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It would be ideal if phone calls and SMS were based solely on a whitelist system, where social norms dictate that legitimate communication occurs only after num

It would be ideal if phone calls and SMS were based solely on a whitelist system, where social norms dictate that legitimate communication occurs only after numbers have been exchanged. This would prevent unwanted contact from unknown numbers. Although many people already disregard such unsolicited calls or messages, having a systematic approach would make it much more effective and efficient.

thesis 4y ago
Great until the hospital or police or your kids friends parents are trying to contact you.
- unsignedint 4y ago
  But then, how can you even tell if these are legit calls to begin with? If that "kids friends parents" know you enough to call you, wouldn't you have exchanged your phone number to begin with? Perhaps for the police and hospitals (or any public safety) can perhaps have additional indicators (provided they aren't spoofed) that can be automatically whitelisted.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Since I expect to sometimes get perfectly valid calls from numbers I've never communicated with in the past, I think a better solution would be to make the entire PSTN a fully audited domain where we only let people participate after a reasonable amount of vetting, and we maintain the ability to accurately track down and stop bad actors when they do make it past those protections. If we choose not to do that, at some point one of the big tech corporations will manage to get enough of a network going on their own proprietary equivalent service so that everyone else has to join or be left out. And PSTN will die. And we'll have a corporate overlord.
- unsignedint 4y ago
  I can see where you're coming from, and I agree that it would be ideal if the system were better audited. If that were the case, I wouldn't have much to complain about. However, I'm not sure if things are actually improving with PSTN. In fact, it seems like the situation is getting worse and worse. My frustration stems from my lack of trust in the system, especially considering the high level of noise to ratio in PSTN. To me, the calls don't hold much meaning anymore, and it's frustrating that I receive so many scam calls - maybe only 1 out of 50 calls are legitimate.
strus 4y ago
You can do that if you want, at least on iPhones, but for sure on Android too. You can automatically drop calls from unknown numbers - on iPhone you just get the notification with the number that was calling you and that's all.

thesis 4y ago

Great until the hospital or police or your kids friends parents are trying to contact you.

unsignedint 4y ago
But then, how can you even tell if these are legit calls to begin with? If that "kids friends parents" know you enough to call you, wouldn't you have exchanged your phone number to begin with? Perhaps for the police and hospitals (or any public safety) can perhaps have additional indicators (provided they aren't spoofed) that can be automatically whitelisted.

rootusrootus 4y ago

Since I expect to sometimes get perfectly valid calls from numbers I've never communicated with in the past, I think a better solution would be to make the entire PSTN a fully audited domain where we only let people participate after a reasonable amount of vetting, and we maintain the ability to accurately track down and stop bad actors when they do make it past those protections. If we choose not to do that, at some point one of the big tech corporations will manage to get enough of a network going on their own proprietary equivalent service so that everyone else has to join or be left out. And PSTN will die. And we'll have a corporate overlord.

unsignedint 4y ago
I can see where you're coming from, and I agree that it would be ideal if the system were better audited. If that were the case, I wouldn't have much to complain about. However, I'm not sure if things are actually improving with PSTN. In fact, it seems like the situation is getting worse and worse. My frustration stems from my lack of trust in the system, especially considering the high level of noise to ratio in PSTN. To me, the calls don't hold much meaning anymore, and it's frustrating that I receive so many scam calls - maybe only 1 out of 50 calls are legitimate.

strus 4y ago

You can do that if you want, at least on iPhones, but for sure on Android too. You can automatically drop calls from unknown numbers - on iPhone you just get the notification with the number that was calling you and that's all.