[HN Gopher] FCC allows blocking traffic from robocall-friendly p... ___________________________________________________________________ FCC allows blocking traffic from robocall-friendly provider One Owl Author : kimi Score : 175 points Date : 2023-08-02 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (docs.fcc.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (docs.fcc.gov) | jjtheblunt wrote: | Wow: the FCC publicly shames the perpetrator including LinkedIn | URL of the person. That's new behavior and might actually be a | decent deterrent. | | ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/aashay-khandelwal-ab6179238 ) | WirelessGigabit wrote: | As they should. Companies are run by people. People should be | accountable. The CEO is accountable. | mrandish wrote: | I've looked into the history of some of these perps before and | I'm always shocked at how many chances they've been given to | stop being shady-as-fuck scammers and it's almost like they're | addicted to it. So yeah, they deserve whatever the FCC, FTC or | whoever is dishing out (and probably much more). | | Looking through this docket, these assholes have playing | stalling games for _years_ and they STILL aren 't blocked yet. | They get at least 14 days to respond, then the FCC has to | decide they're still doing it, then it'll take another 30 days | for the block to be mandatory. | | > _One Owl will have at least 14 days to respond to the Initial | Determination Order. Id. SS 64.1200(n)(5)(ii)-(iii). > If One | Owl's response to that order is insufficient or One Owl | continues to allow substantially similar traffic onto the U.S. | network, then the Bureau will publish a Final Determination | Order in EB Docket No. 22-174 finding that One Owl is not in | compliance with section 64.1200(n)(5). Id. SS | 64.1200(n)(5)(iii). > In the event that the Bureau issues a | Final Determination Order in this matter, pursuant to section | 64.1200(n)(6) of the Commission's Rules, all U.S.-based voice | service providers shall be required to block One Owl's traffic. | Id. SS 64.1200(n)(6). Providers must monitor EB Docket No. | 22-174 and initiate blocking beginning 30 days from the release | date of the Final Determination Order._ | dmvdoug wrote: | They had the Instagram for one of his accomplices. Awkward. | stock_toaster wrote: | Not just robocall friendly apparently, but a serial offender, | with new company names but the same behavior. | | ref: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-395670A1.txt | allanrbo wrote: | A little bit off topic, I know, but I love how the FCC is using a | plain text file here. No nonsense! | sgustard wrote: | Change the file extension to pdf, there's a pdf version, same | for doc. | Nifty3929 wrote: | There could be an unfortunate consequence of this: picking and | choosing who's traffic to accept. Telcos generally operate as | common carriers, meaning they have to accept traffic from | anybody. Obviously, that doesn't seem right when we don't like | that traffic. But imagine if telcos could start deciding on their | own which businesses they were willing to work with or deliver | calls to. What if they could just cut off your business because | they don't like what you're selling. | | I'm not saying we're on the way there - this doesn't have to be a | slippery slope. But it's something to keep in mind. | jimbob45 wrote: | It's high time we start prosecuting cold robocalls as | harassment. We don't need to fundamentally change the rules of | the system to keep around pests that don't provide a useful or | necessary service. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | How is this even relevant? This is specifically the FCC making | the determination that One Owl sucks, not other telecoms. | cirrus3 wrote: | That's why the FCC is there isn't it? I don't see how this | leads to telcos making that choice on their own | babypuncher wrote: | You're right, which is why they needed the FCC to step in and | explicitly allow Telcos to block this specific bad actor. The | FCC exists to ensure all the Telcos play fairly, so it's up to | them when actions like this are allowed to be taken. | irl_chad wrote: | How often does the FCC allow blocking traffic? | [deleted] | lesuorac wrote: | Apparently a few times a year starting from 2021. | | https://www.fcc.gov/robocall-facilitators-must-cease-and-des... | jjoonathan wrote: | Years ago I heard that SHAKEN/STIR were being implemented and | would allow robocall blocking. I still get tons of robocalls. | I've had this explained as "SHAKEN/STIR were the crypto that will | eventually allow blocking, but the blocking will happen later." | Is it later? Is this the start of the actual blocking? | m463 wrote: | I get calls nowadays with caller id telemarketer or suspected | spam or similar, is this what it does? | chaorace wrote: | A little yes, a little