5 ms·

> It isn't clear why it took the FCC roughly 20 months to move from the initial warnings to cutting the companies off I'd like to know too. I am sure that spam

> It isn't clear why it took the FCC roughly 20 months to move from the initial warnings to cutting the companies off I'd like to know too. I am sure that spammers will try every delay tactic in the book, and while I am glad to hear that a deadline is approaching I am not pleased to learn that they were able to buy 20 months of time over the last deadline with a low-effort windows print test page. At this rate, actual lawyer tactics will buy them 20 years of delays for them and spam for us.

Maken 3y ago
I'm not sure they are even trying to buy time. Some of those appear like the people in charge did not even understand what they were being asked for.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  Playing Dumb is the easiest and oldest strategy in the book. Most kids figure it out before they learn to speak. I am sure that a few of them are genuinely clueless, but at some point we have to cut them off to get their attention and I don't see how 20 months will help over 2, not when the ask is "make a plan."
elil17 3y ago
From the article: "Finally, he noted that the FCC might have been hesitant to take an action that could harm customers. "One reason to be hesitant is that it's not just the bad actor network that gets cut off," Feld said. "Any innocent customers get cut off. This really goes against the entire mindset of the FCC. Generally, the FCC is about making sure that networks stay operational and that calls go through."
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  A network drowning in spam is not operational. Drawing out the timeline doesn't help.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > network drowning in spam is not operational The present telco network is very much operational. We don’t need an extremist response to spam from the FCC that causes making a phone call to acquire ‘aml attributes.
    - rblatz 3y ago
      It’s to the point people don’t answer their phones due to the massive amount of spam calls. The network is losing relevance due to the lack of regulation.
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        As someone who never picks up their phone unless it's scheduled prior, I can confirm that people like me exist.
      - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
        My wife has used manufacturer-provided settings to configure her iPhone to not even ring or give her a "missed call" notification when she gets a call from a number not in her contacts. It's not losing relevance, it's lost relevance so long ago that 5-year-old phones were designed with features that would win business from consumers who recognized that it was poorly regulated. An element of our younger siblings' (Gen Z) entire culture is a fear of/avoidance towards making and taking phone calls. Communication ecosystems have been built and crossed to the other side of the chicken-and-egg/network-effect hump l because POTS is so bad. The only people left with landlines that lack caller ID and 'suspicious caller' filtering are the elderly, where they're continuously preyed upon by spammers.
        flyinghamster 3y ago
        Not only that, but even when the landline has Caller ID, there's no guarantee that the numbers you see have any relation to who is actually calling you. Even worse, landlines charge you extra for the privilege of inaccurate Caller ID. When I finally ditched my landline and moved it over to VoIP, AT&T's monthly fee for CID was greater than the entire monthly cost of my VoIP provider. A shame, since if there was one thing the landline phone network was, it was reliable - in a way that cable can't even hope to match. Too bad that it got to be reliable for scammers as well.
- djbusby 3y ago
  And now, T-Mobile is basically marking any/all cannabis business as SPAM and in some cases blocking the calls entirely.
  - bragr 3y ago
    I wonder if that's a crackdown on cannabis, or if the cannabis industry is forced to use sketchy carriers.
    - jabroni_salad 3y ago
      They couldn't find any telcos willing to take cash. Luckily some fellas were willing to accept Steam gift cards.
  - dmitrygr 3y ago
    That sounds like a system working perfectly correctly. What is the issue?
    - openthc 3y ago
      The issue is that legit, licensed businesses -- calling each other to conduct lawful business (not spam, calling to discuss pricing on existing deals) and T-Mobile blocking the calls. So, for example, a Verizon client is calling a State enforcement officer who's device is T-Mobile -- now the licensee call cannot go through to communicate with their enforcement officer -- which can lead to bad things -- such as LEO at your door with dogs and guns.
  - j-bos 3y ago
    Some of the only spam messages I receive are ads for cannabis shops. I've never even touched a plant.
  - openthc 3y ago
    Not just T-Mobile; Twilio is also (selectively) hostile to cannabis. T-Mobile blocks (or tags as spam) 100s of legitimate, licensed businesses. From the FCC: "Universal service is the principle that all Americans should have access to communications services" -- and Twilio, T-Mobile (and other providers) make selective choices which are against that policy.
- flyinghamster 3y ago
  "We can't cut them off because they have customers who are not bad actors" is a favorite way for bad-actor networks to stay in business. Whether it's things like Cernel some years back, or the bogus telcos that are set up for serving spam, making sure that there are a few at least seemingly legitimate customers to use as hostages is a great way to bully the rest of the world into carrying your spam.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
Same reason the FCC received so many of these weird submissions: Everyone knew they wouldn't move quickly - if at all.
bhuga 3y ago
From working at a CLEC (competing local exchange carrier) in the 90's: This mindset goes back to the AT&T antitrust breakup. It was decided that phone companies would not be allowed to reject each other's traffic, because the larger ILEC's (incumbent local exchange carrier) would find reasons and excuses to cut off the CLEC's. This would be more or less a death penalty to those businesses, and the ILEC's had exactly zero reason to want the CLEC's to exist at all, so there was a lot of fear and rulemaking to prevent this. Fast forward 30 years and the details have changed, but the mindset is largely the same. The fear is still quite real, and that's why phone spam isn't treated like email spam. If i.e. verizon cuts off incoming calls from a random CLEC in a midwestern state, that business is just over, done, that's that. It would be impossible to restore the business after your customers left, which they would do more or less instantly; there's no court remedy that would fix it. Great pains are taken to ensure that such an action is legitimate. The rules are oriented around the idea that the ILEC's were evil antitrust actors, and the plucky CLEC's are the competition we need to protect from big ILEC's heavy hand. In a world of spam, that mindset is backward. And that mindset is changing, but because of the reasonable concerns, it's taking longer than we expect.

