3 ms·

Phones need a "report spam" just like email. Phone companies or device manufacturers should use those reports to trace bad actors.

dredmorbius 13y ago
Note that email doesn't have a "report spam" functionality designed into it (in the form of RFCs), though email providers often offer their own version to their users (most are far more opaque when it comes to reporting spam against their own systems). Reasons for this are diverse, but effectively, if you're a large email service provider, your users' satisfaction is a concern, spam is a large part of that, and the ability to leverage reports from many users to identify spam (and non-spam) sources is very useful. Telephony was designed in a far more innocent age, and was largely protected against the abuse which ran rampant in email (and Usenet) on account of the costs associated with network access and in actually making calls. Now that this is rapidly approaching email costs (effectively nil at the margin once you've got the infrastructure set up), this is changing. One consequence is that voice service is rapidly becoming useless due to abuse. I've rightgraded from a smartphone to a dumbphone for a number of reasons, but one feature I particularly miss from my Android device was the call screening app: deny access to unknown or blocked numbers, and allow priority access only to specifically whitelisted callers. Why should I allow myself to be interrupted by any one of the 7 billion people on this planet, or worse, programmed robots which call me without any regard for what I'm doing? I'm hoping for features such as this to make it into dumb phones soon. My other thought is that conventional telephony (both POTS and mobile) is going the way of the dodo -- VOIP over wireless broadband with only very occasional fallback to direct connections.
- Symmetry 13y ago
  I wonder if it would actually be legal for a phone company to implement a spam filtering service the way an email company can. Phones services are a much more regulated industry than email is.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Offering tools to put the subscriber in much greater control over their device would (and IMO should) be offered. My frustration is that at present, I cannot do what I want without, take your pick: • Using a dumbphone with at best the ability to block (but not whitelist) specific numbers. • Using a smartphone, with all of the additional privacy invasion concerns involved. • Utilizing a service such as Google Voice, in which all of my phone traffic is routed through yet another NSA surveillance partner (willing or otherwise is left unspecified). • Ditching conventional voice comms for an alternative (which I haven't yet even identified) that actually does offer the filtering tools I'd like. This would also have the effect of greatly limiting my general connectivity, though in the present universe this might not be all bad. My suspicion is that a high-end and/or technical solution which does this will emerge. As either option is selective to generally more attractive and upscale markets, the conventional telephone network (wired and cell) will die: it will be comprised increasingly of down-market subscribers, less attractive to both telcos and others who might be interested in reaching them, and cut off from the NeuPhone network (if it weren't that would itself be a disadvantage of the NeuPhone, though some bridges might in fact persist). It's a similar dynamic to how first AM, then FM radio have increasingly become wastelands as those with means switched first to cassette CD players, then iPhone adapters, as well as satellite and Internet radio. Or Facebook's overtaking of an established social networking market by offering a more attractive network (the in-crowd of Harvard, Ivies, Stanford, and selective colleges for the first few years of the network). Or of broadcast TV's increasing fall in light of both deferred-viewing options through DVRs and increasingly on-demand video content over the Internet -- why accept QVC when you can watch Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, or even YouTube, bypassing schedules, advertising, and hours of crap?

dredmorbius 13y ago

Note that email doesn't have a "report spam" functionality designed into it (in the form of RFCs), though email providers often offer their own version to their users (most are far more opaque when it comes to reporting spam against their own systems). Reasons for this are diverse, but effectively, if you're a large email service provider, your users' satisfaction is a concern, spam is a large part of that, and the ability to leverage reports from many users to identify spam (and non-spam) sources is very useful. Telephony was designed in a far more innocent age, and was largely protected against the abuse which ran rampant in email (and Usenet) on account of the costs associated with network access and in actually making calls. Now that this is rapidly approaching email costs (effectively nil at the margin once you've got the infrastructure set up), this is changing. One consequence is that voice service is rapidly becoming useless due to abuse. I've rightgraded from a smartphone to a dumbphone for a number of reasons, but one feature I particularly miss from my Android device was the call screening app: deny access to unknown or blocked numbers, and allow priority access only to specifically whitelisted callers. Why should I allow myself to be interrupted by any one of the 7 billion people on this planet, or worse, programmed robots which call me without any regard for what I'm doing? I'm hoping for features such as this to make it into dumb phones soon. My other thought is that conventional telephony (both POTS and mobile) is going the way of the dodo -- VOIP over wireless broadband with only very occasional fallback to direct connections.

Symmetry 13y ago
I wonder if it would actually be legal for a phone company to implement a spam filtering service the way an email company can. Phones services are a much more regulated industry than email is.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Offering tools to put the subscriber in much greater control over their device would (and IMO should) be offered. My frustration is that at present, I cannot do what I want without, take your pick: • Using a dumbphone with at best the ability to block (but not whitelist) specific numbers. • Using a smartphone, with all of the additional privacy invasion concerns involved. • Utilizing a service such as Google Voice, in which all of my phone traffic is routed through yet another NSA surveillance partner (willing or otherwise is left unspecified). • Ditching conventional voice comms for an alternative (which I haven't yet even identified) that actually does offer the filtering tools I'd like. This would also have the effect of greatly limiting my general connectivity, though in the present universe this might not be all bad. My suspicion is that a high-end and/or technical solution which does this will emerge. As either option is selective to generally more attractive and upscale markets, the conventional telephone network (wired and cell) will die: it will be comprised increasingly of down-market subscribers, less attractive to both telcos and others who might be interested in reaching them, and cut off from the NeuPhone network (if it weren't that would itself be a disadvantage of the NeuPhone, though some bridges might in fact persist). It's a similar dynamic to how first AM, then FM radio have increasingly become wastelands as those with means switched first to cassette CD players, then iPhone adapters, as well as satellite and Internet radio. Or Facebook's overtaking of an established social networking market by offering a more attractive network (the in-crowd of Harvard, Ivies, Stanford, and selective colleges for the first few years of the network). Or of broadcast TV's increasing fall in light of both deferred-viewing options through DVRs and increasingly on-demand video content over the Internet -- why accept QVC when you can watch Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, or even YouTube, bypassing schedules, advertising, and hours of crap?