no. Your phone knows when it's | receiving a call from an unauthenticated number, but it would | be very unreliable to use this metric alone to decide when a | call is untrustworthy. My understanding is that carrier | telemetry is what drives the final yes/no verdict. | i_am_jl wrote: | It has started. SHAKEN/STIR are what gives the FCC the ability | to trace the source of these calls backwards and hold | responsible the gateways acting in bad faith. | lotsofpulp wrote: | I stopped getting spam phone calls months ago. Something | definitely changed in the last year, or maybe 2 years. | | It was ridiculously often in 2020/2021/sometime in 2022 | maybe? | mustacheemperor wrote: | Hasn't changed for me. I am constantly pestered by spoofed- | local-number spam calls at both my personal number and my | work number, in two different area codes. My job requires | me to be available on the phone so it's particularly | frustrating because of how often I have to pick them up | just to hear about a warranty on yet another car I've never | owned. | lotsofpulp wrote: | That's a bummer. I am using ATT's mobile service, on an | iPhone. Maybe different carriers/phones have different | implementations? | mustacheemperor wrote: | Also ATT/iPhone. I think Google Voice (my work line) | routes through a different network and I do think I get | more spam calls there. | squeaky-clean wrote: | I've gotten 6 spam calls so far today. | sq_ wrote: | Similar experience here. I got absolutely ridiculous | numbers of spam calls up until maybe early 2022? Now I get | almost none in comparison. Like 2-3 a month as opposed to | tons every week before. | shrubble wrote: | This method basically has not yet been used much, but it is in | place. | | The dangerous issue is that if a spam operator has 33% legit | traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good traffic | with it, or what? Kill the traffic... innocent people harmed, | or leave the traffic, spam continues. | groby_b wrote: | [flagged] | dang wrote: | You can't do this here, and we ban accounts that post like | this, so please don't do it again. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | cameldrv wrote: | You tell the operator to cut off the spammers, and if they | don't do it in a reasonable time you cut off the operator. | INGSOCIALITE wrote: | If a vpn has 33% legit traffic do you ban every IP range of | their service? | genmud wrote: | Yes | yetanotherloss wrote: | [dead] | barney54 wrote: | Kill the traffic. The operator has to do a better job to stay | in business. | proto_lambda wrote: | The operator's business is not the concern here. | genmud wrote: | If a bank is comprised of 66% of their customers being | narcos, the bank gets shut down. | | You don't get to facilitate in illegal shit and hide | behind your legitimate customers. Likewise, if you are a | customer of theirs and know they heavily transact with | illegal services, it's on you for getting blocked. | virtue3 wrote: | Naw they just get a slap on the wrists from the Feds and | move on. No jail time even. Now if you and I laundered | money to the Mexican drug cartels... | | "too big to jail because they are too big to fail" | | https://www.investopedia.com/stock- | analysis/2013/investing-n... | jfengel wrote: | Their legitimate customers are. If that means getting the | operator to clean up their act, so much the better. If | they won't, then at some point their legitimate customers | will suffer. | | And will probably have to jump to a more expensive | provider who isn't subsidizing them with spammer revenue. | gorkish wrote: | > The dangerous issue is that if a spam operator has 33% | legit traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good | traffic with it, or what? | | You are implying that "you" means the telco or FCC decides on | behalf of "everyone." That is not the correct viewpoint. If | the telcos are the common carrier, they dont get to decide. I | am the customer; I get to decide. Problem solved. No | additional regulation or debate is needed. This isn't hard. | JohnFen wrote: | > I am the customer; I get to decide. Problem solved. | | If only we actually had that ability. The best mechanism | available to me is what I do: if I get a call from a number | that isn't in my phone book, I don't answer it. | myself248 wrote: | If the spam calls have spoofed source numbers, the provider | should be within their rights to refuse the traffic | regardless of common carrier status. | | I am the customer and I would love to see the data of which | providers _originated_ each call that I'm about to answer. | That would make it trivial to set rules about which ones | don't even ring. But until I can have that data, I wish | they'd just drop the obvious junk. | gorkish wrote: | >I am the customer and I would love to see the data of | which providers _originated_ each call