17 ms·

FCC threatens to disconnect Twilio for illegal robocalls

574 points by from 4y ago

aliqot 4y ago
Good. Twilio sucks anyway.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  What is a better alternative?
  - PopAlongKid 4y ago
    Sinch. https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=sinch%20versus%20twilio https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=sinch%20versus%20twilio
  - bevenky 4y ago
    [flagged]
nodesocket 4y ago
I wonder what percentage of their revenue is spam and scammers. They certainly are turning a blind eye.
ohyoutravel 4y ago
Finally some consequences for these awful robocalls. I love and use Twilio but they can burn as far as I’m concerned because they allow such abuse.
- tobinfekkes 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I've used Twilio for years and love what it provides for me, but I'd trade in my SMS services to make robo calls end.
- andrei_says_ 4y ago
  What’s a good alternative to twilio for sending transactional sms?
  - PopAlongKid 4y ago
    Sinch maybe? https://help.moengage.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049013671-Configure-Create-and-Analyze-Transactional-SMS https://help.moengage.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049013671-Con...
  - FearlessNebula 4y ago
    I think AWS has a service?
  - PenguinCoder 4y ago
    I have had good experience with https://signalwire.com/ https://signalwire.com/ I run a few projects that interact with their API for SMS. I recently had to go through some extra hoops to 'verify my business' with them, due to the newer carrier regulations. But overall, works how I expect it to and with minimal issues.
  - bevenky 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - nabeards 4y ago
      You should plainly state you are the CEO of Plivo before shilling it as a "leading alternative".
  - fiznool 4y ago
    A couple I’ve used: - Vonage: https://www.vonage.co.uk/communications-apis/sms/ https://www.vonage.co.uk/communications-apis/sms/ - CM: https://www.cm.com/en-gb/sms/ https://www.cm.com/en-gb/sms/
rhacker 4y ago
This is the first time I heard about twilio and robocalls. Are we sure they are a large source of this or just a tech lightning rod?
- xeromal 4y ago
  The article states that the FCC has been on Twilio about a specific robocaller. The Traceback Consortium conducted tracebacks and determined that Twilio was originating apparently unlawful robocalls on behalf of MV Realty through its dialing provider PhoneBurner. The Traceback Consortium notified Twilio of these calls and provided access to supporting data identifying each call… Twilio told the Traceback Consortium that PhoneBurner had obtained called parties’ consent for the robocalls. Neither Twilio nor PhoneBurner provided the Traceback Consortium with evidence of consent.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  Twilio has admitted the problem exists, and has actively taken steps to combat it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2020/02/11/twilio-jeff-lawson-robocalls/?sh=4cd2355c7161 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2020/02/11/twilio-je... https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-joins-state-attorneys-general-anti-robocall-coalition https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-joins-state-att... https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-achieves-full-compliance-with-stirshaken-protocols-to-combat-illegal-robocalls https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-achieves-full-c...
  - shagie 4y ago
    The Forbes article is from Feb 2020... The first Twilio press release is two weeks later. The second Twilio press release (Twilio Achieves Full Compliance with STIR/SHAKEN Protocols to Combat Illegal Robocalls) is dated July 22, 2021. The FCC complaint has calls dated July and August of 2022.
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      Yes, I was addressing the comment "This is the first time I heard about twilio and robocalls" - not saying Twilio has acted correctly, but saying that Twilio has known about it for years, so it's definitely not a new phenomenon.
fxtentacle 4y ago
Move fast and break things!
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  Sorry for the downvote, gave you an upvote, sarcasm is not understood and even less appreciated here.
  - theptip 4y ago
    It’s not that it’s not understood; it’s that it is understood to be a slippery slope to Reddit.
    - KingOfCoders 4y ago
      "[...] even less appreciated here."
      - theptip 4y ago
        Yes, you said (A and B), and I’m arguing against A. B is certainly true.
shagie 4y ago
The full letter can be found at https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-twilio https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-d... as a pdf. There are several spots in there where the FCC uses bold and italic. --- Some of the interesting parts: Dear Mr. Lawson: We have determined that Twilio Inc. (Twilio) is apparently originating illegal robocall traffic on behalf of one or more of its clients. As explained further below, this letter provides notice of important legal obligations and steps Twilio must take to address this apparently illegal traffic. Twilio should investigate the identified traffic and take the steps described below, including blocking the traffic if necessary, and take steps to prevent Twilio’s network from continuing to be a source of apparently illegal robocalls. Failure to comply with the steps outlined in this letter may result in downstream voice service providers blocking all of Twilio’s traffic, permanently. ... Applicable FCC Rules. This letter is based on FCC rules that apply to originating providers like Twilio. First, under the safe harbor set forth in section 64.1200(k)(4),4 any provider may block all traffic from an originating provider that, when notified by the Commission, fails to effectively mitigate illegal traffic within 48 hours or fails to implement effective measures to prevent new and renewing customers from using its network to originate illegal calls. This letter provides notice under section 64.1200(k)(4) and describes the mitigation steps you must take. Second, section 64.6305(e)5 permits providers to accept calls directly from an originating provider only if that originating provider’s filing appears in the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database. As explained below, if Twilio continues to transmit illegal robocalls, the Bureau may initiate proceedings to remove Twilio’s certification from the database, thereby requiring providers to cease accepting calls directly from Twilio. Third, sections 64.1200(n)6 and 64.6305 prescribe various additional obligations for mitigating and preventing illegal robocalls. We remind Twilio that failure to comply with any of these obligations may result in additional enforcement action pursuant to the Communications Act and the Commission’s rules.7 ... If after 48 hours Twilio continues to originate unlawful robocall traffic from the entities involved in this campaign, downstream U.S.-based voice service providers may begin blocking all calls from Twilio after notifying the Commission of their decision and providing a brief summary of their basis for making such a determination.15 Furthermore, if after 14 days, Twilio has not taken sufficient actions to prevent its network from continuing to be used to transmit illegal robocalls, then downstream U.S.-based providers may block calls following notice to the Commission.16 U.S.-based voice service providers may block ALL call traffic transmitting from Twilio’s network if it fails to act within either deadline.
troydavis 4y ago
Of the robocalls and text message spam that I tracked back to the originating carrier (OCN), by far the two largest source carriers were: 1. Commio and its subsidiaries Teli and thinQ (commio.com and teli.net) 2. Telnyx (telnyx.com) If the FCC reads this comment: look into those two. In particular, both companies do a poor job of policing their resellers/affiliates. Even when a recipient is savvy enough to find the source OCN and report it to them, the spammers just move from one reseller to a different reseller of the same carrier. Both carriers know this and look the other way, since it's cheaper than than investing more resources (content blocking, tighter velocity limits, carrier-verified opt-in) or removing the resellers who repeatably sign up spammers. Twilio was in the top 5, but as a % of their total traffic, nowhere near Commio/Teli and Telnyx. (And if the FCC is reading this, a wish: add a "SPAM" or "ABUSE" SMS keyword that carriers are required to process. Operationally, it would behave similar to "STOP", with a couple differences: it would be entirely processed by the carrier; the carrier would be required to respond with the name and full contact info of both the carrier and their customer; and it would give responsible carriers a way to hear about/act on abuse complaints. Right now, 10DLC spam is so hard for regular people to track that abuse mostly goes unreported.)
- kej 4y ago
  How does one go about tracking a robocall back to the OCN? I have time and a strong dislike of scammers.
