11 ms·

FCC orders phone companies to help trace illegal robocallers

181 points by FlyMoreRockets 6y ago

pmdulaney 6y ago
I've thought for years that if there were, say, a $20 fine for each robocall, with $10 going to the reporting consumer and $10 going to the phone company, robocalls would very soon be a thing of the past.
- dahart 6y ago
  > $10 going to the phone company That seems like a bad idea. The phone company needs to lose money when they allow robocalls, to finally motivate them to actually start authenticating business callers and actually start respecting the national do not call registry. The carriers are the only group with the ability to prevent robocalls, and they’ve been allowing them precisely because they’re getting money from the whole arrangement by allowing them. * Edit: the FCC order sounds like a good thing as a long overdue very first step, however this part sounds hilariously out of date to me: “Non-commercial, commercial and nonprofit organizations can now only make up to three calls per residential number within 30 days and are required to allow recipients to opt out.” I could be wrong, but I’ve had a lot of spam calls in the last few years, and never have I gotten multiple calls from the same number in a month. They are spoofing and setting up new entities on the fly. Limiting the number of calls sounds like something a politician would do who doesn’t understand what’s already going on (or... maybe a sly move that makes the FCC appear pro-consumer while not actually threatening the business of carriers in any way...). Consumer-visible and actionable call authentication is what we need, not limits on the amount of spam. Limiting each individual company to three spams from my point of view means I experience millions of spams. In fact establishing a limit of an okay number of spams just might increase the amount of spam calls I get...
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    I think it should work where each robocall costs $5. But the carrier that delivers it is insuring against the person it's delivered to. So for example. I get a robo-call, I report it and my carrier pays me $5. They then can collect that $5 from the carrier that delivered that call to them, who can collect it from the carrier that routed it to them who can collect it from the end user. And if at some point you can't collect you're stuck paying the $5.
    - dahart 6y ago
      That could work, though I’d suggest that requiring the recipient to have to report it doesn’t go far enough, especially when they registered on the do not call list a damn decade ago! How about if a robocall is delivered to someone on the do not call list, every carrier in the whole chain is automatically fined?
      - gpm 6y ago
        Combining with the chaining idea: The first carrier is fined $10 going to the end user, they can go after the second carrier who is fined $10, half going to the end user (now at +$15) and half going to the first carrier (now at -$5), they can go after a third carrier who is fined $10, half going to the end user (now at $20), half going to the second carrier (now at $-5) and so on.
  - thewebcount 6y ago
    > I could be wrong, but I’ve had a lot of spam calls in the last few years, and never have I gotten multiple calls from the same number in a month. But it doesn't say "from the same number." It says the same entity, which should hold regardless of the number. That said, whoever had my phone number before me (over 3 years ago) owed a lot of people money. I get 3-5 calls per day from debt collectors looking for her. I've never answered any of the calls, and they've rarely left any messages, but the caller ID often says, "such and such credit service", so it's pretty clear what's going on. The same company calls literally every day several times per day. It would be great if they could only call 3x per month. One actually does use the same number every time, so I eventually blocked their number. Another one uses a different number every time, but the callerID is always of the form "V12345678" where the number is just some incrementing integer, so it's obviously the same people.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  If you can trace it to the actual robocaller. (As opposed to, say, a front corporation with no assets.)
  - toast0 6y ago
    The terminating carrier pays the call recipient $10, and charges the originating carrier $20. As a recipient, I don't care if the caller paid, I got $10 from my carrier. As a terminating carrier, I don't care if the caller paid, I got paid from the originating carrier. As the originating carrier, I should damn well have a billing relationship with the caller, and they're not getting services if I'm not paid. I'll probably charge a collection fee for each charge I bill the caller, so works for me too. Require a deposit to continue service when calling patterns look robotic. (intermediate carriers can fill in between, they won't make money from the robofees, but will be incentivised to properly pass them through)
