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Spam Callers must be identified and banned (preferably) by a global task force that is funded both by the cellular service providers and the governments. This

Spam Callers must be identified and banned (preferably) by a global task force that is funded both by the cellular service providers and the governments. This is a global problem and no single country or company can be expected to fix it on their own.

petee 5y ago
Or neighbors need to agree on policing, for example any company/country that lets 10% of its phone traffic be spams just gets disconnected from the network flat out. Want your service back? Fix your house first. I'd be shocked if most of the US's spam doesn't come from within. I'm not against attempting a global body to regulate, but I doubt it would work. We can't even get internet providers to ensure their traffic isn't spoofed, and that's just firewall rules. Edit: maybe not shocked, but personally the only out of country voices I hear now are when I call GoogleFi support.
- mojuba 5y ago
  The question is, are phone operators even interested in doing this? Marking robocalls as such - sure, but blocking altogether - I don't think so. Something interesting happened I think a few years ago, when a hosting company in the US that turned out to be the major hoster for spammers went down for technical reasons and the world went spam free (by 90%) for a couple of days. You'd think it was obvious what to do... but nope, once the hoster was back everything was back to normal like nothing happened.
  - petee 5y ago
    I agree, I don't think they have any incentive to, and it would take strong regulation to force them. We would also have to stop pretending that calls are some 'divine message' that can't be interfered with, and be morally ok with cutting off an entire country if they won't curb spam.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      It seems easy to me, pass a law that says if a telecom can't trace the source of a call to where it entered their network, they are legally liable for the content of the call.
- pavel_lishin 5y ago
  In my limited experience as an American, most of the callers sound like they have American accents to me; maybe 10% that actually get through sound like they're from South Asia, which is what I used to associate with spam. I also suspect that a lot of spam calls are coming from within the prison system - not prisoners trying to run scams off payphones, but actually working from a phone bank at a prison for a nickel an hour. It's the only thing I can think of that explains their dogmatic adherence to the script in front of them. Free scammers from overseas will start insulting you once you're onto their scam; free scammers from the U.S. will typically just hang up and try again; but if you're a prison worker, the punishment for going off script is much worse than just losing your job. Wish I could prove or disprove my theory.
  - mwint 5y ago
    To be clear, your theory is that these calls are coming from operations run by American prisons?
    - pavel_lishin 5y ago
      Yes. Not all of them, but enough that I don't think messing with them is morally justifiable.
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    I answer and talk to the scammer every time. I ask them why they do this for a living and generally try to make it psychologically hurt for the scammer. I've done this more than 50 times at least. The vast majority have Indian or Pakistani accents. A small percentage have south American accents. None have had American accents.
    - petee 5y ago
      I'm curious if they have ever divulged their actual location to you? Obviously with a big grain of salt.
      - 5y ago
the-dude 5y ago
AFAIK it is hardly a problem in The Netherlands. I can't imagine it is totally different for our direct neighbours ( other EU countries ).
- RamblingCTO 5y ago
  In Germany it is a problem, but more subtle. We have things like "Münzkontor", things like "Enkeltrick" which target old people with their scams.
- mtmail 5y ago
  In Germany it's a department of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Network_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Network_Agency who deal with complaints. They can switch off a phone number and give 300.000 Euro fines against companies. Year 2020: 40k complaints about 18k phone numbers (12% from outside Germany) for predictive dialing. 155k complaints about phone spam (company trying to sell you something). 1.3 million Euros in fines. https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwerden/Beschwerde_Aerger/start.html https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwer... I received one spam call in 2020.
  - LammyL 5y ago
    Do you think government regulation is the reason you didn’t get scam calls? Or is it more likely that the Indian and Pakistani scammers can’t speak German and therefor don’t target Germany?
thrower123 5y ago
If you were to do this, you would block millions of valid phone numbers. The "we've been trying to reach you about your vehicle's extended warranty" spammers spoof numbers in your local area code, and if you call back, you get extremely confused elderly people and small businesses.
- petee 5y ago
  The block would be at the source, not the spoofed number. The calls originate from somewhere, and that can be identified. But the current system has people blocking those spoofed numbers, so its effectively doing that now. Google phones give you a fast button to just block the number, despite knowing its likely spoofed.
- lolinder 5y ago
  I don't think they're proposing blocking numbers, I think they're proposing tracing the actual origin of the calls and blocking that. The number that shows up on caller ID is completely meaningless in the face of bad actors.
Kye 5y ago
It works for the internet, more or less, and it runs over the same lines--and often the same protocols!--as phone calls.
gonehome 5y ago
Apples iOS contact whitelist (silence unknown callers) fixes this. I’d request two features. - Some API that allows apps to get through (like door dash) - Ability to disable for a brief period (30min? A day?) when expecting a call from an unknown number. This is a far better solution than the blacklists that hardly work.
wombatpm 5y ago
I'd be happy if I could just *SPAM a number immediately after receiving it and let the phone company track them down. I worry about blocking numbers since spammers have started spoofing valid numbers of real people.