  - cgb223 4y ago
    Interested in this as well. Been getting spam texts out the wazoo and have felt powerless to do anything about it beyond delete them
    - lolinder 4y ago
      One thing I do to exert some control is use WHOIS to find out who their domain name and web hosting providers are and forward them the phishing texts. I've gotten multiple domains revoked through this process (though I've also been ghosted plenty). Doesn't help if there are no domains linked, and I'd still love to attack their SMS instead because I suspect that's harder to replace.
luckylion 4y ago
Say what you will about US regulatory agencies, I wish we had even a whiff of that in Germany. Over here, the best you can hope for is for the regulators to negotiate with the companies to shut down individual numbers that have been used for illegal activities for months. They might fine the companies running the robocallers/callcenters if they're in Germany, but they're absolutely never touching the providers who are happily supporting the criminals and instead throw their hands in the air and say "guess we can't do anything".
- V__ 4y ago
  I think one major reason is the lesser extent to which this is a problem. I can't remember the last time I got spam calls. A year or two ago it was much worse, but even then I got maybe one a month on mobile and one a week on my landline. Both numbers are publicly listed.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    I don't know how it works, I only get like two a month. A friend of mine gets two or three a day and has just disconnected his phone and advised friends and family to only use his mobile. The same applies to the large scale phone fraud though, which quickly gets into tens to hundreds of millions of euros per year. Police won't do much because the criminals are outside Germany and cooperating with e.g. Turkey is hard, and with India it's impossible. Phone companies don't care because they're making money and the regulator is asleep at the wheel. Let's just make the phone companies liable for damages where they can't produce the customer (no KYC) or the customer is international. They'll quickly figure out who is legit and who isn't when it actually hurts their bottom line.
    - narag 4y ago
      Meanwhile in Spain: past month I finally convinced my mother that they should give up the land line for good. She uses Internet through the cell phone only, where it's easy to block all the spam. The land line calls were mostly spam, mostly from established companies, and some scams. A side effect: they went from 70€/month to 15€, 22€ after the first year. I had got them a 35€ contract (land/fiber + 2 cellphones) three or four years ago, but somehow Movistar managed to creep the bill to double and had announced that it will start charging 120€ this year. Because reasons.
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
First of all: the FCC is getting its teeth back. Second: At a larger scale this is the balance between providing a service that is cheap and ensuring your service isn't used for nefarious purposes. What happens next is that there will be more stringent identification needs, and then apps like MySudo get into trouble...
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  I don't know if I'd say the FCC universally has teeth. It's handling of ISP conduct is mixed and disjointed. What's key here is that robocalls are so universally loathed by everyone that dealing with it has extremely widespread bipartisan support. Coupled with the authentication technology to actually source the offenders, the FCC knows on this particular issue nobody in government will slap them down for doing what needs to be done, and they have the information to do it. Government agencies can be very effective when they know that an action will not be questioned politically.
WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230129172233/https://commsrisk.com/fcc-threatens-to-disconnect-twilio-for-illegal-robocalls/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230129172233/https://commsrisk... (hug'd)
miken123 4y ago
https://status.phoneburner.com/incidents/q55r8f62p437 https://status.phoneburner.com/incidents/q55r8f62p437 I guess it was taken care of. > Our system is currently down due to upstream telephone carrier issues
- Shank 4y ago
  Except it's "resolved": > A quick Saturday evening update - outbound dialing was fully restored and stabilized Friday. Whisper/Barge was restored late Friday evening. We anticipate click-to-call will be restored before end of day Monday, if not sooner. SMS, Inbound, and number purchasing is expected to be restored by end of day Wednesday, if not sooner. The game of whack-a-mole continues!
schneems 4y ago
My biggest gripe is with Action Network.org and related tools like NPGvan. I’ll get multiple texts from politicians on the same day when I’ve actively “unsubscribe and report as junk” for several years now. I’m political active but don’t want to be text spammed. I’ve reached out multiple times asking to remove my contact or to add me to a global deny list and they say “that’s not possible, we don’t control who our clients send to” which is absolute garbage. But if they had that feature the people who pay them would get fewer messages delivered so they don’t want to implement it. No matter how many lists I take myself off, there’s no way to prevent someone from adding it back on to a different list and these days candidates each have dozens. It’s frustrating to lose agency like that and I’ve stopped donating through them all together :(
- teraflop 4y ago
  The trick to removing yourself from ActionNetwork's mailings is in how you phrase it. If you ask to be "removed from mailing lists", they will tell you that the only way to do so is to click the "Unsubscribe" link in the footer, and that there's no way to prevent yourself from being added to new lists. But if you're persistent, they'll admit that there's another option: you can ask to be added to the "global block list", which they'll warn you is irrevocable. (I'm sure there's no good reason for the irrevocability, except to make people think twice about taking that option.) Like you, I have stopped donating to candidates who use them.
- brookst 4y ago
  NGPVan is a scourge. I gave several thousand dollars to political causes in the 2020 cycle and I have regretted it ever since. Never again, and I sincerely hope they are bankrupted by a huge class action.
- raldi 4y ago
  In many jurisdictions (e.g., California), there’s no requirement for a registered voter to have a phone or email account. Political campaigns are allowed to use voter registration records to generate their spam lists, and most of them do. Years ago I updated my voter record to remove the email address and phone number, and by the next election, my text, voice, and email political spam dropped to near zero.
beefman 4y ago
Better 10 years too late than never.
maxk42 4y ago
About fucking time!
goplayoutside 4y ago
What does the FCC accept as 'proof' of consent to receive automated calls? Could Twilio simply add a boolean to their 'make a call' API endpoint where the user has to declare that they have, in fact, obtained consent to call a particular number? That would provide no technical barrier against fraud, but it may suffice as a legal CYA for Twilio.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > What does the FCC accept as 'proof' of consent to receive automated calls? Actual FCC C&D letter is at https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-twilio https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-d... Key takeaway, there is no safe harbor CYA of the type you suggest, they need (and basically immediately) to take effective steps to prevent robocalls that are factually illegal, they don't have the option of getting CYA certificates from their users to insulate them if the users keep making illegal calls.
  - goplayoutside 4y ago
    Yes, I read the letter. Thank you for the link. While I'm certainly far from being a contract lawyer, it looks to me like the FCC is interested in receiving evidence of consent for the offending calls, if it exists: >The Traceback Consortium conducted tracebacks and determined that Twilio was originating apparently unlawful robocalls on behalf of MV Realty through its dialing provider PhoneBurner. The Traceback Consortium notified Twilio of these calls and provided access to supporting data identifying each call, as indicated in Attachment A. Twilio told the Traceback Consortium that PhoneBurner had obtained called parties’ consent for the robocalls. Neither Twilio nor PhoneBurner provided the Traceback Consortium with evidence of consent. And: >If Twilio has evidence that the transmissions identified in Attachment A were legal calls, present that evidence to the Commission and the Traceback Consortium. In any event, if consent to place calls is required, then there has to be some mechanism for call origination services (here, Twilio) to demonstrate receipt of that consent. My question is, what exactly does the FCC require as proof of consent?
    - 4y ago
aag 4y ago
