4 ms·

Seems to me that the FCC doesn't actually want to stop these. Watch the senate commission deposition(?) of Adrian Abramavich. He says all these calls are routed

by 55555 7y ago

Seems to me that the FCC doesn't actually want to stop these. Watch the senate commission deposition(?) of Adrian Abramavich. He says all these calls are routed through 5 or 6 tier-2+ VOIP firms who openly solicit robocall business and then blend the traffic to prevent the most obvious red flags. Just pull their licenses(?). Unless there's more to the story and everyone in the industry is getting rich from this, which sounds like is the case. Remember this is the same FCC that couldn't detect millions of fake anti-net neutrality comments. C'mon. Are we really dumb enough to think that they're that dumb? If everyone in the industry is getting rich from this and the FCC is serving industry and not the people, then the plan of action would quite probably look like this: 1. Pass laws that make robocalls illegal to pacify the populace. 2. Charge one or two operators a year in civil court max, but not enough to actually deter people from doing it. And make sure to brand them names like "the robocall king" so that people think you've actually made a huge dent in robo-calling. Again, to pacify the populace. 3. Don't actually enforce the laws you passed on any meaningful scale and don't require technological changes which would stop this. Despite the fact that it doesn't happen in any other country, even third world ones, pretend that this is just a technologically intractable problem. Pathetic.

Ruedii 7y ago
Under Obama they made steps forward to stop these, penalties were drastically increased, and an actual investigation team was put together, but Trump defunded the efforts and now the complaint form leads to a massive master in pile with no hope of a single message being read. The phone companies ARE able to stop the caller ID spoofing with a simple notch filter placed at the right point on the line, or packet filter on the right place on the firewall. They could easily force businesses to give a valid return number on their calls and prevent jamming based caller ID spoofing, but instead they don't want to because these calls mean more money for them.
- dec0dedab0de 7y ago
  The phone companies ARE able to stop the caller ID spoofing with a simple notch filter placed at the right point on the line, or packet filter on the right place on the firewall. T-mobile already does, along with some other magic logic they have stopped almost all of the spam calls from reaching me. ...Occasionally they block my mom for a day or two, but it's worth it.
  - markovbot 7y ago
    I have a t-mobile line and a Google voice number, I don't give out the T-Mobile number so 100% of legitimate calls come through Google Voice, but 100% of spam calls come through T-Mobile. Also I'm not sure when you're saying they added this magical filtering but I've tested spoofing calls to myself and other T-Mobile phones within the last few months and it works fine.
- throwaway55554 7y ago
  >... but instead they don't want to because these calls mean more money for them. This. If something is broken and nobody wants to fix it, follow the money.
- mreider 7y ago
  There are interesting correlations that lead people to believe the phone companies are doing more than merely enabling these criminals. It seems they are collaborating. If you drive to a certain location with some level of frequency you will notice the location of the spoofed numbers are in those communities. This goes beyond neighbor spoofing, and suggests some level of information sharing between the robocaller and the phone carrier. As of January, I started driving to Pleasanton, California every day for work. I also started visiting San Rafael about once month to visit friends who recently moved there. In the last few months - almost every robocall I get is coming from Pleasanton or San Rafael prefixes.
ditn 7y ago
>Remember this is the same FCC that couldn't detect millions of fake anti-net neutrality comments. Not couldn't - didn't want to.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  That would be the point.
onetimeusename 7y ago
No, this is not correct. There have been several initiatives that the FCC as well as the FTC have done over the past 2 years. They gave permission to providers to begin blocking unallocated numbers in 2017 which included IRS numbers and this reduced the number of IRS scam calls. Providers are not normally allowed to block calls so rules had to be formulated about when they could block calls like these. The FCC authorized wireless providers to take measures to block spam text messages in 2018. By the end of 2019, caller ID authentication is expected to be put in to use. The FCC cannot specify how providers are to implement a caller ID authentication system. An independent task force, the IETF, created an RFC for the STIR[1] and SHAKEN protocols to authenticate a caller's ID. These types of things have to take input from all involved parties and settle on a proposal after reviewing it and agreeing on it. The networks have agreed to implement it within their own networks first, at the behest of the FCC. This kind of system can't be implemented overnight and the FCC is not in a position to specify an implementation and force providers to use it. In addition there have been a number of prosecutions of companies, like ABC Hispana Inc[2]. However, it is difficult to prosecute offshore providers in noncompliant countries although the FCC is proposing rules to allow it to charge such companies regardless. [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/stir/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/stir/about/ [2] https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3108/abc-hispana-inc-et-al https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3108/a...

