6 ms·

Getting to the point where we’re going to need phone, email, and SMS to be deny all by default. Can’t reach me unless you’re information is already in my contac

by cwhiz 5y ago

Getting to the point where we’re going to need phone, email, and SMS to be deny all by default. Can’t reach me unless you’re information is already in my contacts.

mcculley 5y ago
I get a lot of value out of being reachable by people I do not yet know.
- gh123man 5y ago
  As do I. This is a difficult problem to solve especially as the signal to noise becomes worse as abuse becomes more common. Ive had to wildcard block my area code (since I don't live there anymore) which captures 95% of my daily spam calls - but people can still leave a message to break through my wall if it's truly urgent. I don't see how this could work with SMS. Even message requests on facebook/messenger have problems where you are unlikely to even see the request unless you check regularly.
- cwhiz 5y ago
  No one said it had to be by force.
  - mcculley 5y ago
    Maybe I misunderstood your use of the "we" in "we're".
- sethammons 5y ago
  I found a novel solution by accident to this. I moved to a new area but kept my old number. 99% of my spam calls are from my phone’s area code. If you are not a contact and a number comes up from that area code, it is spam. If it is my new area code, it is a person or business trying to reach me. You could likely get a far off area coded number.
  - derwiki 5y ago
    Yea ignoring unknown numbers from my home state is fairly effective at blocking spam calls.
  - acheron 5y ago
    Same (though "I moved to a new area" happened in 2004). At this point I've just blocked the entire old area code and neighboring ones, aside from existing contacts.
- panzagl 5y ago
  Found the guy who bought the extended warranty for his car
  - mcculley 5y ago
    No, I have never bought an extended warranty. However, I did today make good money on a business transaction because a stranger was able to reach me. I also had to delete some voicemails about extended warranties. This is a worthwhile tradeoff for me.
dalbasal 5y ago
Possibly, but we can't do that either. What we need is some balance of both worlds. OOH, we do actually need to be contactable. OTOH, being too contactable means spam. I doubt there's a perfect balance, but either extreme come with too many problems. Email has decent spam filtering, and I think that kind of cat-mouse system will persist. That said, there's "room" for more whitelisting.
- cwhiz 5y ago
  The “Hey” email service toes the line well for me. I’d prefer all of my communications were based on a similar idea.
- jerf 5y ago
  "I doubt there's a perfect balance, but either extreme come with too many problems." In principle, "pay me a small fee if you're not on my list, if I put you on my list now it's free" would work well (optionally refund someone who contacts you out of the blue that you approve of), but there's a lot of both engineering and social details between where we are now and such a system. It doesn't take much cost friction to deter mass spamming. I don't think much problem would be left behind from the handful of overconfident spammers who think that they can bust the odds and it's worth 25 cents a message or something.
  - shuntress 5y ago
    Sounds like a good idea on which to base an ISP startup. "Anyone not on your contact list will take $1 off your monthly bill for each phone call, SMS, or eMail they send to you (through our phone line & email servers)"
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    This is one of those ideas that appeals to economists and nerds, but rarely works out irl. Artificially or intentionally aligning interests tends to be a "genie, make me a sandwich^" problem. There are lots of places where "reversing the charges," seems good in theory... but it never happens. Anyway, linkedin have something like this. In practice, it feels like a better quality of spam, rather than a solution to spam. ^Poof. you are now a sandwich.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
My phone number (and some other details) were part of Nano Ledger's database that got stolen last year. So, some entrepreneurial scammer started calling me on a daily basis a few months ago. Really annoying. I'm well aware my phone number and email addresses are pretty much public information at this point. I actually put that on my web site even. But stuff like this makes me even less likely to answer unknown numbers. Hilariously, the scammer actually called me while I was giving a security briefing to our company about enabling 2FA. I put him on speaker and we had a good laugh while the guy insisted in broken English laced with expletives that he "had my money". A few months ago some criminals social engineered themselves past my bank's security as well. The first I learned about this was a funny conversation (by phone!) from an actual Deutsche Bank employee asking me if I recently changed my address and phone number and whether I opened ten new accounts. "eh no?!..." Basically their fraud detection system kicked in before these people did any damage. I made a point of not doing anything else than confirming information they already knew (like my old address, email address) and asked for an on site meeting to discuss things in more detail. I realized instantly I had no way of verifying anything I was being told on the phone and might very well be talking to a scammer. As it turns out this was for real and the person actually managed to find my "old phone number" in some archive. Otherwise all my contact information had already been changed by the scammers. Thankfully I answered that call. Apparently, this happened to several people. Basically, what happened was some persons just called the bank's help desk, asked them to reset my online banking access codes, and then somehow intercepted the pin codes (thanks Deutsche Post) before they reached me. The theory is that somehow the security of the distribution system was compromised. As far as I an tell, nobody broke into my building or mailbox. Then started they using them to change my address, etc. They got caught only when they created sub accounts and started transferring money.
- ricardobayes 5y ago
  So they really had your money then?
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    The phone scammer, no. Just some idiot trying to get me to do stuff I should not be doing. Given how he conducted himself on the phone, he probably does not have a great conversion rate. People that do this are not exactly criminal master minds. But I guess some people get bullied into handing over their private keys, which I assume is what he was after. He clearly had some setup that auto dials numbers. After this, he apparently removed me from that list. So, tip: annoy the hell out of them and waste their time as much as you can when this happens to you. Putting him no speaker got a few giggles out of the team. The criminals that got into my account got too greedy. The bank's fraud detection system kicked in and rolled back the transactions. But at that point they had complete control over my account. Very scary. If they had been more subtle, they could have likely stolen quite a bit. So, also not criminal master minds probably.
3pt14159 5y ago
It's a hard problem to crack. Some legitimate places need to be able to call you without you knowing them ahead of time. Say your sibling was mugged in Mexico and the local little police station let them borrow the landline to call the only number they still remember without having to check their contacts in their phone. Are you not going to pick up? There are a lot of these little edge-cases. Journalists, lawyers representing class action suits, government id expiring, and so on.
- duffyjp 5y ago
  My iPhone is set to "Silence Unknown Callers." It's the perfect compromise. If a call is legitimate they'll leave a voicemail and I just call them back.
  - macintux 5y ago
    I discovered recently that my Verizon phone service’s voicemail had been full for several months. I’m not sure how I was ever supposed to discover that, but I ignored what turned out to be an important phone call and got burnt because I assumed I’d get a voicemail.
- benlivengood 5y ago
  > Say your sibling was mugged in Mexico and the local little police station let them borrow the landline to call the only number they still remember without having to check their contacts in their phone. Are you not going to pick up? Just wait for the deepfaked voice call scammers. Their best bet is to work up the hierarchy; a tiny local police station knows how to get in touch with a bigger police station that can contact an embassy, etc. > There are a lot of these little edge-cases. Journalists, lawyers representing class action suits, government id expiring, and so on. All of these use-cases allow someone to spend the time to contact you via your preferred contact method, whatever that might be.
- coldpie 5y ago
  I'm in my 30s and I can't think of a single time I have ever received a phone call that I didn't expect. I get several spam calls every day. I would make the trade (and recently have, I block all unknown numbers now).
bitL 5y ago
I do that already. Prevented e.g. Hult MBA from pitching their exquisite high-end educational services...
baby 5y ago
I already don’t accept any calls. The robocall stuff in the US is out of control.