that I'm about to | answer. | | The telcos have this information, but they only usually | relay the CallerID (which is user-specified, ie | "spoofable") to the end user. ANI, RPID, and now | SHAKEN/STIR information which does identify the origin | and origin carrier are simply not passed to end users to | do anything with, or at least I have not been able to get | them to do it despite having capable interfaces. | robgibbons wrote: | Thus describes the incentive, and the onus, for the provider | to prevent spam on their network. | MiddleEndian wrote: | Kill the spam operator. | | Also end-users should get information from every hop, so we | can block whatever we want with full information, client- | side, uBlock-origin style. | mrandish wrote: | > if a spam operator has 33% legit traffic, do you kill the | spam operator and the good traffic with it, or what? | | Yes, we should with these long-time, serial offenders. Having | legit traffic is just a fig leaf cover for them anyway. Any | legit reseller clueless or negligent enough to accidentally | stumble into business with these guys will switch providers | as soon as their customer's calls stop connecting. | | Also, no real telecom providers are routing meaningful | amounts of traffic through these shady operations. Any legit | traffic on their networks is mostly coming from fly-by-night, | bottom-feeding telecom resellers in the same countries the | spam calls originate from. Any retail customers of those | resellers are probably paying ripoff prices for unreliable | per-day or per-call service anyway. It's not people with | normal pre-paid monthly service from any legit telco you've | ever heard of. | gorkish wrote: | SHAKEN/STIR are implemented but the providers have given no | tools to the end users to actually do anything actionable with | it. Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a | megacorp. | | The telcos might be a common carrier, but as the end user I | sure as shit should be able to block calls originating from | providers I see abuse from constantly. I'm looking RIGHT AT | YOU, TxtNow. | tjohns wrote: | > Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a | megacorp. | | Cell phones surface the SHAKEN/STIR attestation status to the | user via a checkmark in the telephone UI. | | If you want to programmatically act on that data to filter | calls... Android provides access to the attestation level via | the android.telecom.CallScreeningService API. (I can't speak | to what iOS provides.) For VoIP, many providers will also | either pass along the attestation level in the SIP headers or | by appending some text to the Caller ID string. | AdrianEGraphene wrote: | Neat. Sounds like I gotta explore what's available there | now. The parent comment's issue sounds like a pretty good | feature to add to an app... thx. | [deleted] | supertrope wrote: | We're still very early in the process. | | 1) Deploy caller ID signing. <--We are here. | | 2) Deploy policies to make inter-telco tracebacks easier and | increase liability for carrying too much spam. | | 3) Drop unsigned traffic and shutdown spam friendly portions of | the PSTN (analogous to open email relays). | | 4) Use the tracebacks and KYC to deter robocalling operations | from getting onboarded and ban current customers who are | robocalling. And keep them banned when they open new sockpuppet | accounts. It'll never be completely eliminated. | | 5) See 4. | | Two-thirds of PSTN traffic is unsigned. | https://transnexus.com/blog/2023/shaken-statistics-july/ | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | >In response to the FCC's enforcement action against Illum in | October 2021, the CEO and Director of Illum, Prince Anand | (Anand), who sometimes uses the alias "Frank Murphy," Prince | Anand Skype Chat, June 10, 2021 at 8:18:53 AM ("Frank Murphy" | introduces himself as Prince Anand) (on file at EB- | TCD-20-00030805) (Anand Skype Chat). created One Eye. Id. at | October 24, 2021 at 8:16:14 AM and 8:16:21 AM (Anand telling | Great Choice Telecom to expect a new sign up under the name "One | Eye" that day). | | > To deflect the FCC's scrutiny, Anand intended to keep his name | off One Eye's corporate documents. Id. at 7:40:25 AM, 8:11:13 AM, | 8:13:20 AM, 8:14:48 AM, 8:14:55 AM, 8:15:04 AM, 8:16:14 AM, | 8:55:50 AM, 9:01:49 AM, 9:02:21 AM, and 9:02:26 AM (Anand | explains that due to the Commission's cease-and-desist letter he | will "not be included in any companies" but will work "on the | backend [sic]"). | | > Kaushal Bhavsar, a director of Illum, became One Eye's CEO. One | Eye LLC Listing, Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n, Robocall Mitigation | Database (Oct. 26, 2021), | https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table... | (showing Bhavsar as CEO of One Eye); Illum Telecommunication, | https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last