by 55555 7y ago

Ruedii 7y ago

Under Obama they made steps forward to stop these, penalties were drastically increased, and an actual investigation team was put together, but Trump defunded the efforts and now the complaint form leads to a massive master in pile with no hope of a single message being read. The phone companies ARE able to stop the caller ID spoofing with a simple notch filter placed at the right point on the line, or packet filter on the right place on the firewall. They could easily force businesses to give a valid return number on their calls and prevent jamming based caller ID spoofing, but instead they don't want to because these calls mean more money for them.

dec0dedab0de 7y ago
The phone companies ARE able to stop the caller ID spoofing with a simple notch filter placed at the right point on the line, or packet filter on the right place on the firewall. T-mobile already does, along with some other magic logic they have stopped almost all of the spam calls from reaching me. ...Occasionally they block my mom for a day or two, but it's worth it.
- markovbot 7y ago
  I have a t-mobile line and a Google voice number, I don't give out the T-Mobile number so 100% of legitimate calls come through Google Voice, but 100% of spam calls come through T-Mobile. Also I'm not sure when you're saying they added this magical filtering but I've tested spoofing calls to myself and other T-Mobile phones within the last few months and it works fine.
throwaway55554 7y ago
>... but instead they don't want to because these calls mean more money for them. This. If something is broken and nobody wants to fix it, follow the money.
mreider 7y ago
There are interesting correlations that lead people to believe the phone companies are doing more than merely enabling these criminals. It seems they are collaborating. If you drive to a certain location with some level of frequency you will notice the location of the spoofed numbers are in those communities. This goes beyond neighbor spoofing, and suggests some level of information sharing between the robocaller and the phone carrier. As of January, I started driving to Pleasanton, California every day for work. I also started visiting San Rafael about once month to visit friends who recently moved there. In the last few months - almost every robocall I get is coming from Pleasanton or San Rafael prefixes.

ditn 7y ago

>Remember this is the same FCC that couldn't detect millions of fake anti-net neutrality comments. Not couldn't - didn't want to.

dredmorbius 7y ago
That would be the point.

onetimeusename 7y ago

No, this is not correct. There have been several initiatives that the FCC as well as the FTC have done over the past 2 years. They gave permission to providers to begin blocking unallocated numbers in 2017 which included IRS numbers and this reduced the number of IRS scam calls. Providers are not normally allowed to block calls so rules had to be formulated about when they could block calls like these. The FCC authorized wireless providers to take measures to block spam text messages in 2018. By the end of 2019, caller ID authentication is expected to be put in to use. The FCC cannot specify how providers are to implement a caller ID authentication system. An independent task force, the IETF, created an RFC for the STIR[1] and SHAKEN protocols to authenticate a caller's ID. These types of things have to take input from all involved parties and settle on a proposal after reviewing it and agreeing on it. The networks have agreed to implement it within their own networks first, at the behest of the FCC. This kind of system can't be implemented overnight and the FCC is not in a position to specify an implementation and force providers to use it. In addition there have been a number of prosecutions of companies, like ABC Hispana Inc[2]. However, it is difficult to prosecute offshore providers in noncompliant countries although the FCC is proposing rules to allow it to charge such companies regardless. [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/stir/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/stir/about/ [2] https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3108/abc-hispana-inc-et-al https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3108/a...