For a tiny personal project (delivering alarms for calendar entries to my Light Phone 2), I used Twilio for several years. I was always impressed by how easy and cheap they made it to implement SMS delivery, even for a hobbyist. Late last ever, they started sending me warning notes insisting that I fill out all kinds of paperwork for my "business" if I wanted to continue sending SMS messages. None of the paperwork made any sense for a hobbyist, but they insisted. It was clear that this requirement was coming from outside of Twilio, so I wonder whether it was the result of earlier discussions with the FCC. Since I don't use the Light Phone any more (couldn't do without a camera), I just turned off SMS delivery rather than deal with all the new bureaucracy. But I still use them for another hack: I can call a Twilio number and leave myself a message, which they will then deliver to a hook on my web server, along with a transcription. I'm impressed with Twilio technically, and I can sympathize. I wouldn't want to be caught between the FCC and a bunch of SMS spammers, especially if the spammers were customers.
- aag 4y ago
  P.S.: I hate robocalls, too.
- simfree 4y ago
  This was due to the 3 big US wireless carrier's colluding to form the Campaign Registry, which is trying to force any business users of SMS to pay a verification fee ($50 iirc) and monthly fees ($ to $$ per month) just so you can send SMS for business reasons, even if it's person to person traffic where your just replying to your clients that texted you. Had the FCC implemented something like this the rules would be much more consistent and the fee structure would not be so exorbitant, but instead the big 3 have formed a cartel to attempt to control SMS messages in the USA.
  - andygmb 4y ago
    I would love to know if TCR has actually made a meaningful impact to stop spam.
    - simfree 4y ago
allisdust 4y ago
What's stopping robo call companies from using regular sim cards once all voip providers close their doors.
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago
  Way more complicated and expensive.
  - from 4y ago
    Be Amazed: https://globalvoipforum.com/forums/i-sell-voip-routes.2/ https://globalvoipforum.com/forums/i-sell-voip-routes.2/ Most of these guys will charge you 10-20% less than bandwidth.com or Twilio will in return for slightly lower reliability. nCLI means you can't set caller ID because the call is coming over GSM, i.e. a simbox type setup. TDM usually means they are reselling traditional phone lines meant for businesses. If you think this already isn't being used to facilitate scams you'd be wrong: https://globalvoipforum.com/threads/offering-russia-for-forex-traffic-profile.173574/ https://globalvoipforum.com/threads/offering-russia-for-fore... (unless by "forex traffic" they mean promoting Interactive Brokers). That's an example I found in 5 seconds. Go on some Facebook groups and you will find people offering grey routes to call America for "Amazon traffic," "bank traffic," "crypto traffic." I never really took the time to investigate what those terms mean but it does not sound good to me.
- simfree 4y ago
  Nothing besides cost, SIM banks attached to LTE modems are a thing in many other countries.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  Aside from increased costs, if the phone system were fixed to give us all the stack from the caller info, we could just block any call from outside the US.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Already happens. You can buy jigs on aliexpress that hold 128 SIMs and round-Robin across 8 GSM radios. It’s not all for spam per se. Some countries/providers charge a ton for international incoming calls, so bypassing this by IP and making calls in-provider only saves a lot of $$$ for gray-market connectivity. And it’s cheaper for setting up of in-bound calls too than a business line. https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32947688074.html?spm=a2g0n.productlist.0.0.22360AOg0AOgwe&browser_id=b5137ec38df14d7bafc50f464f461a96&aff_trace_key=6a70a2cbf7ab443391dc04aa8734eac8-1673803666455-00705-UneMJZVf&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=k8tdhi5wdccawfs5185ff5245236576ed7d1204928&gclid=&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21CAD%21417.56%21338.22%21%21%21%21%21%40210318bb16750258599811368e5aa9%2166250245831%21sea&curPageLogUid=SpA4GUNOFJTK&algo_pvid=a38a28e8-80d9-4192-bdc7-9a48dc7b3313 https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32947688074.html?spm=a2g0n.pro... Or 32 SIMs with 32 radios: https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32819345650.html?spm=a2g0n.detail.1000013.5.4ea45948soUrue&gps-id=storeRecommendH5&scm=1007.18500.300835.0&scm_id=1007.18500.300835.0&scm-url=1007.18500.300835.0&pvid=5315f4e9-35ac-459f-a970-ac2602b038b7&_t=gps-id:storeRecommendH5,scm-url:1007.18500.300835.0,pvid:5315f4e9-35ac-459f-a970-ac2602b038b7,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238110%231995&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21CAD%21654.18%21654.18%21%21%21%21%21%402101f6b816750259966718562e781c%2164756447433%21rec https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32819345650.html?spm=a2g0n.det...
bhhaskin 4y ago
I have the spam filters set to the max on my phone. I was getting 10+ text messages a day and 2-5 calls per day. Someone was using my number to sign up for things. The best one was enabling Google call screening. It has completed cut out all of the spam calls and texts.
chadlavi 4y ago
quite a lot of companies would have a bad day if twilio suddenly turned off
MiddleEndian 4y ago
The phone system needs to be changed so we get the full stack with every call, along with the name of the caller, so customers can block shit en masse uBlock Origin style. The number of VOIP callers I want to contact me: 1 (my doorbell (I assume it's VOIP, not sure)) The number of non-US callers I want to contact me: 2 (family members who could just contact me in other ways) Even if I have "agreed" to let some company contact me, like the phone company or my ISP, I'd still rather not receive calls from them.
- from 4y ago
  > The number of non-US callers I want to contact me But non-US callers can get US numbers. Do you want the phone company to fax over a passport scan of everyone who calls you?
  - beckingz 4y ago
    Honestly, yes.
  - MiddleEndian 4y ago
    I don't care about an individual's actual country of origin. Plenty of my friends are not American. But if I get a call that has any hops from an international network, then I want to block it, because it is spam (barring my two family members). If a phone company does not provide information about all the hops, then all calls from that company should be blocked as well. Ideally phone providers would not be allowed to forward calls from such a network at all.
  - MiddleEndian 4y ago
    Also to follow up on my previous message since it's too late to edit it, I actually don't think anyone should be able to call me on the phone without providing me their full name. I also don't think anyone should be able to send me physical mail without me approving each individual piece of mail through some sort of digital service that I would likely ignore.
sb8244 4y ago
I don't quite get the hate for Twilio here. I've found them to be generally responsive when issues are brought up. How would it be possible for them to police every action of their customers? I expect actions to be brought against the individual violators, and then escalated to Twilio, and handled appropriately. As is the case here. It would be different if they actively support systemic violation, but I don't think that's the case?
- tomnipotent 4y ago
  Twilio is a public company with the pressures of consistent growth expectations. It has a perverse incentive to allow as much abusive customer behavior as it can get away with; even spammers pay their bills. That means being lenient when enforcing compliance, and not being proactive enough even when they're aware of these bad actors but not enough people are complaining.
- from 4y ago
  It's not. There was 1 or 2 customers who were bad out of probably hundreds of thousands. I'm not sure why that required them to publicly shame Twilio when they probably do more to stop robocalls than most other companies in this field (for instance Twilio banned caller ID spoofing in 2019, way before STIR/SHAKEN became mandatory). I think the FCC can try to create a tough guy image all they want but this kind of whack a mole enforcement will not work at scale.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
kbuck 4y ago
Good. Spam calls and texts are a blight, and nobody was doing anything about it until regulation kicked in. Last year, after receiving several spam texts from numbers that were registered to Bandwidth.com (which was already difficult to discover), I sent an abuse report. I was not only told that Bandwidth.com couldn't do anything about it (other than forward the report to the reseller), but also they couldn't even tell me who they were reselling services to due to privacy reasons, and did not even know who the end customer was. They advised me to contact the police... To report text message spam.