- jjtheblunt 6y ago
  similarly, if junk physical mail had to pay proper postage, i imagine it would vanish.
- olliej 6y ago
  Who is paying this money? Seriously - the problem is that no one gets the originator, the originator is likely a shell company with "no assets". Charge the phone company $5/robocall, require them to pay that $1 to the consumer in cash, not as a "credit" on their phone bill, and require a $1/incorrectly-blocked-call and suddenly I suspect the carriers will know where the robocalls are coming from.
HomeDeLaPot 6y ago
My grandma just lost her best friend to scammers. Through lies, constant harassing phone calls, and intimidation, they got him to "invest" his life's savings. They even sent locksmith to change the locks on his house, and they called his new phone number the day after he changed to it. By the end he was so stressed out he couldn't sleep and was having all kinds of physical issues. Died just a few days ago. We can't start catching/blocking scammers and robocallers soon enough. The telcos can get us in touch with people from other continents, but they can't spare the time to stop or trace the calls? Their "solution" for my grandma's friend was to tell him not to have a phone for a few weeks. LOL.
- dylan604 6y ago
  It's actually not a bad idea. I went without a "valid" phone number since first of June this year. Had to tighten the belt for a bit. Starting using a VoIP number. Recently got a new SIM for my phone, but have not provided the number to anyone. Still passing out the VoIP number. Funny thing is, nobody robo calls the VoIP number.
  - szhu 6y ago
    First, the technical know-how to use a VoIP number is not accessible to everyone. Maybe it's accessible to a good portion of people in the Bay Area because almost everyone knows someone who works in tech, but there's a lot more people out there. And second, if enough senior citizens were on VoIP numbers, I bet that's exactly where scammers would target next. The solution you're suggesting isn't so much to switch to a product that's inherently better, but to switch to a product that only people who don't fall victim to scams are using.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      Actually, I wasn't meaning for it as a suggestion for seniors. I was just saying that it's not that far of a wild notion to wait to get a new number. Growing up, my family played the get a new unlisted number game, but it did not work until going without for an extended time. That was for a landline, so I skiped that story for one with a more modern version. There is something to the waiting for a period of time before just getting a new number. The VoIP story was more of a seed planting for anyone else that might be reading and interested. Senior or milenial, doesn't really matter to me who it might be that might want to to give it a shot. Plus, seniors tend to have family members that could help them set something like this up. Don't write those seniors off so lightly
chris_st 6y ago
The thing that puzzles me is why is the goal to stop the robocaller, and punish them, and not the punish the company that hires them? Okay, we can't find the scammer easily, but they're advertising a service, and we CAN find that service company! If the car warranty company that keeps calling me is in the US, aren't they liable for contracting for an illegal service? If they're out of the US, can't we impose some block on all payments from the US to them?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rhacker 6y ago
  It's often a round-about crap that causes it. It's not that the legit companies are hiring sleezy companies, but that they have promotional programs that other companies "sign up" and join to be a partner. The partners are really unknown entities and there's not much in the way of checking. But then these partners start contributing and getting people signed up. It's impossible for the legit companies (if you can really call any major conglomerate a legit company) to know whether those signups were obtained through spammers or what have you. So maybe it's these promotional networks that need to be banned. Problem is, almost all of the advertising and lead generation in the world happens through networks like that. Some of it is legit, some is not. So I do think it's correct to go after robocalling and make it stop. Now one thing I don't agree on is the WAY in which we're doing it via tracing or whatever. Instead if I was the FCC I would simply require, starting today, that all calls made in the US must be signed to be completed. I would rather have no phone calls in the US for a month than let this shit go on indefinitely. Something like that would force all carriers to immediately figure out a way to get every phone call signed. Then once we have calls signed, the spammers would lose their right to call pretty much after a few calls are made and reported. I think the current strategy is pretty hand-wavy and doesn't have any end in sight.