visited July 14, | 2023). | | > Aashay Khandelwal, the Human Resource Representative for Illum, | subsequently formed One Owl and became the CEO. See Illum | Telecommunication, https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last | visited July 14, 2023); see also One Owl Telecom Inc. Listing, | Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n, Robocall Mitigation Database (Apr. 25, | 2022), | https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table... | (showing Khandelwal as the CEO of One Owl). | | > Julya Barros, a seemingly close acquaintance of Anand, Compare | @illum_telecom, Twitter, | https://twitter.com/illum_telecom?lang=hi (as archived by Google | and last visited May 16, 2023) (screenshots on file at EB- | TCD-20-00030805), with Julya Barros (@julyabarross), Instagram, | http://www.instagram.com/julyabarross (last visited July 14, | 2023).became Vice President of Sales and Marketing at One Owl. | See Julya Barros, LinkedIn, https://ae.linkedin.com/in/julya- | barros-928008245 (last visited July 14, 2023) (screenshots on | file at EB-TCD-20-00030805). | | >One Owl and One Eye used the same IP address to conduct their | business. March ITG Subpoena Response, supra note 4. | | > One Owl and One Eye communicated under the same email domain, | @oneeyetelecom.com. Compare Incorp Services Interrogatories | Response at para. 15 (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (Incorp | Services Interrog.) (showing One Eye used the @oneeyetelecom.com | domain), with id. at para. 3 and Ex. A (on file at EB- | TCD-20-00030805) (showing One Owl used the @oneeyetelecom.com | domain). | | >The personnel connections between One Owl, One Eye, and Illum | are summarized in the table below. | | The FCC is just playing whack-a-mole as soon as it begins | enforcement on a company, the people involved just get together | with their buddies and form a new company. | | This will never work to curb robocalls. | | Instead, the US Government needs to do the following | | 1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of these | companies. If the company engages in facilitating robocalling, | the bond is forfeit | | 2. Criminal charges and enforcement against the agents of these | companies | | 3. Immigration action against the agents and associates of these | companies including deportation and permanent visa bans. | | Only then can the US government begin to combat this. Otherwise, | doing more of the same is going to be completely ineffective and | a waste of time and resources. | reaperducer wrote: | _1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of | these companies. If the company engages in facilitating | robocalling, the bond is forfeit_ | | This is how you get people on HN to start howling "regulatory | capture!" | mschuster91 wrote: | That used to be the case of the HN hivemind maybe three, four | years ago (just noticed, my account is over ten years old, | WTF). | | IMO, I think the general vibe here started to shift back with | the Jan 6th putsch attempt, and completely turned during the | Russian war: undeniable signs showing how far a situation can | escalate when malicious actors are left to roam free, and | that a truly free market requires at least some sort of | regulation as guardrails. | pessimizer wrote: | What does the FCC have to do with the mobility scooter | coup? | jjtheblunt wrote: | Why would outlaws obey the law and partake in the $10million 5 | year bond? | supertrope wrote: | No deposit no service. | jimmaswell wrote: | I assume you need some licensing to operate a telco and other | telcos will not accept your traffic without one. | sobkas wrote: | All you need is access to SS7/Delimeter, there are people | who will grant you that for a price. If you stick to | abusing users and do nothing that would anger telecoms you | are most of the time free to do what you want. | codetrotter wrote: | Robocalls, you say? | | https://youtu.be/YVrX767IkdI | | https://youtu.be/uIecyRCIFkI | RajT88 wrote: | Awesome. | | Now go after the timeshare companies. | mikeyouse wrote: | We've become so desensitized to spam and robocalls due to the | scale of the problem - but these should absolutely be treated as | attempted theft. If there were a gang going door to door trying | to con elderly or otherwise gullible people into giving them | thousands of dollars, there would be task forces formed and | police patrols on every block. Instead, since it happens over the | internet and on the phone, we give it benign names and treat it | like a minor hassle and let everyone fend for themselves. | | How did we become "okay" with having most of the communication | that reaches people be malicious? What is Federal law enforcement | doing? Why the hell hasn't the FCC nuked these companies' ability | to operate? Who is lobbying _for_ this shit? | Nextgrid