- robocat 4y ago
  > They advised me to contact the police… To report text message spam. That is a cunningly devious misdirection!
- ipython 4y ago
  Exactly. There is a gross information asymmetry that underlies the problem. In order to participate in many parts of society, you need a phone number. For 99% of us, the link between that phone number and your identity is basically public. Then, along comes scam callers and illegal telemarketers. They have the capability to spoof arbitrary phone numbers to call you, which you as an individual do not have. Then, even if you do discover a real outgoing number that traces back to them, they can hide their true identity behind this bullshit “privacy” excuse.
westoque 4y ago
I was CTO of a company that was doing consumer text messaging through Twilio. I would say Twilio actually does a good job of monitoring messages going through its system. Our system at times were used by spammers to send spam text and Twilio's automated bot would catch these and would then ask us for reports if we have permission to send automated text messages to the numbers.
gkoberger 4y ago
So, I totally agree with the premise (robocalls are horrible, Twilio shouldn't allow them, etc). However, to defend Twilio... I have about a dozen numbers, all for little automations, and the past 6 months they've been REALLY heavy handed about requiring them all to be registered and a bunch of other requirements. I get a ton of emails like "Register your 10DLC numbers to avoid unregistered fees", etc. They've been tightening the requirements, too. At first it was 3,000+ messages/day, now it's my 1-message-a-day-to-the-same-number accounts they're cracking down on.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kostarelo 4y ago
Do companies like Twilio do anything about spam the same or similar way Google for example handles spam? I guess that they are not obliged to deal with it at least in most countries. I honestly don't know much on this space but this article raised my curiosity.
devwastaken 4y ago
Don't threaten, do it. Threatening means the service has time to think creatively on how to make it less obvious. No money lost. Until it's more expensive to break the law, it will continue to be broken.
- rabidonrails 4y ago
  It's not so simple to shut off people's telephone numbers. Consider some customers might be using the service for health and safety reasons. Better to threaten and then follow through that take the liability hit of just shutting off services.
shrubble 4y ago
I have found a good site for checking info on a number is unlec.com (no affiliation). Put in a phone number, press Enter... OCN = operating company name, name of company that has the number CNAM = Caller-ID name is textable -y/n nntype = mobile or landline
- ricktdotorg 4y ago
  wow, this even returns the subscriber's full name!
timdaub 4y ago
hopefully they do it. Twillio is an awful paternalistic company and getting SMS numbers in Germany is the actual worst. For a client, I ended up having to buy an RPI and a SIM myself because Twillio restricts service severely for anyone not having a big company.
metadat 4y ago
Why don't iOS and Android support sending calls from unknown numbers straight to VoiceMail (or block entirely). Why isn't this a first-tier feature? If such functionality were well-implemented, you'd be able to disable it for a limited amount of time if you're expecting a call, and then the setting would kick back on automatically. Apple and Google could work together (or even 100% independently) to tackle this at the handset endpoint level, yet there is no serious investment. They both have the data to create extremely robust solutions that could kill such life nuisances once and for all. Why do they continue to sit on their laurels rather than treating this as the serious abuse it is? I get more text-message and phonecall spam than ever. Whatever [meager] measures have already been attempted are completely insufficient and have failed. Imagining a future where my children perceive this as normal doesn't seem right. What can we do about this?
- FPGAhacker 4y ago
  > Why don't iOS and Android support sending calls from unknown numbers straight to VoiceMail iOS does. It’s called “Silence unknown callers” in the phone app settings. I expect android has this as well.
  - metadat 4y ago
    Thanks, that's a start for the phonecall spam. The iOS texts are especially bothersome because they appear on every device and machine hooked up to iMessage. I just looked and Android does have this setting buried under several slices of the phone app settings layer cake. It's better than nothing but I'm unwilling to accept that this is respectful to end users. It's really hanging all out non-experts to dry, when they absolutely should be in control.
- luckylion 4y ago
  That's like a whitelist for email because you don't want to deal with spam though. It severely diminishes the medium and makes everything more complicated. What if your mother had an accident and is in the hospital, should the hospital send you an email and ask you to allow incoming phone calls? Could they even, if your spam filter wouldn't let their email through? And if it's straight to voice-mail, you'd still need to spend the time to check it, albeit maybe you could check when it's better for you. They could screen it with a voice assistant, but I doubt that'll work well, spammers will just set their systems up to say stuff that gets them through the screening and then switch to the spam once they get to you. And when the assistants catch on, it has lots of fallout because suddenly your kids' school can no longer reach you because the assistant flags everything about schools and kids because spammers have abused it.
karmakaze 4y ago
> We have determined that Twilio Inc. (Twilio) is apparently originating illegal robocall traffic on behalf of one or more of its clients. As explained further below, this letter provides notice of important legal obligations and steps Twilio must take to address this apparently illegal traffic. Twilio should investigate the identified traffic and take the steps described below, including blocking the traffic if necessary, and take steps to prevent Twilio’s network from continuing to be a source of apparently illegal robocalls. Failure to comply with the steps outlined in this letter may result in downstream voice service providers blocking all of Twilio’s traffic, permanently. Seems like quite a reasonable request. Put in an effort. Outline what those processes are and stay on top of them.
29athrowaway 4y ago
Millions elderly citizens that worked hard to provide for the current generation, scammed after a life of sacrifice and work. Many of them in manufacturing jobs. Get rekt Twilio.
lightedman 4y ago
Go looking into Level3 to boot, most of my spam calls originate from inside their network.
aidenn0 4y ago
Slightly OT, but last week, I got about 400 phone number verification texts from various online services. Presumably someone was spamming service sign ups using my number. Any clue why? The verification codes were typically 6 digits, so if they did this with a million other numbers, they would "get lucky" about 400 times, but that seems unlikely to me to be what they were doing. Also hall of shame to SeetGeek for allowing 50 sign up attempts in as many minutes all from the same number; every other service stopped well before that.
kypro 4y ago
How exactly will this fix the problem? Is Twilio doing less than others to stop robocalls or something? And if so what are others doing that Twilio isn't? Surely if they disconnect Twilio then the robocallers will just move on to another service? And the only people who will be negatively impacted by this are those who want to use Twilio legitimately. I'm really struggling to understand the sentiment here.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  The FCC would not send this unless they felt Twilio specifically had an inadequate method of preventing abuse on their platform. They started with smaller providers that likely had worse protection. I suspect the FCC currently considers Twilio the most vulnerable service at this present moment. It's also very likely they had previous communications between the FCC and Twilio, and possible that, like many tech companies, Twilio refused to delete a customer without an official order.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
human 4y ago
Someone should fix phone calls. It shouldn’t be so easy to spam and phone numbers should be clearly associated with the business behind it. Something similar to SSL certs. Also, I remember seeing in the Twilio API an option to add a call reason. It would be great to have a 50 char sentence explaining why I’m being called so I can decide whether to answer or not.
jmount 4y ago
Yet they don't.
bluSCALE4 4y ago
Curious, I've gotten a WHOLE lot less robocalls in the past year or two. So much so that I can't remember the last time I received one. I believe I've even stopped being annoyed when I receive a call because I no longer suspect it to be a spam call.
Animats 4y ago
That was five days ago. What happened?