by cwhiz 5y ago

Getting to the point where we’re going to need phone, email, and SMS to be deny all by default. Can’t reach me unless you’re information is already in my contacts.

mcculley 5y ago

I get a lot of value out of being reachable by people I do not yet know.

gh123man 5y ago
As do I. This is a difficult problem to solve especially as the signal to noise becomes worse as abuse becomes more common. Ive had to wildcard block my area code (since I don't live there anymore) which captures 95% of my daily spam calls - but people can still leave a message to break through my wall if it's truly urgent. I don't see how this could work with SMS. Even message requests on facebook/messenger have problems where you are unlikely to even see the request unless you check regularly.
cwhiz 5y ago
No one said it had to be by force.
- mcculley 5y ago
  Maybe I misunderstood your use of the "we" in "we're".
sethammons 5y ago
I found a novel solution by accident to this. I moved to a new area but kept my old number. 99% of my spam calls are from my phone’s area code. If you are not a contact and a number comes up from that area code, it is spam. If it is my new area code, it is a person or business trying to reach me. You could likely get a far off area coded number.
- derwiki 5y ago
  Yea ignoring unknown numbers from my home state is fairly effective at blocking spam calls.
- acheron 5y ago
  Same (though "I moved to a new area" happened in 2004). At this point I've just blocked the entire old area code and neighboring ones, aside from existing contacts.
panzagl 5y ago
Found the guy who bought the extended warranty for his car
- mcculley 5y ago
  No, I have never bought an extended warranty. However, I did today make good money on a business transaction because a stranger was able to reach me. I also had to delete some voicemails about extended warranties. This is a worthwhile tradeoff for me.

dalbasal 5y ago

Possibly, but we can't do that either. What we need is some balance of both worlds. OOH, we do actually need to be contactable. OTOH, being too contactable means spam. I doubt there's a perfect balance, but either extreme come with too many problems. Email has decent spam filtering, and I think that kind of cat-mouse system will persist. That said, there's "room" for more whitelisting.

