5 ms·

This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

41 points by kungfudoi 12y ago

biff 12y ago
(from the article:) In fact, late last week, the CTIA wrote the FCC to tell it that the kind of blacklist approach taken by Foss’s company wouldn’t work. According to the lobbying group, it raises privacy concerns—and causes other problems too. “Even assuming an accurate database of blacklisted and whitelisted numbers can be compiled and maintained, the ease with which modern equipment and software can allow a caller to spoof a caller ID would present significant challenge,” the group says. I thought the phone companies had access to more information than caller ID for the calls they handle. Surely you can't fake caller ID details to dodge your phone bill? I'd love it if they'd give out a star code we could all dial after a call we didn't want to receive that would, if enough people did it, disallow future calls from that entity from reaching any phone line for which a customer has requested the blocking of calls reported as bothersome. No exemptions for charities or politicians either.
- jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
  So perhaps the CTIA would welcome FCC intervention to prevent the spoofing of caller ID as well? :)
  - sdramsey00 12y ago
    see this - http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing Bad actors are always going to act bad. Especially now that anybody, anywhere in the world can get cheap calls to the US.
- tinfoilman 12y ago
  Telecoms guy here. Firstly CLI blocking is easy to get around. Faking CLI is very easy. There is a field within SIP that is refereed to as P-assert. The idea is that this field always contains the billable number. However I know of at least 3 sip carriers you could sign up today with, have numbers within 10 minutes and they allow you to put ANY CLI and P-assert. Then you can bridge in to the TDM and almost untraceable. CLI faking is very common. There is a requirement in the UK that no calls gets in to the network without a p-assert but the network is to complex these days, there is always a way to get a call in with what ever information you want We have been working on a blacklisting service as well. we have 2 types, the personalized white and black list (so a parent can have a white list for their kids phone): i think i agree with the FCC that global block lists are a bad idea (too easy to get someones number blocked for lulz). The second looks up the CLI and checks a number of those "who is calling me sites" if the number is know for spam it does not get to the phone and starts reading the comments back to them about their number (cli will get round this). Both ways have issues. The reason I bring this up is because we become an MVNO and in turn run our own sim cards. This meant that we could have had the blacklist/whitelist without messing with the call flow to much. This also allowed you to dial 9 to block the last number that called you was sexy but meh too much work to run an MVNO and just no money in it. We will see. Lots of changes will be happening in telecoms in the next 5-10 years. webRTC could flip the existing telecoms models on their heads, if only someone could get some traction. Ramble Ramble, i rare have anything to say :/
  - mtmail 12y ago
    Phone systems are also global. You create legislation and fines for not setting that value, but calls from legacy systems around the world still have to be supported. Or has anybody ever tried to call a number and got a "sorry, your phone is too old, you need to upgrade" response?
    - gallerytungsten 12y ago
      I used to have this great little compact cell phone made by Sony. At some point, it just stopped making calls, and Sprint's explanation was that their network no longer supported this phone.
    - tinfoilman 12y ago
      that would be funny, alas the only issue we have these days is "This call is not supported from a rotary dial phone" In all my years I have only had 1 customer still using a rotary
nmeofthestate 12y ago
People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replaced with Microsoft Lync phones - now I get spam phonecalls at work.
- mtmail 12y ago
  Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.
  - bradleyankrom 12y ago
    iOS give the user the ability to block a phone number, which I usually do when an unknown number calls. Like a commenter above, my process is reject and google, with the last step almost always being to block the number. I don't know how much good that does, though, because it's pretty easy for a company to work with a pool of numbers, so if I block one I can't necessarily block them all.
    - GordonS 12y ago
      Android also lets you block numbers. You can also register them as spam numbers, so any unsolicited SMS messages go into a spam folder. Not sure how much of a problem this is in the US, but here in the UK I almost daily get texts from PPI claim companies, dodgy law firms and the like.
      - bradleyankrom 12y ago
        I think spammy text messages have become a significant issue for consumers in the US -- at least on T-Mobile (my carrier). Around the holidays, I was getting half a dozen obviously junk/spammy/malicious text messages with links to .rus. It's died down considerably over the last couple of weeks, but I still receive them every few days. At least in TMO's case, part of the problem was that the messages weren't coming from reportable phone numbers, they were being sent via TMO's antiquated email infrastructure.
chatman 12y ago
The tone of the article sounded like a marketing blog post for Nomorobo (or whatever his company is called).
tmaly 12y ago
Its is funny seeing one of your college friends on a wired article. Aaron is a good guy.
snarfy 12y ago
When I had a land line, I changed my recorded message to the three tones and "We're sorry, the number cannot be completed as dialed" message and eliminated pretty much all spam calls.
- Vendan 12y ago
  Hah, I did that, though it was just the tones and then a normal voicemail message. The robodial stuff at the time just listened for them, so it was quite effective.
  - jimktrains2 12y ago
    In case anyone was curious, they're called Special Information Tones[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones
Gargoyle888 12y ago
There is a technical solution to this. Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash was created to stop email spam but is equally valid for phone calls. It /could/ be fully implemented by your phone carrier.
- teddyh 12y ago
  If it is “equally valid”, why didn’t it succeed in stopping spam? Is the reason it failed maybe equally valid when applied to phones?
  - Gargoyle888 12y ago
    My guess is that - with email, both the sender and the receiver must be using clients that are capable of negotiating the challenge-response wall. Interestingly, with phone service, the recipient doesn't need anything (other than to tell their phone provider to turn it on if it's provided as an option.) Of course, this doesn't completely answer your question but it does mean that the decision and implementation of the technology needed to provide this kind of wall is in the hands of phone companies rather than the unruly mass of ignorant individuals who use email. But then, the phone companies who could implement such a scheme probably don't have a financial incentive to do so.
deanclatworthy 12y ago
Have we really reached the point where a reputable publication liked Wired magazine is using clickbait titles?
- morganvachon 12y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. I almost reflexively avoided the link because of the title's phrasing.
wnevets 12y ago
Google voice blocks most of this crap for me. Much like gmail, Google knows when something is spam before it ever reaches me.
sdramsey00 12y ago
Having managed the "global black list" for a major VoIP company (millions of subscribers) I can tell you it does make customers happy. However ... if you implement one you will inadvertently block valid calls. The FCC and big phone companies are correct about that. It's just not possible for someone like AT&T to take the risk. Real life problems you will see and have to deal with: - blocking of valid calls from legitimate voice broadcasts (i.e. schools / municipalites) - managing trouble tickets from other phone companies opening tickets constantly for "blocking the call" - managing trouble tickets from customers about not getting calls they should have - how to deal with call attempts that do not provide proper signaling information (i.e. "anonymous" as the actual caller ID and not using RPID, PAI, or SS7 appropriately)
ianetaylor 12y ago
+1 for using Google Voice. They catch most spam and call screening gets the rest. Only close friends have my actual cell number.