574 points by from 4y ago

aliqot 4y ago

Good. Twilio sucks anyway.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago
What is a better alternative?
- PopAlongKid 4y ago
  Sinch. https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=sinch%20versus%20twilio https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=sinch%20versus%20twilio
- bevenky 4y ago
  [flagged]

nodesocket 4y ago

I wonder what percentage of their revenue is spam and scammers. They certainly are turning a blind eye.

ohyoutravel 4y ago

Finally some consequences for these awful robocalls. I love and use Twilio but they can burn as far as I’m concerned because they allow such abuse.

tobinfekkes 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. I've used Twilio for years and love what it provides for me, but I'd trade in my SMS services to make robo calls end.
andrei_says_ 4y ago
What’s a good alternative to twilio for sending transactional sms?
- PopAlongKid 4y ago
  Sinch maybe? https://help.moengage.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049013671-Configure-Create-and-Analyze-Transactional-SMS https://help.moengage.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049013671-Con...
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  I think AWS has a service?
- PenguinCoder 4y ago
  I have had good experience with https://signalwire.com/ https://signalwire.com/ I run a few projects that interact with their API for SMS. I recently had to go through some extra hoops to 'verify my business' with them, due to the newer carrier regulations. But overall, works how I expect it to and with minimal issues.
- bevenky 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - nabeards 4y ago
    You should plainly state you are the CEO of Plivo before shilling it as a "leading alternative".
- fiznool 4y ago
  A couple I’ve used: - Vonage: https://www.vonage.co.uk/communications-apis/sms/ https://www.vonage.co.uk/communications-apis/sms/ - CM: https://www.cm.com/en-gb/sms/ https://www.cm.com/en-gb/sms/

rhacker 4y ago

This is the first time I heard about twilio and robocalls. Are we sure they are a large source of this or just a tech lightning rod?

xeromal 4y ago
The article states that the FCC has been on Twilio about a specific robocaller. The Traceback Consortium conducted tracebacks and determined that Twilio was originating apparently unlawful robocalls on behalf of MV Realty through its dialing provider PhoneBurner. The Traceback Consortium notified Twilio of these calls and provided access to supporting data identifying each call… Twilio told the Traceback Consortium that PhoneBurner had obtained called parties’ consent for the robocalls. Neither Twilio nor PhoneBurner provided the Traceback Consortium with evidence of consent.
bdcravens 4y ago
Twilio has admitted the problem exists, and has actively taken steps to combat it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2020/02/11/twilio-jeff-lawson-robocalls/?sh=4cd2355c7161 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2020/02/11/twilio-je... https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-joins-state-attorneys-general-anti-robocall-coalition https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-joins-state-att... https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-achieves-full-compliance-with-stirshaken-protocols-to-combat-illegal-robocalls https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-achieves-full-c...
- shagie 4y ago
  The Forbes article is from Feb 2020... The first Twilio press release is two weeks later. The second Twilio press release (Twilio Achieves Full Compliance with STIR/SHAKEN Protocols to Combat Illegal Robocalls) is dated July 22, 2021. The FCC complaint has calls dated July and August of 2022.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    Yes, I was addressing the comment "This is the first time I heard about twilio and robocalls" - not saying Twilio has acted correctly, but saying that Twilio has known about it for years, so it's definitely not a new phenomenon.

fxtentacle 4y ago

Move fast and break things!

KingOfCoders 4y ago
Sorry for the downvote, gave you an upvote, sarcasm is not understood and even less appreciated here.
- theptip 4y ago
  It’s not that it’s not understood; it’s that it is understood to be a slippery slope to Reddit.
  - KingOfCoders 4y ago
    "[...] even less appreciated here."
    - theptip 4y ago
      Yes, you said (A and B), and I’m arguing against A. B is certainly true.

shagie 4y ago

The full letter can be found at https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-twilio https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-d... as a pdf. There are several spots in there where the FCC uses bold and italic. --- Some of the interesting parts: Dear Mr. Lawson: We have determined that Twilio Inc. (Twilio) is apparently originating illegal robocall traffic on behalf of one or more of its clients. As explained further below, this letter provides notice of important legal obligations and steps Twilio must take to address this apparently illegal traffic. Twilio should investigate the identified traffic and take the steps described below, including blocking the traffic if necessary, and take steps to prevent Twilio’s network from continuing to be a source of apparently illegal robocalls. Failure to comply with the steps outlined in this letter may result in downstream voice service providers blocking all of Twilio’s traffic, permanently. ... Applicable FCC Rules. This letter is based on FCC rules that apply to originating providers like Twilio. First, under the safe harbor set forth in section 64.1200(k)(4),4 any provider may block all traffic from an originating provider that, when notified by the Commission, fails to effectively mitigate illegal traffic within 48 hours or fails to implement effective measures to prevent new and renewing customers from using its network to originate illegal calls. This letter provides notice under section 64.1200(k)(4) and describes the mitigation steps you must take. Second, section 64.6305(e)5 permits providers to accept calls directly from an originating provider only if that originating provider’s filing appears in the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database. As explained below, if Twilio continues to transmit illegal robocalls, the Bureau may initiate proceedings to remove Twilio’s certification from the database, thereby requiring providers to cease accepting calls directly from Twilio. Third, sections 64.1200(n)6 and 64.6305 prescribe various additional obligations for mitigating and preventing illegal robocalls. We remind Twilio that failure to comply with any of these obligations may result in additional enforcement action pursuant to the Communications Act and the Commission’s rules.7 ... If after 48 hours Twilio continues to originate unlawful robocall traffic from the entities involved in this campaign, downstream U.S.-based voice service providers may begin blocking all calls from Twilio after notifying the Commission of their decision and providing a brief summary of their basis for making such a determination.15 Furthermore, if after 14 days, Twilio has not taken sufficient actions to prevent its network from continuing to be used to transmit illegal robocalls, then downstream U.S.-based providers may block calls following notice to the Commission.16 U.S.-based voice service providers may block ALL call traffic transmitting from Twilio’s network if it fails to act within either deadline.

troydavis 4y ago

Of the robocalls and text message spam that I tracked back to the originating carrier (OCN), by far the two largest source carriers were: 1. Commio and its subsidiaries Teli and thinQ (commio.com and teli.net) 2. Telnyx (telnyx.com) If the FCC reads this comment: look into those two. In particular, both companies do a poor job of policing their resellers/affiliates. Even when a recipient is savvy enough to find the source OCN and report it to them, the spammers just move from one reseller to a different reseller of the same carrier. Both carriers know this and look the other way, since it's cheaper than than investing more resources (content blocking, tighter velocity limits, carrier-verified opt-in) or removing the resellers who repeatably sign up spammers. Twilio was in the top 5, but as a % of their total traffic, nowhere near Commio/Teli and Telnyx. (And if the FCC is reading this, a wish: add a "SPAM" or "ABUSE" SMS keyword that carriers are required to process. Operationally, it would behave similar to "STOP", with a couple differences: it would be entirely processed by the carrier; the carrier would be required to respond with the name and full contact info of both the carrier and their customer; and it would give responsible carriers a way to hear about/act on abuse complaints. Right now, 10DLC spam is so hard for regular people to track that abuse mostly goes unreported.)

kej 4y ago
How does one go about tracking a robocall back to the OCN? I have time and a strong dislike of scammers.
- cgb223 4y ago
  Interested in this as well. Been getting spam texts out the wazoo and have felt powerless to do anything about it beyond delete them
  - lolinder 4y ago
    One thing I do to exert some control is use WHOIS to find out who their domain name and web hosting providers are and forward them the phishing texts. I've gotten multiple domains revoked through this process (though I've also been ghosted plenty). Doesn't help if there are no domains linked, and I'd still love to attack their SMS instead because I suspect that's harder to replace.

luckylion 4y ago

Say what you will about US regulatory agencies, I wish we had even a whiff of that in Germany. Over here, the best you can hope for is for the regulators to negotiate with the companies to shut down individual numbers that have been used for illegal activities for months. They might fine the companies running the robocallers/callcenters if they're in Germany, but they're absolutely never touching the providers who are happily supporting the criminals and instead throw their hands in the air and say "guess we can't do anything".