  - chris_st 6y ago
    > Problem is, almost all of the advertising and lead generation in the world happens through networks like that. Some of it is legit, some is not. At the risk of being draconian, okay, fine, you don't know who "ultimately" signed Fred up for your service, but HEY, Fred was signed up illegally, so it's still your fault. I'd like to think that suddenly, companies would get a LOT more careful about who they let sign up to be partners, if they're now at risk. Don't we already do this kind of things with banks, in other words KYC ("Know Your Customer")? A long term business relationship is worth a bit of hassle.
mullen 6y ago
Just get rid of spoofing phone numbers and this problem goes away. Make every caller reveal their phone number of origin and give consumers the ability to easily block anonymous calls and overseas calls and the ability of scammers to contact people via phone goes away. Phone companies don't want to do this because implementing the no-spoofing infrastructure requires money and they also make a lot of money off scammers business lines. The telephone infrastructure is critical to a nation and anyone abusing it should not be tolerated, especially scammers.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  The infrastructure is there[1]. The theory is that they don't want to kick off their biggest customers that get billed for the oversized use of the phone system. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identificatio...
- toast0 6y ago
  Getting rid of spoofing is kind of tricky, because you then need a way to know which numbers are authorized to be used by which accounts, especially when there can be several intermediate carriers in the connection process. A standardized reporting code (like *69 for call back, but instead to report abuse) combined with detailed enough call records to enable that would be helpful. Maybe a carrier can charge other carriers more it at least x% of calls are flagged as abuse. And a carrier may charge a customer more if at least y% percent of calls are flagged as abuse. And a customer is referred to FCC for enforcement action after N calls are flagged in 30 days or if z% of calls are flagged. Perhaps a requirement for record keeping of flagged calls, such that the recipient can sue for statuatory damages, and the carriers involved would be liable if they can't provide records. If they provide the records, liability moves to the origin, but the end customer may seek to quash the suboena without revealing their identity in narrow circumstances where anonymous calls serve the public interest and the abuse process is being used to deanonymize rather than stop abuse.
  - burnte 6y ago
    > A standardized reporting code (like 69 for call back, but instead to report abuse) We have this. 57 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code
lbhdc 6y ago
https://scammerblaster.com/ https://scammerblaster.com/
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  > We are not “internet vigilantes” Except they are. They’re using methods outside law enforcement to deal with problems. Isn’t that the definition of a vigilante? Besides that, are what they are doing even legal with regards to CFAA? I can’t imagine a prosecutor going after them, but that doesn’t make it legal.
- nyhc99 6y ago
  that site looks suspiciously like a scam!
  - nikau 6y ago
    Thats why I use https://scammerblasterblaster.com/ https://scammerblasterblaster.com/
- dqv 6y ago
  Uh they use robocalls to advertise this "service". It's annoying as hell. I guess the tropical sounding music they play with the voice over is kind of catchy? But they're ass hole robocallers just like the scammers they're allegedly blasting.
alberth 6y ago
Hopefully this cuts down on the amount of robocalls that companies like Twilio enable spammers to do.
JoshTko 6y ago
I just use the "Silence unknown callers" feature in iOS - It's a godsend. I also noticed after a few months that I actually have a lot fewer unknown calls now. (You can look to see missed calls)
- cstejerean 6y ago
  It’s gone the other way too though, where I miss a call I’m expecting while literally holding the phone waiting for it because it doesn’t recognize the number. For example I was dropping the dog off at the vet and I was in the parking lot waiting for our turn (lobby closed for social distancing). Their call to me was silenced even though I had called the same number minutes earlier to check in. So now I’ve moved to aggressively adding numbers to my contacts for any business I interact with (auto dealership, vet, pet groomer, etc). Which isn’t terrible but it feels like this could get smarter at some point.
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    I have a voicemail greeting that says outright "due to increased telemarking and spam calls, this number goes to directly voicemail. Please leave a short message if you can and I will call you right back."
