4 ms·

It's absolutely insane that they are so ineffective. Major phone networks should be held responsible. I've been getting texts like crazy from spammer tries to g

It's absolutely insane that they are so ineffective. Major phone networks should be held responsible. I've been getting texts like crazy from spammer tries to get me to click their links. The messages are 100% identical and would be trivial to block.

rafale 4y ago
The fact they are identical making it trivial today only.
Night_Thastus 4y ago
From other areas where spam is prevalent, I think it's an arms race issue. Sure, right now, that spam that's identical every time would be easy to detect and block. But if it's blocked, they start adding variation. Block that too and they get more and more creative. Every time a way to block the spam is found, the spammers just get more creative with getting around it. It's an arms race, and is essentially un-beatable because the spammers outnumber those trying to stop them by a magnitude or two.
- Drakim 4y ago
  I just have a hard time believing that's really what's gonna happen. I'm a 34 year old man living in a western country and I have not gotten one robot spam call nor spam text message in my life. I've gotten 5 fake Microsoft support calls, but always from a real human pretending to work for Microsoft.
- pradn 4y ago
  Yes, but we've gotten quite good at blocking email spam. So much so that it's basically a solved problem for regular users using GMail or Outlook. There's no reason we can't achieve the same with text and phone call blocking. My iPhone is pretty accurate when it classifies incoming calls as "Spam Likely".
- ruined 4y ago
  you're right. we should just give up, and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed now, instead of wasting all that time pointlessly resisting the inevitable. none of this will ever get better
  - Night_Thastus 4y ago
    That's not what I meant. I meant there's no silver bullet that stops all spam forever. There's no easy solutions to the problem. It's an uphill battle and the best you can hope for is to block the majority of it with a lot of continuous effort.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
What if they accidentally block an important text and get sued? It's not easy to do at scale.
- dymk 4y ago
  Enforcing the use of STIR/SHAKEN across networks and providing an easy way (aka in the messaging and dialer app) to report spam messages and calls would likely fix 99% of the problem. I'm sure Google and Apple are nipping at the bit to add "Report as spam" in their apps, carriers just need to provide a way to ingest that information and have it be actionable by disallowing spoofing.
treeman79 4y ago
Being held responsible means the government hands them a huge check and nothing changes.

rafale 4y ago

The fact they are identical making it trivial today only.

Night_Thastus 4y ago

From other areas where spam is prevalent, I think it's an arms race issue. Sure, right now, that spam that's identical every time would be easy to detect and block. But if it's blocked, they start adding variation. Block that too and they get more and more creative. Every time a way to block the spam is found, the spammers just get more creative with getting around it. It's an arms race, and is essentially un-beatable because the spammers outnumber those trying to stop them by a magnitude or two.

Drakim 4y ago
I just have a hard time believing that's really what's gonna happen. I'm a 34 year old man living in a western country and I have not gotten one robot spam call nor spam text message in my life. I've gotten 5 fake Microsoft support calls, but always from a real human pretending to work for Microsoft.
pradn 4y ago
Yes, but we've gotten quite good at blocking email spam. So much so that it's basically a solved problem for regular users using GMail or Outlook. There's no reason we can't achieve the same with text and phone call blocking. My iPhone is pretty accurate when it classifies incoming calls as "Spam Likely".
ruined 4y ago
you're right. we should just give up, and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed now, instead of wasting all that time pointlessly resisting the inevitable. none of this will ever get better
- Night_Thastus 4y ago
  That's not what I meant. I meant there's no silver bullet that stops all spam forever. There's no easy solutions to the problem. It's an uphill battle and the best you can hope for is to block the majority of it with a lot of continuous effort.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

What if they accidentally block an important text and get sued? It's not easy to do at scale.

dymk 4y ago
Enforcing the use of STIR/SHAKEN across networks and providing an easy way (aka in the messaging and dialer app) to report spam messages and calls would likely fix 99% of the problem. I'm sure Google and Apple are nipping at the bit to add "Report as spam" in their apps, carriers just need to provide a way to ingest that information and have it be actionable by disallowing spoofing.

treeman79 4y ago

Being held responsible means the government hands them a huge check and nothing changes.