41 points by kungfudoi 12y ago

biff 12y ago

(from the article:) In fact, late last week, the CTIA wrote the FCC to tell it that the kind of blacklist approach taken by Foss’s company wouldn’t work. According to the lobbying group, it raises privacy concerns—and causes other problems too. “Even assuming an accurate database of blacklisted and whitelisted numbers can be compiled and maintained, the ease with which modern equipment and software can allow a caller to spoof a caller ID would present significant challenge,” the group says. I thought the phone companies had access to more information than caller ID for the calls they handle. Surely you can't fake caller ID details to dodge your phone bill? I'd love it if they'd give out a star code we could all dial after a call we didn't want to receive that would, if enough people did it, disallow future calls from that entity from reaching any phone line for which a customer has requested the blocking of calls reported as bothersome. No exemptions for charities or politicians either.

jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
So perhaps the CTIA would welcome FCC intervention to prevent the spoofing of caller ID as well? :)
- sdramsey00 12y ago
  see this - http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing Bad actors are always going to act bad. Especially now that anybody, anywhere in the world can get cheap calls to the US.
tinfoilman 12y ago
Telecoms guy here. Firstly CLI blocking is easy to get around. Faking CLI is very easy. There is a field within SIP that is refereed to as P-assert. The idea is that this field always contains the billable number. However I know of at least 3 sip carriers you could sign up today with, have numbers within 10 minutes and they allow you to put ANY CLI and P-assert. Then you can bridge in to the TDM and almost untraceable. CLI faking is very common. There is a requirement in the UK that no calls gets in to the network without a p-assert but the network is to complex these days, there is always a way to get a call in with what ever information you want We have been working on a blacklisting service as well. we have 2 types, the personalized white and black list (so a parent can have a white list for their kids phone): i think i agree with the FCC that global block lists are a bad idea (too easy to get someones number blocked for lulz). The second looks up the CLI and checks a number of those "who is calling me sites" if the number is know for spam it does not get to the phone and starts reading the comments back to them about their number (cli will get round this). Both ways have issues. The reason I bring this up is because we become an MVNO and in turn run our own sim cards. This meant that we could have had the blacklist/whitelist without messing with the call flow to much. This also allowed you to dial 9 to block the last number that called you was sexy but meh too much work to run an MVNO and just no money in it. We will see. Lots of changes will be happening in telecoms in the next 5-10 years. webRTC could flip the existing telecoms models on their heads, if only someone could get some traction. Ramble Ramble, i rare have anything to say :/
- mtmail 12y ago
  Phone systems are also global. You create legislation and fines for not setting that value, but calls from legacy systems around the world still have to be supported. Or has anybody ever tried to call a number and got a "sorry, your phone is too old, you need to upgrade" response?
  - gallerytungsten 12y ago
    I used to have this great little compact cell phone made by Sony. At some point, it just stopped making calls, and Sprint's explanation was that their network no longer supported this phone.
  - tinfoilman 12y ago
    that would be funny, alas the only issue we have these days is "This call is not supported from a rotary dial phone" In all my years I have only had 1 customer still using a rotary