    - eppp 6y ago
      This is very annoying when I am trying to call someone back that requested me to call them. You specifically asked me to call and now I have to talk to a robot first.
      - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
        It's less annoying that getting dozens of spam calls each day. If you will be calling the person frequently, just have them add you as a contact. No big deal. Not answering unknown numbers not only saves you the trouble of getting them but also results in fewer robocalls over time since you do not answer.
  - 6y ago
zaroth 6y ago
I’m not as concerned about Robocalls as I used to be, because I just don’t answer the phone anymore. The new issue I have is spam and sexual text messages, particularly when they are sent to my kids. Both my kids have phones to interface with their CGMs (glucose monitors) so that I can track their numbers remotely. Both my kids get adult text spam from random invalid numbers about once a day. They are 8 and 11. I called AT&T and said I want to block all text messages, I just want data and voice (and iMessage). I spent over an hour on the phone, they weren’t able to do it.
- inetknght 6y ago
  > I spent over an hour on the phone, they weren’t able to do it. They are. They just refuse to.
  - edflsafoiewq 6y ago
    Why?
- quesera 6y ago
  Can you add yourself/spouse to the addressbook, and then block messages from unknown senders?
- slumdev 6y ago
  On Android you could deny SMS access to Google Play Services and/or the Messaging app. I'm not suggesting that you switch, only that something similar might exist on iOS.
- throwaway314158 6y ago
  If you go to Settings > Messages, you can filter out messages from unknown senders. However, this only prevents the notifications from showing up; they'll still be in the app under the "Unknown senders" tab. FWIW, T-Mobile does allow you to block all SMS and MMS.
  - diebeforei485 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CamelCaseName 6y ago
This is 10 or 20 years too late and still too limited in scope. Allowing up to three calls per 30 days? Just set up 10 companies and hit everyone, everyday, forever. I don't understand why digital protections are so limited. The incentive for those in "untouchable jurisdictions" to commit cybercrimes skews entirely towards high reward, low/no risk. I honestly just wish I could cut off all phone calls originating from out of country. If this could be technologically enforced, I think it would dramatically lower scam calls.
- xen2xen1 6y ago
  Most of the scam calls I used to answer were identifiable local numbers. Easy to get VOIP numbers in bulk or put up a literal farm of SIM cards in cheap phones.
moomin 6y ago
The FCC shouldn’t even need to tell them to do this. The utter signal pollution this has caused has practically destroyed their business. People don’t even answer the phone in their own home.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > People don’t even answer the phone in their own home. As long as people keep paying the phone bills, this doesn't strike me as something that is destroying the business of phone companies.
rs23296008n1 6y ago
Make it illegal for calls originating from international origins to lack caller identification. Also likely unenforceable, but again, it sets the basis. Since I sense that caller ID is completely spoofable for calls from international networks, now add some technical salt: Require domestic phone companies at the edges to add some kind of "network of origin" prefix to caller IDs from international origins. This is prepended to what is provided by the outside network, even if they provided "no caller ID" or "unknown caller". Make it that domestic calls don't have this prefix and it is illegal to insert anything that resembles one. This way I can see incoming calls from network Xyzabc for the junk they are. And networks will each get a reputation from consumers. I can dream.
paulsutter 6y ago
How much do we actually need the phone network? I exchange occasional non-iMessage SMS or place a call to order a pizza. Rare inbound calls always go straight to voicemail, which I would strongly prefer to read over listen. Why can't we get data-only phones with no phone number? Fastest way to solve problems with SS7 is to disconnect from the phone network except through a gateway.
nikau 6y ago
Thankfully where I live robocalls only target landlines and rarely cell phones. My telco moved to voip, and since then I have asterisk pbx software running that only makes the phone ring if the call is from a whitelist of numbers, otherwise it makes it look like the phone is ringing for a while and then goes straight to voice mail. This works well as 99% of the robo dialers detect the voice mail and don't leave a message. If I was getting lots of voicemails I would probably setup IVR prompts to stifle them.