cwhiz 5y ago
The “Hey” email service toes the line well for me. I’d prefer all of my communications were based on a similar idea.
jerf 5y ago
"I doubt there's a perfect balance, but either extreme come with too many problems." In principle, "pay me a small fee if you're not on my list, if I put you on my list now it's free" would work well (optionally refund someone who contacts you out of the blue that you approve of), but there's a lot of both engineering and social details between where we are now and such a system. It doesn't take much cost friction to deter mass spamming. I don't think much problem would be left behind from the handful of overconfident spammers who think that they can bust the odds and it's worth 25 cents a message or something.
- shuntress 5y ago
  Sounds like a good idea on which to base an ISP startup. "Anyone not on your contact list will take $1 off your monthly bill for each phone call, SMS, or eMail they send to you (through our phone line & email servers)"
- dalbasal 5y ago
  This is one of those ideas that appeals to economists and nerds, but rarely works out irl. Artificially or intentionally aligning interests tends to be a "genie, make me a sandwich^" problem. There are lots of places where "reversing the charges," seems good in theory... but it never happens. Anyway, linkedin have something like this. In practice, it feels like a better quality of spam, rather than a solution to spam. ^Poof. you are now a sandwich.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

My phone number (and some other details) were part of Nano Ledger's database that got stolen last year. So, some entrepreneurial scammer started calling me on a daily basis a few months ago. Really annoying. I'm well aware my phone number and email addresses are pretty much public information at this point. I actually put that on my web site even. But stuff like this makes me even less likely to answer unknown numbers. Hilariously, the scammer actually called me while I was giving a security briefing to our company about enabling 2FA. I put him on speaker and we had a good laugh while the guy insisted in broken English laced with expletives that he "had my money". A few months ago some criminals social engineered themselves past my bank's security as well. The first I learned about this was a funny conversation (by phone!) from an actual Deutsche Bank employee asking me if I recently changed my address and phone number and whether I opened ten new accounts. "eh no?!..." Basically their fraud detection system kicked in before these people did any damage. I made a point of not doing anything else than confirming information they already knew (like my old address, email address) and asked for an on site meeting to discuss things in more detail. I realized instantly I had no way of verifying anything I was being told on the phone and might very well be talking to a scammer. As it turns out this was for real and the person actually managed to find my "old phone number" in some archive. Otherwise all my contact information had already been changed by the scammers. Thankfully I answered that call. Apparently, this happened to several people. Basically, what happened was some persons just called the bank's help desk, asked them to reset my online banking access codes, and then somehow intercepted the pin codes (thanks Deutsche Post) before they reached me. The theory is that somehow the security of the distribution system was compromised. As far as I an tell, nobody broke into my building or mailbox. Then started they using them to change my address, etc. They got caught only when they created sub accounts and started transferring money.

ricardobayes 5y ago
So they really had your money then?
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  The phone scammer, no. Just some idiot trying to get me to do stuff I should not be doing. Given how he conducted himself on the phone, he probably does not have a great conversion rate. People that do this are not exactly criminal master minds. But I guess some people get bullied into handing over their private keys, which I assume is what he was after. He clearly had some setup that auto dials numbers. After this, he apparently removed me from that list. So, tip: annoy the hell out of them and waste their time as much as you can when this happens to you. Putting him no speaker got a few giggles out of the team. The criminals that got into my account got too greedy. The bank's fraud detection system kicked in and rolled back the transactions. But at that point they had complete control over my account. Very scary. If they had been more subtle, they could have likely stolen quite a bit. So, also not criminal master minds probably.

3pt14159 5y ago

It's a hard problem to crack. Some legitimate places need to be able to call you without you knowing them ahead of time. Say your sibling was mugged in Mexico and the local little police station let them borrow the landline to call the only number they still remember without having to check their contacts in their phone. Are you not going to pick up? There are a lot of these little edge-cases. Journalists, lawyers representing class action suits, government id expiring, and so on.

duffyjp 5y ago
My iPhone is set to "Silence Unknown Callers." It's the perfect compromise. If a call is legitimate they'll leave a voicemail and I just call them back.
- macintux 5y ago
  I discovered recently that my Verizon phone service’s voicemail had been full for several months. I’m not sure how I was ever supposed to discover that, but I ignored what turned out to be an important phone call and got burnt because I assumed I’d get a voicemail.
benlivengood 5y ago
> Say your sibling was mugged in Mexico and the local little police station let them borrow the landline to call the only number they still remember without having to check their contacts in their phone. Are you not going to pick up? Just wait for the deepfaked voice call scammers. Their best bet is to work up the hierarchy; a tiny local police station knows how to get in touch with a bigger police station that can contact an embassy, etc. > There are a lot of these little edge-cases. Journalists, lawyers representing class action suits, government id expiring, and so on. All of these use-cases allow someone to spend the time to contact you via your preferred contact method, whatever that might be.
coldpie 5y ago
I'm in my 30s and I can't think of a single time I have ever received a phone call that I didn't expect. I get several spam calls every day. I would make the trade (and recently have, I block all unknown numbers now).

bitL 5y ago

I do that already. Prevented e.g. Hult MBA from pitching their exquisite high-end educational services...

baby 5y ago

I already don’t accept any calls. The robocall stuff in the US is out of control.