Maken 3y ago

I'm not sure they are even trying to buy time. Some of those appear like the people in charge did not even understand what they were being asked for.

jjoonathan 3y ago
Playing Dumb is the easiest and oldest strategy in the book. Most kids figure it out before they learn to speak. I am sure that a few of them are genuinely clueless, but at some point we have to cut them off to get their attention and I don't see how 20 months will help over 2, not when the ask is "make a plan."

elil17 3y ago

From the article: "Finally, he noted that the FCC might have been hesitant to take an action that could harm customers. "One reason to be hesitant is that it's not just the bad actor network that gets cut off," Feld said. "Any innocent customers get cut off. This really goes against the entire mindset of the FCC. Generally, the FCC is about making sure that networks stay operational and that calls go through."

jjoonathan 3y ago
A network drowning in spam is not operational. Drawing out the timeline doesn't help.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > network drowning in spam is not operational The present telco network is very much operational. We don’t need an extremist response to spam from the FCC that causes making a phone call to acquire ‘aml attributes.
  - rblatz 3y ago
    It’s to the point people don’t answer their phones due to the massive amount of spam calls. The network is losing relevance due to the lack of regulation.
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      As someone who never picks up their phone unless it's scheduled prior, I can confirm that people like me exist.
    - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
      My wife has used manufacturer-provided settings to configure her iPhone to not even ring or give her a "missed call" notification when she gets a call from a number not in her contacts. It's not losing relevance, it's lost relevance so long ago that 5-year-old phones were designed with features that would win business from consumers who recognized that it was poorly regulated. An element of our younger siblings' (Gen Z) entire culture is a fear of/avoidance towards making and taking phone calls. Communication ecosystems have been built and crossed to the other side of the chicken-and-egg/network-effect hump l because POTS is so bad. The only people left with landlines that lack caller ID and 'suspicious caller' filtering are the elderly, where they're continuously preyed upon by spammers.
      - flyinghamster 3y ago
        Not only that, but even when the landline has Caller ID, there's no guarantee that the numbers you see have any relation to who is actually calling you. Even worse, landlines charge you extra for the privilege of inaccurate Caller ID. When I finally ditched my landline and moved it over to VoIP, AT&T's monthly fee for CID was greater than the entire monthly cost of my VoIP provider. A shame, since if there was one thing the landline phone network was, it was reliable - in a way that cable can't even hope to match. Too bad that it got to be reliable for scammers as well.
djbusby 3y ago
And now, T-Mobile is basically marking any/all cannabis business as SPAM and in some cases blocking the calls entirely.
- bragr 3y ago
  I wonder if that's a crackdown on cannabis, or if the cannabis industry is forced to use sketchy carriers.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    They couldn't find any telcos willing to take cash. Luckily some fellas were willing to accept Steam gift cards.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  That sounds like a system working perfectly correctly. What is the issue?
  - openthc 3y ago
    The issue is that legit, licensed businesses -- calling each other to conduct lawful business (not spam, calling to discuss pricing on existing deals) and T-Mobile blocking the calls. So, for example, a Verizon client is calling a State enforcement officer who's device is T-Mobile -- now the licensee call cannot go through to communicate with their enforcement officer -- which can lead to bad things -- such as LEO at your door with dogs and guns.
- j-bos 3y ago
  Some of the only spam messages I receive are ads for cannabis shops. I've never even touched a plant.
- openthc 3y ago
  Not just T-Mobile; Twilio is also (selectively) hostile to cannabis. T-Mobile blocks (or tags as spam) 100s of legitimate, licensed businesses. From the FCC: "Universal service is the principle that all Americans should have access to communications services" -- and Twilio, T-Mobile (and other providers) make selective choices which are against that policy.
flyinghamster 3y ago
"We can't cut them off because they have customers who are not bad actors" is a favorite way for bad-actor networks to stay in business. Whether it's things like Cernel some years back, or the bogus telcos that are set up for serving spam, making sure that there are a few at least seemingly legitimate customers to use as hostages is a great way to bully the rest of the world into carrying your spam.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

Same reason the FCC received so many of these weird submissions: Everyone knew they wouldn't move quickly - if at all.

bhuga 3y ago

From working at a CLEC (competing local exchange carrier) in the 90's: This mindset goes back to the AT&T antitrust breakup. It was decided that phone companies would not be allowed to reject each other's traffic, because the larger ILEC's (incumbent local exchange carrier) would find reasons and excuses to cut off the CLEC's. This would be more or less a death penalty to those businesses, and the ILEC's had exactly zero reason to want the CLEC's to exist at all, so there was a lot of fear and rulemaking to prevent this. Fast forward 30 years and the details have changed, but the mindset is largely the same. The fear is still quite real, and that's why phone spam isn't treated like email spam. If i.e. verizon cuts off incoming calls from a random CLEC in a midwestern state, that business is just over, done, that's that. It would be impossible to restore the business after your customers left, which they would do more or less instantly; there's no court remedy that would fix it. Great pains are taken to ensure that such an action is legitimate. The rules are oriented around the idea that the ILEC's were evil antitrust actors, and the plucky CLEC's are the competition we need to protect from big ILEC's heavy hand. In a world of spam, that mindset is backward. And that mindset is changing, but because of the reasonable concerns, it's taking longer than we expect.