I've thought for years that if there were, say, a $20 fine for each robocall, with $10 going to the reporting consumer and $10 going to the phone company, robocalls would very soon be a thing of the past.

dahart 6y ago
> $10 going to the phone company That seems like a bad idea. The phone company needs to lose money when they allow robocalls, to finally motivate them to actually start authenticating business callers and actually start respecting the national do not call registry. The carriers are the only group with the ability to prevent robocalls, and they’ve been allowing them precisely because they’re getting money from the whole arrangement by allowing them. * Edit: the FCC order sounds like a good thing as a long overdue very first step, however this part sounds hilariously out of date to me: “Non-commercial, commercial and nonprofit organizations can now only make up to three calls per residential number within 30 days and are required to allow recipients to opt out.” I could be wrong, but I’ve had a lot of spam calls in the last few years, and never have I gotten multiple calls from the same number in a month. They are spoofing and setting up new entities on the fly. Limiting the number of calls sounds like something a politician would do who doesn’t understand what’s already going on (or... maybe a sly move that makes the FCC appear pro-consumer while not actually threatening the business of carriers in any way...). Consumer-visible and actionable call authentication is what we need, not limits on the amount of spam. Limiting each individual company to three spams from my point of view means I experience millions of spams. In fact establishing a limit of an okay number of spams just might increase the amount of spam calls I get...
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  I think it should work where each robocall costs $5. But the carrier that delivers it is insuring against the person it's delivered to. So for example. I get a robo-call, I report it and my carrier pays me $5. They then can collect that $5 from the carrier that delivered that call to them, who can collect it from the carrier that routed it to them who can collect it from the end user. And if at some point you can't collect you're stuck paying the $5.
  - dahart 6y ago
    That could work, though I’d suggest that requiring the recipient to have to report it doesn’t go far enough, especially when they registered on the do not call list a damn decade ago! How about if a robocall is delivered to someone on the do not call list, every carrier in the whole chain is automatically fined?
    - gpm 6y ago
      Combining with the chaining idea: The first carrier is fined $10 going to the end user, they can go after the second carrier who is fined $10, half going to the end user (now at +$15) and half going to the first carrier (now at -$5), they can go after a third carrier who is fined $10, half going to the end user (now at $20), half going to the second carrier (now at $-5) and so on.
- thewebcount 6y ago
  > I could be wrong, but I’ve had a lot of spam calls in the last few years, and never have I gotten multiple calls from the same number in a month. But it doesn't say "from the same number." It says the same entity, which should hold regardless of the number. That said, whoever had my phone number before me (over 3 years ago) owed a lot of people money. I get 3-5 calls per day from debt collectors looking for her. I've never answered any of the calls, and they've rarely left any messages, but the caller ID often says, "such and such credit service", so it's pretty clear what's going on. The same company calls literally every day several times per day. It would be great if they could only call 3x per month. One actually does use the same number every time, so I eventually blocked their number. Another one uses a different number every time, but the callerID is always of the form "V12345678" where the number is just some incrementing integer, so it's obviously the same people.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
If you can trace it to the actual robocaller. (As opposed to, say, a front corporation with no assets.)
- toast0 6y ago
  The terminating carrier pays the call recipient $10, and charges the originating carrier $20. As a recipient, I don't care if the caller paid, I got $10 from my carrier. As a terminating carrier, I don't care if the caller paid, I got paid from the originating carrier. As the originating carrier, I should damn well have a billing relationship with the caller, and they're not getting services if I'm not paid. I'll probably charge a collection fee for each charge I bill the caller, so works for me too. Require a deposit to continue service when calling patterns look robotic. (intermediate carriers can fill in between, they won't make money from the robofees, but will be incentivised to properly pass them through)
jjtheblunt 6y ago
similarly, if junk physical mail had to pay proper postage, i imagine it would vanish.
olliej 6y ago
Who is paying this money? Seriously - the problem is that no one gets the originator, the originator is likely a shell company with "no assets". Charge the phone company $5/robocall, require them to pay that $1 to the consumer in cash, not as a "credit" on their phone bill, and require a $1/incorrectly-blocked-call and suddenly I suspect the carriers will know where the robocalls are coming from.