V__ 4y ago
I think one major reason is the lesser extent to which this is a problem. I can't remember the last time I got spam calls. A year or two ago it was much worse, but even then I got maybe one a month on mobile and one a week on my landline. Both numbers are publicly listed.
- luckylion 4y ago
  I don't know how it works, I only get like two a month. A friend of mine gets two or three a day and has just disconnected his phone and advised friends and family to only use his mobile. The same applies to the large scale phone fraud though, which quickly gets into tens to hundreds of millions of euros per year. Police won't do much because the criminals are outside Germany and cooperating with e.g. Turkey is hard, and with India it's impossible. Phone companies don't care because they're making money and the regulator is asleep at the wheel. Let's just make the phone companies liable for damages where they can't produce the customer (no KYC) or the customer is international. They'll quickly figure out who is legit and who isn't when it actually hurts their bottom line.
  - narag 4y ago
    Meanwhile in Spain: past month I finally convinced my mother that they should give up the land line for good. She uses Internet through the cell phone only, where it's easy to block all the spam. The land line calls were mostly spam, mostly from established companies, and some scams. A side effect: they went from 70€/month to 15€, 22€ after the first year. I had got them a 35€ contract (land/fiber + 2 cellphones) three or four years ago, but somehow Movistar managed to creep the bill to double and had announced that it will start charging 120€ this year. Because reasons.

WirelessGigabit 4y ago

First of all: the FCC is getting its teeth back. Second: At a larger scale this is the balance between providing a service that is cheap and ensuring your service isn't used for nefarious purposes. What happens next is that there will be more stringent identification needs, and then apps like MySudo get into trouble...

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
I don't know if I'd say the FCC universally has teeth. It's handling of ISP conduct is mixed and disjointed. What's key here is that robocalls are so universally loathed by everyone that dealing with it has extremely widespread bipartisan support. Coupled with the authentication technology to actually source the offenders, the FCC knows on this particular issue nobody in government will slap them down for doing what needs to be done, and they have the information to do it. Government agencies can be very effective when they know that an action will not be questioned politically.

WarOnPrivacy 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230129172233/https://commsrisk.com/fcc-threatens-to-disconnect-twilio-for-illegal-robocalls/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230129172233/https://commsrisk... (hug'd)

miken123 4y ago

https://status.phoneburner.com/incidents/q55r8f62p437 https://status.phoneburner.com/incidents/q55r8f62p437 I guess it was taken care of. > Our system is currently down due to upstream telephone carrier issues

Shank 4y ago
Except it's "resolved": > A quick Saturday evening update - outbound dialing was fully restored and stabilized Friday. Whisper/Barge was restored late Friday evening. We anticipate click-to-call will be restored before end of day Monday, if not sooner. SMS, Inbound, and number purchasing is expected to be restored by end of day Wednesday, if not sooner. The game of whack-a-mole continues!

schneems 4y ago

My biggest gripe is with Action Network.org and related tools like NPGvan. I’ll get multiple texts from politicians on the same day when I’ve actively “unsubscribe and report as junk” for several years now. I’m political active but don’t want to be text spammed. I’ve reached out multiple times asking to remove my contact or to add me to a global deny list and they say “that’s not possible, we don’t control who our clients send to” which is absolute garbage. But if they had that feature the people who pay them would get fewer messages delivered so they don’t want to implement it. No matter how many lists I take myself off, there’s no way to prevent someone from adding it back on to a different list and these days candidates each have dozens. It’s frustrating to lose agency like that and I’ve stopped donating through them all together :(

teraflop 4y ago
The trick to removing yourself from ActionNetwork's mailings is in how you phrase it. If you ask to be "removed from mailing lists", they will tell you that the only way to do so is to click the "Unsubscribe" link in the footer, and that there's no way to prevent yourself from being added to new lists. But if you're persistent, they'll admit that there's another option: you can ask to be added to the "global block list", which they'll warn you is irrevocable. (I'm sure there's no good reason for the irrevocability, except to make people think twice about taking that option.) Like you, I have stopped donating to candidates who use them.
brookst 4y ago
NGPVan is a scourge. I gave several thousand dollars to political causes in the 2020 cycle and I have regretted it ever since. Never again, and I sincerely hope they are bankrupted by a huge class action.
raldi 4y ago
In many jurisdictions (e.g., California), there’s no requirement for a registered voter to have a phone or email account. Political campaigns are allowed to use voter registration records to generate their spam lists, and most of them do. Years ago I updated my voter record to remove the email address and phone number, and by the next election, my text, voice, and email political spam dropped to near zero.

beefman 4y ago

Better 10 years too late than never.

maxk42 4y ago

About fucking time!

goplayoutside 4y ago

What does the FCC accept as 'proof' of consent to receive automated calls? Could Twilio simply add a boolean to their 'make a call' API endpoint where the user has to declare that they have, in fact, obtained consent to call a particular number? That would provide no technical barrier against fraud, but it may suffice as a legal CYA for Twilio.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> What does the FCC accept as 'proof' of consent to receive automated calls? Actual FCC C&D letter is at https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-twilio https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-d... Key takeaway, there is no safe harbor CYA of the type you suggest, they need (and basically immediately) to take effective steps to prevent robocalls that are factually illegal, they don't have the option of getting CYA certificates from their users to insulate them if the users keep making illegal calls.
- goplayoutside 4y ago
  Yes, I read the letter. Thank you for the link. While I'm certainly far from being a contract lawyer, it looks to me like the FCC is interested in receiving evidence of consent for the offending calls, if it exists: >The Traceback Consortium conducted tracebacks and determined that Twilio was originating apparently unlawful robocalls on behalf of MV Realty through its dialing provider PhoneBurner. The Traceback Consortium notified Twilio of these calls and provided access to supporting data identifying each call, as indicated in Attachment A. Twilio told the Traceback Consortium that PhoneBurner had obtained called parties’ consent for the robocalls. Neither Twilio nor PhoneBurner provided the Traceback Consortium with evidence of consent. And: >If Twilio has evidence that the transmissions identified in Attachment A were legal calls, present that evidence to the Commission and the Traceback Consortium. In any event, if consent to place calls is required, then there has to be some mechanism for call origination services (here, Twilio) to demonstrate receipt of that consent. My question is, what exactly does the FCC require as proof of consent?
  - 4y ago

aag 4y ago

For a tiny personal project (delivering alarms for calendar entries to my Light Phone 2), I used Twilio for several years. I was always impressed by how easy and cheap they made it to implement SMS delivery, even for a hobbyist. Late last ever, they started sending me warning notes insisting that I fill out all kinds of paperwork for my "business" if I wanted to continue sending SMS messages. None of the paperwork made any sense for a hobbyist, but they insisted. It was clear that this requirement was coming from outside of Twilio, so I wonder whether it was the result of earlier discussions with the FCC. Since I don't use the Light Phone any more (couldn't do without a camera), I just turned off SMS delivery rather than deal with all the new bureaucracy. But I still use them for another hack: I can call a Twilio number and leave myself a message, which they will then deliver to a hook on my web server, along with a transcription. I'm impressed with Twilio technically, and I can sympathize. I wouldn't want to be caught between the FCC and a bunch of SMS spammers, especially if the spammers were customers.

