA - Don't connect calls where the calling number is a string of only digits. There are no people or businesses with this type of name, most likely. This would solve between 10-50% of the spam calls I get, I'm pretty sure.

JohnFen 8y ago

I've solved the robocall problem personally, by simply not answering my phone. I'll answer the call if I'm expecting one, if it's from someone who has texted me that they're going to call (this covers 99% of the legit calls I get), or if it's from one of a very tiny number of people who might call me due to an emergency. Otherwise, it goes straight to voicemail and (thanks to Tasker) doesn't even make my phone ring.