HomeDeLaPot 6y ago

My grandma just lost her best friend to scammers. Through lies, constant harassing phone calls, and intimidation, they got him to "invest" his life's savings. They even sent locksmith to change the locks on his house, and they called his new phone number the day after he changed to it. By the end he was so stressed out he couldn't sleep and was having all kinds of physical issues. Died just a few days ago. We can't start catching/blocking scammers and robocallers soon enough. The telcos can get us in touch with people from other continents, but they can't spare the time to stop or trace the calls? Their "solution" for my grandma's friend was to tell him not to have a phone for a few weeks. LOL.

dylan604 6y ago
It's actually not a bad idea. I went without a "valid" phone number since first of June this year. Had to tighten the belt for a bit. Starting using a VoIP number. Recently got a new SIM for my phone, but have not provided the number to anyone. Still passing out the VoIP number. Funny thing is, nobody robo calls the VoIP number.
- szhu 6y ago
  First, the technical know-how to use a VoIP number is not accessible to everyone. Maybe it's accessible to a good portion of people in the Bay Area because almost everyone knows someone who works in tech, but there's a lot more people out there. And second, if enough senior citizens were on VoIP numbers, I bet that's exactly where scammers would target next. The solution you're suggesting isn't so much to switch to a product that's inherently better, but to switch to a product that only people who don't fall victim to scams are using.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Actually, I wasn't meaning for it as a suggestion for seniors. I was just saying that it's not that far of a wild notion to wait to get a new number. Growing up, my family played the get a new unlisted number game, but it did not work until going without for an extended time. That was for a landline, so I skiped that story for one with a more modern version. There is something to the waiting for a period of time before just getting a new number. The VoIP story was more of a seed planting for anyone else that might be reading and interested. Senior or milenial, doesn't really matter to me who it might be that might want to to give it a shot. Plus, seniors tend to have family members that could help them set something like this up. Don't write those seniors off so lightly

chris_st 6y ago

The thing that puzzles me is why is the goal to stop the robocaller, and punish them, and not the punish the company that hires them? Okay, we can't find the scammer easily, but they're advertising a service, and we CAN find that service company! If the car warranty company that keeps calling me is in the US, aren't they liable for contracting for an illegal service? If they're out of the US, can't we impose some block on all payments from the US to them?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rhacker 6y ago
It's often a round-about crap that causes it. It's not that the legit companies are hiring sleezy companies, but that they have promotional programs that other companies "sign up" and join to be a partner. The partners are really unknown entities and there's not much in the way of checking. But then these partners start contributing and getting people signed up. It's impossible for the legit companies (if you can really call any major conglomerate a legit company) to know whether those signups were obtained through spammers or what have you. So maybe it's these promotional networks that need to be banned. Problem is, almost all of the advertising and lead generation in the world happens through networks like that. Some of it is legit, some is not. So I do think it's correct to go after robocalling and make it stop. Now one thing I don't agree on is the WAY in which we're doing it via tracing or whatever. Instead if I was the FCC I would simply require, starting today, that all calls made in the US must be signed to be completed. I would rather have no phone calls in the US for a month than let this shit go on indefinitely. Something like that would force all carriers to immediately figure out a way to get every phone call signed. Then once we have calls signed, the spammers would lose their right to call pretty much after a few calls are made and reported. I think the current strategy is pretty hand-wavy and doesn't have any end in sight.
- chris_st 6y ago
  > Problem is, almost all of the advertising and lead generation in the world happens through networks like that. Some of it is legit, some is not. At the risk of being draconian, okay, fine, you don't know who "ultimately" signed Fred up for your service, but HEY, Fred was signed up illegally, so it's still your fault. I'd like to think that suddenly, companies would get a LOT more careful about who they let sign up to be partners, if they're now at risk. Don't we already do this kind of things with banks, in other words KYC ("Know Your Customer")? A long term business relationship is worth a bit of hassle.

