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It looks like this app is based on whitelisting. While this would indeed be 100% effective at stopping spam calls, it would also be 100% effective at stopping u

It looks like this app is based on whitelisting. While this would indeed be 100% effective at stopping spam calls, it would also be 100% effective at stopping urgent calls from numbers that you're unfamiliar with. For example: - A hospital or police department calling to tell you that your spouse has been injured in an accident. - Your doctor calling you back from one of several outgoing lines in her office whose number you don't know. Do you want to rely on these callers being able to figure out how to get through your spam blocker in an emergency? They're calling from landlines, so they also can't text you or receive a text from your app.

davidajackson 7y ago
To solve this issue, I've included: The ability to set PINs, which means people who know your number but aren't whitelisted can reach you at any time (think doctor, police, school, etc). When you list your number on any form just include a PIN. You can add as many PINs as you want and include a description for each. When calling a CallStop number, an unknown caller hears this default message: "You have reached a phone number protected by CallStop. If you know this person, press 1 to send a whitelisting request with a quick note. If you have a PIN to reach this person directly, press 2 and enter the PIN."
- greenyoda 7y ago
  How would the police who pulled your spouse from a car wreck know your PIN? How would someone store your PIN in a contacts list that didn't include a field for a PIN? This system places obstacles in the way of someone who may need to reach you urgently. Is that a good tradeoff to make for not receiving spam calls?
  - davidajackson 7y ago
    >>How would the police who pulled your spouse from a car wreck know your PIN? You need to let organizations know a PIN. Later on, automated channels and PINs can be created that each user opts into--like whitelists for public services (police, government etc.). Those could work with automatic notifications/updates for those organizations. You could also opt in to whitelist certain numbers on signup (like public services) once SHAKEN/STIR is ready (so that commonly whitelisted numbers aren't spoofed). I understand I'm describing a long term solution and I'm being very idealistic here. >>How would someone store your PIN in a contacts list that didn't include a field for a PIN? PINs are for organizations and groups to store. Contacts are to be used more in scenarios with whitelisting. You may be able to store contacts with PINs that you can dial, but I haven't had time to play around with the pause functionality in Apple contacts yet. I think organizations will easily store PIN info. >>This system places obstacles in the way of someone who may need to reach you urgently. Is that a good tradeoff to make for not receiving spam calls? More than half of all calls are spam calls. In my mind it is. I used to get 5-10 spam calls every day. But, that's part of the reason I'm running this test :)

davidajackson 7y ago

To solve this issue, I've included: The ability to set PINs, which means people who know your number but aren't whitelisted can reach you at any time (think doctor, police, school, etc). When you list your number on any form just include a PIN. You can add as many PINs as you want and include a description for each. When calling a CallStop number, an unknown caller hears this default message: "You have reached a phone number protected by CallStop. If you know this person, press 1 to send a whitelisting request with a quick note. If you have a PIN to reach this person directly, press 2 and enter the PIN."

greenyoda 7y ago
How would the police who pulled your spouse from a car wreck know your PIN? How would someone store your PIN in a contacts list that didn't include a field for a PIN? This system places obstacles in the way of someone who may need to reach you urgently. Is that a good tradeoff to make for not receiving spam calls?
- davidajackson 7y ago
  >>How would the police who pulled your spouse from a car wreck know your PIN? You need to let organizations know a PIN. Later on, automated channels and PINs can be created that each user opts into--like whitelists for public services (police, government etc.). Those could work with automatic notifications/updates for those organizations. You could also opt in to whitelist certain numbers on signup (like public services) once SHAKEN/STIR is ready (so that commonly whitelisted numbers aren't spoofed). I understand I'm describing a long term solution and I'm being very idealistic here. >>How would someone store your PIN in a contacts list that didn't include a field for a PIN? PINs are for organizations and groups to store. Contacts are to be used more in scenarios with whitelisting. You may be able to store contacts with PINs that you can dial, but I haven't had time to play around with the pause functionality in Apple contacts yet. I think organizations will easily store PIN info. >>This system places obstacles in the way of someone who may need to reach you urgently. Is that a good tradeoff to make for not receiving spam calls? More than half of all calls are spam calls. In my mind it is. I used to get 5-10 spam calls every day. But, that's part of the reason I'm running this test :)