nmeofthestate 12y ago

People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replaced with Microsoft Lync phones - now I get spam phonecalls at work.

mtmail 12y ago
Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.
- bradleyankrom 12y ago
  iOS give the user the ability to block a phone number, which I usually do when an unknown number calls. Like a commenter above, my process is reject and google, with the last step almost always being to block the number. I don't know how much good that does, though, because it's pretty easy for a company to work with a pool of numbers, so if I block one I can't necessarily block them all.
  - GordonS 12y ago
    Android also lets you block numbers. You can also register them as spam numbers, so any unsolicited SMS messages go into a spam folder. Not sure how much of a problem this is in the US, but here in the UK I almost daily get texts from PPI claim companies, dodgy law firms and the like.
    - bradleyankrom 12y ago
      I think spammy text messages have become a significant issue for consumers in the US -- at least on T-Mobile (my carrier). Around the holidays, I was getting half a dozen obviously junk/spammy/malicious text messages with links to .rus. It's died down considerably over the last couple of weeks, but I still receive them every few days. At least in TMO's case, part of the problem was that the messages weren't coming from reportable phone numbers, they were being sent via TMO's antiquated email infrastructure.

chatman 12y ago

The tone of the article sounded like a marketing blog post for Nomorobo (or whatever his company is called).

tmaly 12y ago

Its is funny seeing one of your college friends on a wired article. Aaron is a good guy.

snarfy 12y ago

When I had a land line, I changed my recorded message to the three tones and "We're sorry, the number cannot be completed as dialed" message and eliminated pretty much all spam calls.

Vendan 12y ago
Hah, I did that, though it was just the tones and then a normal voicemail message. The robodial stuff at the time just listened for them, so it was quite effective.
- jimktrains2 12y ago
  In case anyone was curious, they're called Special Information Tones[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

Gargoyle888 12y ago

There is a technical solution to this. Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash was created to stop email spam but is equally valid for phone calls. It /could/ be fully implemented by your phone carrier.

teddyh 12y ago
If it is “equally valid”, why didn’t it succeed in stopping spam? Is the reason it failed maybe equally valid when applied to phones?
- Gargoyle888 12y ago
  My guess is that - with email, both the sender and the receiver must be using clients that are capable of negotiating the challenge-response wall. Interestingly, with phone service, the recipient doesn't need anything (other than to tell their phone provider to turn it on if it's provided as an option.) Of course, this doesn't completely answer your question but it does mean that the decision and implementation of the technology needed to provide this kind of wall is in the hands of phone companies rather than the unruly mass of ignorant individuals who use email. But then, the phone companies who could implement such a scheme probably don't have a financial incentive to do so.

deanclatworthy 12y ago

Have we really reached the point where a reputable publication liked Wired magazine is using clickbait titles?

morganvachon 12y ago
I was wondering the same thing. I almost reflexively avoided the link because of the title's phrasing.

wnevets 12y ago

Google voice blocks most of this crap for me. Much like gmail, Google knows when something is spam before it ever reaches me.

sdramsey00 12y ago

Having managed the "global black list" for a major VoIP company (millions of subscribers) I can tell you it does make customers happy. However ... if you implement one you will inadvertently block valid calls. The FCC and big phone companies are correct about that. It's just not possible for someone like AT&T to take the risk. Real life problems you will see and have to deal with: - blocking of valid calls from legitimate voice broadcasts (i.e. schools / municipalites) - managing trouble tickets from other phone companies opening tickets constantly for "blocking the call" - managing trouble tickets from customers about not getting calls they should have - how to deal with call attempts that do not provide proper signaling information (i.e. "anonymous" as the actual caller ID and not using RPID, PAI, or SS7 appropriately)

ianetaylor 12y ago

+1 for using Google Voice. They catch most spam and call screening gets the rest. Only close friends have my actual cell number.