mullen 6y ago

Just get rid of spoofing phone numbers and this problem goes away. Make every caller reveal their phone number of origin and give consumers the ability to easily block anonymous calls and overseas calls and the ability of scammers to contact people via phone goes away. Phone companies don't want to do this because implementing the no-spoofing infrastructure requires money and they also make a lot of money off scammers business lines. The telephone infrastructure is critical to a nation and anyone abusing it should not be tolerated, especially scammers.

jasonjayr 6y ago
The infrastructure is there[1]. The theory is that they don't want to kick off their biggest customers that get billed for the oversized use of the phone system. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identificatio...
toast0 6y ago
Getting rid of spoofing is kind of tricky, because you then need a way to know which numbers are authorized to be used by which accounts, especially when there can be several intermediate carriers in the connection process. A standardized reporting code (like *69 for call back, but instead to report abuse) combined with detailed enough call records to enable that would be helpful. Maybe a carrier can charge other carriers more it at least x% of calls are flagged as abuse. And a carrier may charge a customer more if at least y% percent of calls are flagged as abuse. And a customer is referred to FCC for enforcement action after N calls are flagged in 30 days or if z% of calls are flagged. Perhaps a requirement for record keeping of flagged calls, such that the recipient can sue for statuatory damages, and the carriers involved would be liable if they can't provide records. If they provide the records, liability moves to the origin, but the end customer may seek to quash the suboena without revealing their identity in narrow circumstances where anonymous calls serve the public interest and the abuse process is being used to deanonymize rather than stop abuse.
- burnte 6y ago
  > A standardized reporting code (like 69 for call back, but instead to report abuse) We have this. 57 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code

lbhdc 6y ago

https://scammerblaster.com/ https://scammerblaster.com/

colejohnson66 6y ago
> We are not “internet vigilantes” Except they are. They’re using methods outside law enforcement to deal with problems. Isn’t that the definition of a vigilante? Besides that, are what they are doing even legal with regards to CFAA? I can’t imagine a prosecutor going after them, but that doesn’t make it legal.
nyhc99 6y ago
that site looks suspiciously like a scam!
- nikau 6y ago
  Thats why I use https://scammerblasterblaster.com/ https://scammerblasterblaster.com/
dqv 6y ago
Uh they use robocalls to advertise this "service". It's annoying as hell. I guess the tropical sounding music they play with the voice over is kind of catchy? But they're ass hole robocallers just like the scammers they're allegedly blasting.

alberth 6y ago

Hopefully this cuts down on the amount of robocalls that companies like Twilio enable spammers to do.

JoshTko 6y ago

I just use the "Silence unknown callers" feature in iOS - It's a godsend. I also noticed after a few months that I actually have a lot fewer unknown calls now. (You can look to see missed calls)

cstejerean 6y ago
It’s gone the other way too though, where I miss a call I’m expecting while literally holding the phone waiting for it because it doesn’t recognize the number. For example I was dropping the dog off at the vet and I was in the parking lot waiting for our turn (lobby closed for social distancing). Their call to me was silenced even though I had called the same number minutes earlier to check in. So now I’ve moved to aggressively adding numbers to my contacts for any business I interact with (auto dealership, vet, pet groomer, etc). Which isn’t terrible but it feels like this could get smarter at some point.
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  I have a voicemail greeting that says outright "due to increased telemarking and spam calls, this number goes to directly voicemail. Please leave a short message if you can and I will call you right back."
  - eppp 6y ago
    This is very annoying when I am trying to call someone back that requested me to call them. You specifically asked me to call and now I have to talk to a robot first.
    - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
      It's less annoying that getting dozens of spam calls each day. If you will be calling the person frequently, just have them add you as a contact. No big deal. Not answering unknown numbers not only saves you the trouble of getting them but also results in fewer robocalls over time since you do not answer.
- 6y ago