aag 4y ago
P.S.: I hate robocalls, too.
simfree 4y ago
This was due to the 3 big US wireless carrier's colluding to form the Campaign Registry, which is trying to force any business users of SMS to pay a verification fee ($50 iirc) and monthly fees ($ to $$ per month) just so you can send SMS for business reasons, even if it's person to person traffic where your just replying to your clients that texted you. Had the FCC implemented something like this the rules would be much more consistent and the fee structure would not be so exorbitant, but instead the big 3 have formed a cartel to attempt to control SMS messages in the USA.
- andygmb 4y ago
  I would love to know if TCR has actually made a meaningful impact to stop spam.
  - simfree 4y ago

allisdust 4y ago

What's stopping robo call companies from using regular sim cards once all voip providers close their doors.

BenjiWiebe 4y ago
Way more complicated and expensive.
- from 4y ago
  Be Amazed: https://globalvoipforum.com/forums/i-sell-voip-routes.2/ https://globalvoipforum.com/forums/i-sell-voip-routes.2/ Most of these guys will charge you 10-20% less than bandwidth.com or Twilio will in return for slightly lower reliability. nCLI means you can't set caller ID because the call is coming over GSM, i.e. a simbox type setup. TDM usually means they are reselling traditional phone lines meant for businesses. If you think this already isn't being used to facilitate scams you'd be wrong: https://globalvoipforum.com/threads/offering-russia-for-forex-traffic-profile.173574/ https://globalvoipforum.com/threads/offering-russia-for-fore... (unless by "forex traffic" they mean promoting Interactive Brokers). That's an example I found in 5 seconds. Go on some Facebook groups and you will find people offering grey routes to call America for "Amazon traffic," "bank traffic," "crypto traffic." I never really took the time to investigate what those terms mean but it does not sound good to me.
simfree 4y ago
Nothing besides cost, SIM banks attached to LTE modems are a thing in many other countries.
MiddleEndian 4y ago
Aside from increased costs, if the phone system were fixed to give us all the stack from the caller info, we could just block any call from outside the US.
Scoundreller 4y ago
Already happens. You can buy jigs on aliexpress that hold 128 SIMs and round-Robin across 8 GSM radios. It’s not all for spam per se. Some countries/providers charge a ton for international incoming calls, so bypassing this by IP and making calls in-provider only saves a lot of $$$ for gray-market connectivity. And it’s cheaper for setting up of in-bound calls too than a business line. https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32947688074.html?spm=a2g0n.productlist.0.0.22360AOg0AOgwe&browser_id=b5137ec38df14d7bafc50f464f461a96&aff_trace_key=6a70a2cbf7ab443391dc04aa8734eac8-1673803666455-00705-UneMJZVf&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=k8tdhi5wdccawfs5185ff5245236576ed7d1204928&gclid=&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21CAD%21417.56%21338.22%21%21%21%21%21%40210318bb16750258599811368e5aa9%2166250245831%21sea&curPageLogUid=SpA4GUNOFJTK&algo_pvid=a38a28e8-80d9-4192-bdc7-9a48dc7b3313 https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32947688074.html?spm=a2g0n.pro... Or 32 SIMs with 32 radios: https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32819345650.html?spm=a2g0n.detail.1000013.5.4ea45948soUrue&gps-id=storeRecommendH5&scm=1007.18500.300835.0&scm_id=1007.18500.300835.0&scm-url=1007.18500.300835.0&pvid=5315f4e9-35ac-459f-a970-ac2602b038b7&_t=gps-id:storeRecommendH5,scm-url:1007.18500.300835.0,pvid:5315f4e9-35ac-459f-a970-ac2602b038b7,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238110%231995&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21CAD%21654.18%21654.18%21%21%21%21%21%402101f6b816750259966718562e781c%2164756447433%21rec https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32819345650.html?spm=a2g0n.det...

bhhaskin 4y ago

I have the spam filters set to the max on my phone. I was getting 10+ text messages a day and 2-5 calls per day. Someone was using my number to sign up for things. The best one was enabling Google call screening. It has completed cut out all of the spam calls and texts.

chadlavi 4y ago

quite a lot of companies would have a bad day if twilio suddenly turned off

MiddleEndian 4y ago

The phone system needs to be changed so we get the full stack with every call, along with the name of the caller, so customers can block shit en masse uBlock Origin style. The number of VOIP callers I want to contact me: 1 (my doorbell (I assume it's VOIP, not sure)) The number of non-US callers I want to contact me: 2 (family members who could just contact me in other ways) Even if I have "agreed" to let some company contact me, like the phone company or my ISP, I'd still rather not receive calls from them.

from 4y ago
> The number of non-US callers I want to contact me But non-US callers can get US numbers. Do you want the phone company to fax over a passport scan of everyone who calls you?
- beckingz 4y ago
  Honestly, yes.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  I don't care about an individual's actual country of origin. Plenty of my friends are not American. But if I get a call that has any hops from an international network, then I want to block it, because it is spam (barring my two family members). If a phone company does not provide information about all the hops, then all calls from that company should be blocked as well. Ideally phone providers would not be allowed to forward calls from such a network at all.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  Also to follow up on my previous message since it's too late to edit it, I actually don't think anyone should be able to call me on the phone without providing me their full name. I also don't think anyone should be able to send me physical mail without me approving each individual piece of mail through some sort of digital service that I would likely ignore.

sb8244 4y ago

I don't quite get the hate for Twilio here. I've found them to be generally responsive when issues are brought up. How would it be possible for them to police every action of their customers? I expect actions to be brought against the individual violators, and then escalated to Twilio, and handled appropriately. As is the case here. It would be different if they actively support systemic violation, but I don't think that's the case?

tomnipotent 4y ago
Twilio is a public company with the pressures of consistent growth expectations. It has a perverse incentive to allow as much abusive customer behavior as it can get away with; even spammers pay their bills. That means being lenient when enforcing compliance, and not being proactive enough even when they're aware of these bad actors but not enough people are complaining.
from 4y ago
It's not. There was 1 or 2 customers who were bad out of probably hundreds of thousands. I'm not sure why that required them to publicly shame Twilio when they probably do more to stop robocalls than most other companies in this field (for instance Twilio banned caller ID spoofing in 2019, way before STIR/SHAKEN became mandatory). I think the FCC can try to create a tough guy image all they want but this kind of whack a mole enforcement will not work at scale.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

kbuck 4y ago

Good. Spam calls and texts are a blight, and nobody was doing anything about it until regulation kicked in. Last year, after receiving several spam texts from numbers that were registered to Bandwidth.com (which was already difficult to discover), I sent an abuse report. I was not only told that Bandwidth.com couldn't do anything about it (other than forward the report to the reseller), but also they couldn't even tell me who they were reselling services to due to privacy reasons, and did not even know who the end customer was. They advised me to contact the police... To report text message spam.