petee 5y ago

Or neighbors need to agree on policing, for example any company/country that lets 10% of its phone traffic be spams just gets disconnected from the network flat out. Want your service back? Fix your house first. I'd be shocked if most of the US's spam doesn't come from within. I'm not against attempting a global body to regulate, but I doubt it would work. We can't even get internet providers to ensure their traffic isn't spoofed, and that's just firewall rules. Edit: maybe not shocked, but personally the only out of country voices I hear now are when I call GoogleFi support.

mojuba 5y ago
The question is, are phone operators even interested in doing this? Marking robocalls as such - sure, but blocking altogether - I don't think so. Something interesting happened I think a few years ago, when a hosting company in the US that turned out to be the major hoster for spammers went down for technical reasons and the world went spam free (by 90%) for a couple of days. You'd think it was obvious what to do... but nope, once the hoster was back everything was back to normal like nothing happened.
- petee 5y ago
  I agree, I don't think they have any incentive to, and it would take strong regulation to force them. We would also have to stop pretending that calls are some 'divine message' that can't be interfered with, and be morally ok with cutting off an entire country if they won't curb spam.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    It seems easy to me, pass a law that says if a telecom can't trace the source of a call to where it entered their network, they are legally liable for the content of the call.
pavel_lishin 5y ago
In my limited experience as an American, most of the callers sound like they have American accents to me; maybe 10% that actually get through sound like they're from South Asia, which is what I used to associate with spam. I also suspect that a lot of spam calls are coming from within the prison system - not prisoners trying to run scams off payphones, but actually working from a phone bank at a prison for a nickel an hour. It's the only thing I can think of that explains their dogmatic adherence to the script in front of them. Free scammers from overseas will start insulting you once you're onto their scam; free scammers from the U.S. will typically just hang up and try again; but if you're a prison worker, the punishment for going off script is much worse than just losing your job. Wish I could prove or disprove my theory.
- mwint 5y ago
  To be clear, your theory is that these calls are coming from operations run by American prisons?
  - pavel_lishin 5y ago
    Yes. Not all of them, but enough that I don't think messing with them is morally justifiable.
- iratewizard 5y ago
  I answer and talk to the scammer every time. I ask them why they do this for a living and generally try to make it psychologically hurt for the scammer. I've done this more than 50 times at least. The vast majority have Indian or Pakistani accents. A small percentage have south American accents. None have had American accents.
  - petee 5y ago
    I'm curious if they have ever divulged their actual location to you? Obviously with a big grain of salt.
    - 5y ago

the-dude 5y ago

AFAIK it is hardly a problem in The Netherlands. I can't imagine it is totally different for our direct neighbours ( other EU countries ).

RamblingCTO 5y ago
In Germany it is a problem, but more subtle. We have things like "Münzkontor", things like "Enkeltrick" which target old people with their scams.
mtmail 5y ago
In Germany it's a department of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Network_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Network_Agency who deal with complaints. They can switch off a phone number and give 300.000 Euro fines against companies. Year 2020: 40k complaints about 18k phone numbers (12% from outside Germany) for predictive dialing. 155k complaints about phone spam (company trying to sell you something). 1.3 million Euros in fines. https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwerden/Beschwerde_Aerger/start.html https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwer... I received one spam call in 2020.
- LammyL 5y ago
  Do you think government regulation is the reason you didn’t get scam calls? Or is it more likely that the Indian and Pakistani scammers can’t speak German and therefor don’t target Germany?

thrower123 5y ago

If you were to do this, you would block millions of valid phone numbers. The "we've been trying to reach you about your vehicle's extended warranty" spammers spoof numbers in your local area code, and if you call back, you get extremely confused elderly people and small businesses.

petee 5y ago
The block would be at the source, not the spoofed number. The calls originate from somewhere, and that can be identified. But the current system has people blocking those spoofed numbers, so its effectively doing that now. Google phones give you a fast button to just block the number, despite knowing its likely spoofed.
lolinder 5y ago
I don't think they're proposing blocking numbers, I think they're proposing tracing the actual origin of the calls and blocking that. The number that shows up on caller ID is completely meaningless in the face of bad actors.

Kye 5y ago

It works for the internet, more or less, and it runs over the same lines--and often the same protocols!--as phone calls.

gonehome 5y ago

Apples iOS contact whitelist (silence unknown callers) fixes this. I’d request two features. - Some API that allows apps to get through (like door dash) - Ability to disable for a brief period (30min? A day?) when expecting a call from an unknown number. This is a far better solution than the blacklists that hardly work.

wombatpm 5y ago

I'd be happy if I could just *SPAM a number immediately after receiving it and let the phone company track them down. I worry about blocking numbers since spammers have started spoofing valid numbers of real people.