zaroth 6y ago

I’m not as concerned about Robocalls as I used to be, because I just don’t answer the phone anymore. The new issue I have is spam and sexual text messages, particularly when they are sent to my kids. Both my kids have phones to interface with their CGMs (glucose monitors) so that I can track their numbers remotely. Both my kids get adult text spam from random invalid numbers about once a day. They are 8 and 11. I called AT&T and said I want to block all text messages, I just want data and voice (and iMessage). I spent over an hour on the phone, they weren’t able to do it.

inetknght 6y ago
> I spent over an hour on the phone, they weren’t able to do it. They are. They just refuse to.
- edflsafoiewq 6y ago
  Why?
quesera 6y ago
Can you add yourself/spouse to the addressbook, and then block messages from unknown senders?
slumdev 6y ago
On Android you could deny SMS access to Google Play Services and/or the Messaging app. I'm not suggesting that you switch, only that something similar might exist on iOS.
throwaway314158 6y ago
If you go to Settings > Messages, you can filter out messages from unknown senders. However, this only prevents the notifications from showing up; they'll still be in the app under the "Unknown senders" tab. FWIW, T-Mobile does allow you to block all SMS and MMS.
- diebeforei485 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

CamelCaseName 6y ago

This is 10 or 20 years too late and still too limited in scope. Allowing up to three calls per 30 days? Just set up 10 companies and hit everyone, everyday, forever. I don't understand why digital protections are so limited. The incentive for those in "untouchable jurisdictions" to commit cybercrimes skews entirely towards high reward, low/no risk. I honestly just wish I could cut off all phone calls originating from out of country. If this could be technologically enforced, I think it would dramatically lower scam calls.

xen2xen1 6y ago
Most of the scam calls I used to answer were identifiable local numbers. Easy to get VOIP numbers in bulk or put up a literal farm of SIM cards in cheap phones.

moomin 6y ago

The FCC shouldn’t even need to tell them to do this. The utter signal pollution this has caused has practically destroyed their business. People don’t even answer the phone in their own home.

Supermancho 6y ago
> People don’t even answer the phone in their own home. As long as people keep paying the phone bills, this doesn't strike me as something that is destroying the business of phone companies.

rs23296008n1 6y ago

Make it illegal for calls originating from international origins to lack caller identification. Also likely unenforceable, but again, it sets the basis. Since I sense that caller ID is completely spoofable for calls from international networks, now add some technical salt: Require domestic phone companies at the edges to add some kind of "network of origin" prefix to caller IDs from international origins. This is prepended to what is provided by the outside network, even if they provided "no caller ID" or "unknown caller". Make it that domestic calls don't have this prefix and it is illegal to insert anything that resembles one. This way I can see incoming calls from network Xyzabc for the junk they are. And networks will each get a reputation from consumers. I can dream.

paulsutter 6y ago

How much do we actually need the phone network? I exchange occasional non-iMessage SMS or place a call to order a pizza. Rare inbound calls always go straight to voicemail, which I would strongly prefer to read over listen. Why can't we get data-only phones with no phone number? Fastest way to solve problems with SS7 is to disconnect from the phone network except through a gateway.

nikau 6y ago

Thankfully where I live robocalls only target landlines and rarely cell phones. My telco moved to voip, and since then I have asterisk pbx software running that only makes the phone ring if the call is from a whitelist of numbers, otherwise it makes it look like the phone is ringing for a while and then goes straight to voice mail. This works well as 99% of the robo dialers detect the voice mail and don't leave a message. If I was getting lots of voicemails I would probably setup IVR prompts to stifle them.