robocat 4y ago
> They advised me to contact the police… To report text message spam. That is a cunningly devious misdirection!
ipython 4y ago
Exactly. There is a gross information asymmetry that underlies the problem. In order to participate in many parts of society, you need a phone number. For 99% of us, the link between that phone number and your identity is basically public. Then, along comes scam callers and illegal telemarketers. They have the capability to spoof arbitrary phone numbers to call you, which you as an individual do not have. Then, even if you do discover a real outgoing number that traces back to them, they can hide their true identity behind this bullshit “privacy” excuse.

westoque 4y ago

I was CTO of a company that was doing consumer text messaging through Twilio. I would say Twilio actually does a good job of monitoring messages going through its system. Our system at times were used by spammers to send spam text and Twilio's automated bot would catch these and would then ask us for reports if we have permission to send automated text messages to the numbers.

gkoberger 4y ago

So, I totally agree with the premise (robocalls are horrible, Twilio shouldn't allow them, etc). However, to defend Twilio... I have about a dozen numbers, all for little automations, and the past 6 months they've been REALLY heavy handed about requiring them all to be registered and a bunch of other requirements. I get a ton of emails like "Register your 10DLC numbers to avoid unregistered fees", etc. They've been tightening the requirements, too. At first it was 3,000+ messages/day, now it's my 1-message-a-day-to-the-same-number accounts they're cracking down on.

deleted 4y ago

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kostarelo 4y ago

Do companies like Twilio do anything about spam the same or similar way Google for example handles spam? I guess that they are not obliged to deal with it at least in most countries. I honestly don't know much on this space but this article raised my curiosity.

devwastaken 4y ago

Don't threaten, do it. Threatening means the service has time to think creatively on how to make it less obvious. No money lost. Until it's more expensive to break the law, it will continue to be broken.

rabidonrails 4y ago
It's not so simple to shut off people's telephone numbers. Consider some customers might be using the service for health and safety reasons. Better to threaten and then follow through that take the liability hit of just shutting off services.

shrubble 4y ago

I have found a good site for checking info on a number is unlec.com (no affiliation). Put in a phone number, press Enter... OCN = operating company name, name of company that has the number CNAM = Caller-ID name is textable -y/n nntype = mobile or landline

ricktdotorg 4y ago
wow, this even returns the subscriber's full name!

timdaub 4y ago

hopefully they do it. Twillio is an awful paternalistic company and getting SMS numbers in Germany is the actual worst. For a client, I ended up having to buy an RPI and a SIM myself because Twillio restricts service severely for anyone not having a big company.

metadat 4y ago

Why don't iOS and Android support sending calls from unknown numbers straight to VoiceMail (or block entirely). Why isn't this a first-tier feature? If such functionality were well-implemented, you'd be able to disable it for a limited amount of time if you're expecting a call, and then the setting would kick back on automatically. Apple and Google could work together (or even 100% independently) to tackle this at the handset endpoint level, yet there is no serious investment. They both have the data to create extremely robust solutions that could kill such life nuisances once and for all. Why do they continue to sit on their laurels rather than treating this as the serious abuse it is? I get more text-message and phonecall spam than ever. Whatever [meager] measures have already been attempted are completely insufficient and have failed. Imagining a future where my children perceive this as normal doesn't seem right. What can we do about this?

FPGAhacker 4y ago
> Why don't iOS and Android support sending calls from unknown numbers straight to VoiceMail iOS does. It’s called “Silence unknown callers” in the phone app settings. I expect android has this as well.
- metadat 4y ago
  Thanks, that's a start for the phonecall spam. The iOS texts are especially bothersome because they appear on every device and machine hooked up to iMessage. I just looked and Android does have this setting buried under several slices of the phone app settings layer cake. It's better than nothing but I'm unwilling to accept that this is respectful to end users. It's really hanging all out non-experts to dry, when they absolutely should be in control.
luckylion 4y ago
That's like a whitelist for email because you don't want to deal with spam though. It severely diminishes the medium and makes everything more complicated. What if your mother had an accident and is in the hospital, should the hospital send you an email and ask you to allow incoming phone calls? Could they even, if your spam filter wouldn't let their email through? And if it's straight to voice-mail, you'd still need to spend the time to check it, albeit maybe you could check when it's better for you. They could screen it with a voice assistant, but I doubt that'll work well, spammers will just set their systems up to say stuff that gets them through the screening and then switch to the spam once they get to you. And when the assistants catch on, it has lots of fallout because suddenly your kids' school can no longer reach you because the assistant flags everything about schools and kids because spammers have abused it.

karmakaze 4y ago

> We have determined that Twilio Inc. (Twilio) is apparently originating illegal robocall traffic on behalf of one or more of its clients. As explained further below, this letter provides notice of important legal obligations and steps Twilio must take to address this apparently illegal traffic. Twilio should investigate the identified traffic and take the steps described below, including blocking the traffic if necessary, and take steps to prevent Twilio’s network from continuing to be a source of apparently illegal robocalls. Failure to comply with the steps outlined in this letter may result in downstream voice service providers blocking all of Twilio’s traffic, permanently. Seems like quite a reasonable request. Put in an effort. Outline what those processes are and stay on top of them.

29athrowaway 4y ago

Millions elderly citizens that worked hard to provide for the current generation, scammed after a life of sacrifice and work. Many of them in manufacturing jobs. Get rekt Twilio.

lightedman 4y ago

Go looking into Level3 to boot, most of my spam calls originate from inside their network.

aidenn0 4y ago

Slightly OT, but last week, I got about 400 phone number verification texts from various online services. Presumably someone was spamming service sign ups using my number. Any clue why? The verification codes were typically 6 digits, so if they did this with a million other numbers, they would "get lucky" about 400 times, but that seems unlikely to me to be what they were doing. Also hall of shame to SeetGeek for allowing 50 sign up attempts in as many minutes all from the same number; every other service stopped well before that.

kypro 4y ago

How exactly will this fix the problem? Is Twilio doing less than others to stop robocalls or something? And if so what are others doing that Twilio isn't? Surely if they disconnect Twilio then the robocallers will just move on to another service? And the only people who will be negatively impacted by this are those who want to use Twilio legitimately. I'm really struggling to understand the sentiment here.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
The FCC would not send this unless they felt Twilio specifically had an inadequate method of preventing abuse on their platform. They started with smaller providers that likely had worse protection. I suspect the FCC currently considers Twilio the most vulnerable service at this present moment. It's also very likely they had previous communications between the FCC and Twilio, and possible that, like many tech companies, Twilio refused to delete a customer without an official order.

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human 4y ago

Someone should fix phone calls. It shouldn’t be so easy to spam and phone numbers should be clearly associated with the business behind it. Something similar to SSL certs. Also, I remember seeing in the Twilio API an option to add a call reason. It would be great to have a 50 char sentence explaining why I’m being called so I can decide whether to answer or not.

jmount 4y ago

Yet they don't.

bluSCALE4 4y ago

Curious, I've gotten a WHOLE lot less robocalls in the past year or two. So much so that I can't remember the last time I received one. I believe I've even stopped being annoyed when I receive a call because I no longer suspect it to be a spam call.

Animats 4y ago

That was five days ago. What happened?