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Yup. It’s amusing to see people think there is some hard technical problem here. Tie the problem of robocalls to the telcos losing money, and this problem wil

Yup. It’s amusing to see people think there is some hard technical problem here. Tie the problem of robocalls to the telcos losing money, and this problem will solve itself in months.

bksenior 7y ago
It would literally be a day. They pass the legislation and they would stop.
- nobodyandproud 7y ago
  The lack of political will and the form of legislation are the questions. If the rule is that telcos must eat the cost of a scam, they will drag it out in court and the consumer must still prove it. If the rule is that each robocall that makes it through must be paid by the telcos (take the consumer out of this), then telcos will battle each other to try and insist that the other party is responsible. At some point they may even come to a consensus and protocol that protects the customer. I prefer this option. There may be other options. Just don’t put the burden on the individual customer. Edit: Even better, allow bounties so that lawyers can start hunting for robocalls that went through.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    Set up a government department with a dozen people and a thousand phone lines distributed around the country and with different telcos. Record every call received. Fine telco $100k for every robocall. Increase fines steeply over time.
    - rhizome 7y ago
      Way too complicated. Much easier would be to get a warrant for a trap and trace on the line known to be receiving these calls. Then disconnect the robocall lines.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    > If the rule is that telcos must eat the cost of a scam, they will drag it out in court and the consumer must still prove it. > If the rule is that each robocall that makes it through must be paid by the telcos (take the consumer out of this), then telcos will battle each other to try and insist that the other party is responsible. I don't necessarily see these as guaranteed outcomes. You don't see this kind of behavior for banks, which are generally the ones liable for credit card fraud.
ronaldj 7y ago
And then they'll add on a monthly robocall prevention fee to your bill. :P
- simcop2387 7y ago
  They're testing the waters for that already, https://www.zdnet.com/article/at-t-to-auto-block-fraud-robocalls-for-free-but-blocking-spam-calls-will-cost-extra/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/at-t-to-auto-block-fraud-roboc...
  - rhizome 7y ago
    These new telco blockers only work on VOIP lines, not copper-wire POTS phones. The service is not even available for POTS, it's only the major telcos creating a /r/selfhosted RoboKiller who make it available for the kinds of phone lines that go down in a power outage..
erichocean 7y ago
> It’s amusing to see people think there is some hard technical problem here. One of the primary users of robocalls are politicians. I'm sure they'll get right on legislating against it. /sarc
- elif 7y ago
  (US) Politicians already gave themselves a loophole into unlimited unsolicited spam. So cleaning up other spammers would strengthen the quality of their spam channel, as consumers would be less jaded/more likely to pick up.
  - erichocean 7y ago
    Does that loophole also apply to political action committees?
    - elif 7y ago
      Yes. If the content of the message is "political speech" it is exempted from CAN-SPAM (which also covers cell phone calls) as an extension of first ammendment rights, regardless of who is doing the speaking. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/08/candid-answers-can-spam-questions https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/08/...
      - joecool1029 7y ago
        > (which also covers cell phone calls) No, you are absolutely wrong. CAN-SPAM law for email is under the FTC's regulation and does nothing to restrict the ability of marketers to send initial unsolicited mailings. This isn't a first amendment question of exemption, the FTC is not authorized by statute to regulate noncommercial activity like a political campaign. TCPA regulations for cellphone marketing are under the auspices of the FCC. You cannot send unsolicited commercial SMS and calls legally (there are some exemptions for pollsters and nonprofits). TCPA law also applies to political campaigns: https://www.fcc.gov/political-campaign-robocalls-robotexts https://www.fcc.gov/political-campaign-robocalls-robotexts
atoav 7y ago
I got two unwanted robocalls in the last twenty years (central europe). This seems like a profoundly american issue.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Lucky you. Approximately no one in the countries that these calls originate from speaks any central European language, so they don't call.
  - elyobo 7y ago
    AFAIK they're not a problem here in Australia either, and the language here could (charitably) be called English. I've never received one of these calls.
    - lysp 7y ago
      Aussie here, I get the odd one on mobile, but get a couple a week on my land line numbers. Land line numbers are also registered with Do Not Call, but doesn't make any difference. Answer the call and there will be either: 1) a few second pause and then a person will drop in with the call centre voice noise in the background. 2) a few second pause and if there is no sound (you saying "hello") it will hang up. Those are usually from international call centres. In terms of locally based ones, got a couple during the election with a recorded voice saying "this is an important message from XYZ politician".
- solstice 7y ago
  Unwanted calls are an issue in France as well afaik. Not necessarily robocalls but the fact that there isn't a way to opt out from advertising calls (in contrast to Germany's Robinson-Liste) is very annoying.
  - makapuf 7y ago
    There is a do not call list (i don't know how it compares to Robinson). It's called Bloctel. But it's not really effective.
AmericanChopper 7y ago
To do that they’d have to turn the open system into a walled garden. They’d simply stop taking incoming calls from networks they didn’t trust. This would be exactly the same as saying ‘email providers can easily solve the spam problem, they should just adopt the Facebook Messenger model’.
closeparen 7y ago
Architecturally there's no binding between phone number and subscriber identity except at the very edge of the network, for the very smallest retail customers. There is a design to federate this binding throughout the ecosystem using a PKI called STIR/SHAKEN [0], but it's absolutely a hard technical problem to get that rolled out 100% without breaking things. [0] https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/shaken-as/ https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/shaken-as/

