5 ms·

Can't you just impose chained liability? If I get a robocall, my carrier owes me $100. They can then collect $100 from the peer they got it from, etc. This wi

Can't you just impose chained liability? If I get a robocall, my carrier owes me $100. They can then collect $100 from the peer they got it from, etc. This will cause carriers to only peer with good carriers, not fly-by-night VoIP clown shows.

tasty_freeze 5y ago
OK, let's say your plan is put into effect. I will set up a front company, and create thousands of phone customers that are hard to track back to me. Then I'll have my front company call all of my 1000 fake customers repeatedly. Those customers collect $100 each for every call from the phone carrier, and when the phone carrier tries to collect from the originator, poof, they don't exist anymore.
- supertrope 5y ago
  The carrier will soon require a security deposit or guarantor.
- cogman10 5y ago
  Better make sure your front company can't be traced back to yourself and those fake customers can't be traced back to you otherwise you've just committed wirefraud. Very likely, if this $100 fine came into play, the first change telcoms would implement is verifying every single line in and out to make sure this exact situation can't happen. Will be cool to need a passport and birth certificate to get a new phone number.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Have you tried to get a new mobile phone number without a passport or other such ID in the US? In many countries, it is impossible to get even a VoIP number without showing an ID, and in some (like Bulgaria) it should be a local ID.
    - lstodd 5y ago
      As long as you don't try the most obvious approach, that is just buying the sim straight from one of the official operators, the thing is quite simple. In Europe, esp eastern europe, like Bulgaria, there's a vast market of stolen phones, stolen or resold sims. You'll have to ditch them after several weeks of course. But it is not in any way impossible. I'd guess it's the same in Americas. It's been several years since I worked at an MVNO, so I can't say much about how do you get number capacity nowadays, but back then that was literally the least problem imaginable.

tasty_freeze 5y ago

OK, let's say your plan is put into effect. I will set up a front company, and create thousands of phone customers that are hard to track back to me. Then I'll have my front company call all of my 1000 fake customers repeatedly. Those customers collect $100 each for every call from the phone carrier, and when the phone carrier tries to collect from the originator, poof, they don't exist anymore.

supertrope 5y ago
The carrier will soon require a security deposit or guarantor.
cogman10 5y ago
Better make sure your front company can't be traced back to yourself and those fake customers can't be traced back to you otherwise you've just committed wirefraud. Very likely, if this $100 fine came into play, the first change telcoms would implement is verifying every single line in and out to make sure this exact situation can't happen. Will be cool to need a passport and birth certificate to get a new phone number.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Have you tried to get a new mobile phone number without a passport or other such ID in the US? In many countries, it is impossible to get even a VoIP number without showing an ID, and in some (like Bulgaria) it should be a local ID.
  - lstodd 5y ago
    As long as you don't try the most obvious approach, that is just buying the sim straight from one of the official operators, the thing is quite simple. In Europe, esp eastern europe, like Bulgaria, there's a vast market of stolen phones, stolen or resold sims. You'll have to ditch them after several weeks of course. But it is not in any way impossible. I'd guess it's the same in Americas. It's been several years since I worked at an MVNO, so I can't say much about how do you get number capacity nowadays, but back then that was literally the least problem imaginable.