Yup. It’s amusing to see people think there is some hard technical problem here. Tie the problem of robocalls to the telcos losing money, and this problem will solve itself in months.

bksenior 7y ago

It would literally be a day. They pass the legislation and they would stop.

nobodyandproud 7y ago
The lack of political will and the form of legislation are the questions. If the rule is that telcos must eat the cost of a scam, they will drag it out in court and the consumer must still prove it. If the rule is that each robocall that makes it through must be paid by the telcos (take the consumer out of this), then telcos will battle each other to try and insist that the other party is responsible. At some point they may even come to a consensus and protocol that protects the customer. I prefer this option. There may be other options. Just don’t put the burden on the individual customer. Edit: Even better, allow bounties so that lawyers can start hunting for robocalls that went through.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  Set up a government department with a dozen people and a thousand phone lines distributed around the country and with different telcos. Record every call received. Fine telco $100k for every robocall. Increase fines steeply over time.
  - rhizome 7y ago
    Way too complicated. Much easier would be to get a warrant for a trap and trace on the line known to be receiving these calls. Then disconnect the robocall lines.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  > If the rule is that telcos must eat the cost of a scam, they will drag it out in court and the consumer must still prove it. > If the rule is that each robocall that makes it through must be paid by the telcos (take the consumer out of this), then telcos will battle each other to try and insist that the other party is responsible. I don't necessarily see these as guaranteed outcomes. You don't see this kind of behavior for banks, which are generally the ones liable for credit card fraud.

ronaldj 7y ago

And then they'll add on a monthly robocall prevention fee to your bill. :P

simcop2387 7y ago
They're testing the waters for that already, https://www.zdnet.com/article/at-t-to-auto-block-fraud-robocalls-for-free-but-blocking-spam-calls-will-cost-extra/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/at-t-to-auto-block-fraud-roboc...
- rhizome 7y ago
  These new telco blockers only work on VOIP lines, not copper-wire POTS phones. The service is not even available for POTS, it's only the major telcos creating a /r/selfhosted RoboKiller who make it available for the kinds of phone lines that go down in a power outage..

erichocean 7y ago

> It’s amusing to see people think there is some hard technical problem here. One of the primary users of robocalls are politicians. I'm sure they'll get right on legislating against it. /sarc

elif 7y ago
(US) Politicians already gave themselves a loophole into unlimited unsolicited spam. So cleaning up other spammers would strengthen the quality of their spam channel, as consumers would be less jaded/more likely to pick up.
- erichocean 7y ago
  Does that loophole also apply to political action committees?
  - elif 7y ago
    Yes. If the content of the message is "political speech" it is exempted from CAN-SPAM (which also covers cell phone calls) as an extension of first ammendment rights, regardless of who is doing the speaking. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/08/candid-answers-can-spam-questions https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/08/...
    - joecool1029 7y ago
      > (which also covers cell phone calls) No, you are absolutely wrong. CAN-SPAM law for email is under the FTC's regulation and does nothing to restrict the ability of marketers to send initial unsolicited mailings. This isn't a first amendment question of exemption, the FTC is not authorized by statute to regulate noncommercial activity like a political campaign. TCPA regulations for cellphone marketing are under the auspices of the FCC. You cannot send unsolicited commercial SMS and calls legally (there are some exemptions for pollsters and nonprofits). TCPA law also applies to political campaigns: https://www.fcc.gov/political-campaign-robocalls-robotexts https://www.fcc.gov/political-campaign-robocalls-robotexts

atoav 7y ago

I got two unwanted robocalls in the last twenty years (central europe). This seems like a profoundly american issue.

cameldrv 7y ago
Lucky you. Approximately no one in the countries that these calls originate from speaks any central European language, so they don't call.
- elyobo 7y ago
  AFAIK they're not a problem here in Australia either, and the language here could (charitably) be called English. I've never received one of these calls.
  - lysp 7y ago
    Aussie here, I get the odd one on mobile, but get a couple a week on my land line numbers. Land line numbers are also registered with Do Not Call, but doesn't make any difference. Answer the call and there will be either: 1) a few second pause and then a person will drop in with the call centre voice noise in the background. 2) a few second pause and if there is no sound (you saying "hello") it will hang up. Those are usually from international call centres. In terms of locally based ones, got a couple during the election with a recorded voice saying "this is an important message from XYZ politician".
solstice 7y ago
Unwanted calls are an issue in France as well afaik. Not necessarily robocalls but the fact that there isn't a way to opt out from advertising calls (in contrast to Germany's Robinson-Liste) is very annoying.
- makapuf 7y ago
  There is a do not call list (i don't know how it compares to Robinson). It's called Bloctel. But it's not really effective.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

To do that they’d have to turn the open system into a walled garden. They’d simply stop taking incoming calls from networks they didn’t trust. This would be exactly the same as saying ‘email providers can easily solve the spam problem, they should just adopt the Facebook Messenger model’.

closeparen 7y ago

Architecturally there's no binding between phone number and subscriber identity except at the very edge of the network, for the very smallest retail customers. There is a design to federate this binding throughout the ecosystem using a PKI called STIR/SHAKEN [0], but it's absolutely a hard technical problem to get that rolled out 100% without breaking things. [0] https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/shaken-as/ https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/shaken-as/