wrote: | Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to solicit | votes, so why would they fight against themselves? | | A politician's job is to stay in power and work towards their | reelection, not make your life better. In some cases those | goals happen to align but that's merely coincidence and should | not be taken for granted. | | In this case, effective anti-robocall legislation would also | work against their own interests. | dragontamer wrote: | > Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to | solicit votes, so why would they fight against themselves? | | Say what you will, the 27th Amendment passed. (IE: makes it | constitutionally illegal for Representatives to give | themselves payraises immediately. They have to give pay- | raises for the _next_ congress, which means it may give a | pay-raise to the opponent if they lose the election). | | Politicians do, and have, been forced by the people to make | bad choices for themselves for the good of the country. And | its not like its an easy thing to pass a Constitutional | Amendment like the 27th. | | --------------- | | We also used to have very strong laws with regards to | campaign finance. It was actually our judges who took those | laws away in the Citizen's United case. | | But our politicians actually put those laws into place to | allow the people to trust them more during campaign finance | season. | | Etc. etc. Plenty of examples. All we need is to convince | enough people that a particular law is a good idea, and then | that law will happen. | joering2 wrote: | [flagged] | decremental wrote: | [dead] | tehwebguy wrote: | Weird how police are the most funded they've ever been (every | year going back like a hundred years with rare and negligible | exceptions) and yet they are so bad at stopping this alleged | crime wave. | capitainenemo wrote: | I think they're referring to California upping the cutoff | for shoplifting being a misdemeanor to $950. A quick search | found this (right leaning) source that might have been the | one they were reading. https://www.hoover.org/research/why- | shoplifting-now-de-facto... | | Police tend to spend a lot less time on misdemeanors for | obvious reasons, so makes sense why funding wouldn't impact | that much. | m-ee wrote: | Looting a couple handbags or iPhones easily gets you over | the felony limit, still no action. The police in the Bay | Area just really don't want to do their jobs unless | there's a gun involved. The law change provides a | convenient scapegoat but doesn't actually explain the | inaction. | takinola wrote: | After I moved states, I discovered a pretty effective anti-spam | call heuristic. If the call is coming from the same area code as | my phone number, it is most likely spam. | | It seems spam callers assume most calls will likely be from a | local number and so they initiate calls from the same area code | as the target. However, since the area code in my local area is | completely different from mine (since I moved), this tactic | actually backfires and acts as a pretty good spam signal. | phlakaton wrote: | Worse than that (but way more telling), sometimes it's the same | area code AND prefix. C'mon, man. | Johnny555 wrote: | I used to think that was a dumb move on the part of the | scammers, and probably would only be effective in a small | town where most of the people you know have the same | prefix... Then I realized that most of the successfully | scammed victims probably live in those small towns. | phlakaton wrote: | Great point! I hadn't thought about that. It's my cell that | gets hits like this, so the prefix is extra-irrelevant. | mplewis wrote: | On iOS, ExchangeBlocker helps block these calls: | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exchangeblocker/id1344628290 | pdq wrote: | Looks like their web site is offline now: | | https://www.oneowltelecom.com/ | | And the LinkedIn profile is gone: | | https://www.linkedin.com/company/one-owl-telecom-inc | downWidOutaFite wrote: | Biden's fcc is actually doing its job compared with Trump's anti | consumer Ajit Pai. | happytiger wrote: | Here here. It was amazing how much of a regulatory capture case | study that man was... | tomschlick wrote: | To be fair, Trump's FCC was pushing STIR/SHAKEN hard but it | takes years for the major telcos to implement and push it | downstream to all of the various SIP providers that buy numbers | from them. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN#Implementation | | Biden's FCC is able to take action because those were finally | finished and now can enforce with the call source traceability | they didn't have a few years ago. | withinrafael wrote: | A PDF is also available for those that have trouble reading that | raw text | (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-652A1.pdf) | kazz wrote: | Now if only they'd take some sort of action against all the spam | text messages I get. I swear I get a dozen texts a week from | stringofnumbers@fakeemail.com telling me my amazon account has | been suspended or a USPS package is on hold. | happytiger wrote: | I get 5-10 a day honestly. I have to ban every one of them or | they become accumulative with repeat calls because they keep | calling and calling. They frequently then just move to another | number and we do it again... | | It's obviously a handful of companies behaving very badly. | Let's me share some examples... | | They say the same things from the same companies: | | - "Hi this is Jamie with the RTC helpdesk I'm calling to let | you know that substantial business tax incentives that are | still available through the employee retention tax credit _ _ _ | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ can provide business funding up to | $26,000 for each W-2 employee you had on staff during 2020 and | 2021 if you qualify we do all of the work and submit your | application ... | | - "Hi this is James calling from coastal debt resolved we help | small business owners lower the payments or restructure any | merchant cash advances that they've taken out and are having a | difficult time getting them back we thought it was possible you | might have one or more of these I want to see if we can offer | our help my direct line is 877-412-0535 please give me a call | at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your current | situation thanks and have a great day..." | | - "888-310-9170 I'm contacting you regarding a potential refund | opportunity for your business related to the year 2020 and 2021 | please be aware that this refund does not involve any taxes or | loans and there is no need for repayment to proceed with the | refund process we simply need to verify some details regarding | your businesses employee account during those years if you | believe this call was not meant for you or if you wish to opt | out of any future communication please press nine when calling | back thank you for your time and I'm eagerly awaiting the | opportunity to speak with you best regards Eva..." | | - "Hey this is Mark reaching back out again please give me a | call back at 205-460-5936 so I did receive a notification today | at your business is done and Bradstreet score was recently | upgraded up to a 76 now this is a big deal because I put you in | the top 10% of businesses in your industry and revenue range | now because it is great score we're happy to see that your | business has been preapproved for a business credit line up to | $500,000 and the interest rate on these lines start his lowest | 4.8% so they really don't cost very much at one of the best | things about this offer is how fast we can get the money over | to you if you were to say yes to this credit line we can have | the funds over to you within just 24 hours please remember | these offers don't last forever so please call me back directly | at 205-460-5936 to make sure there's no confusion that's | 205-460-5936 hope you have a really good day I have a blessed | day and thank you..." | | - "Hey it's Tiffany with capital group I'm just touching base | regarding your business plans of corner am I still have | immediate funding options up to $250,000 with limited to no | documentation necessary so am I can be reached at 949-4645479 | I'll give you that number again it's ... | | The capital group hits me up many times a week from many | different sources. | | I don't even bother to answer calls. I just ask people to leave | a message. It's made my phone basically unusable. | lolinder wrote: | I find that Fastmail's spam filters do a very good job of | preventing these from ever reaching me. What provider are you | using? | squeaky-clean wrote: | They're talking about text messages. You can send a text | message from an email address. For example | "8675309@txt.att.net" would send a text message to Jenny if | she were an AT&T subscriber. | binkHN wrote: | I hate to push products, but happiness is the Call Screen built | into Pixel phones. If it feels the call might not be spam, I | still have the option to screen it and watch the party converse | with the Google Assistant in real time--kind of like the | answering machines of old, but you can read instead of listen. | [deleted] | gochi wrote: | Call Screen is a nice addition to global call control (or | whatever it gets renamed to per carrier), that just prompts | callers with a simple "press this button to continue the call". | | Went from every day at least a dozen calls mostly from spoofed | numbers, to only getting the important ones. Call Screen winds | up being just a nice cherry on top. | notatoad wrote: | For my use, 99% of the time i just leave my iPhone set to | silently reject all calls from unknown numbers, and that works | for me. | | it's pretty rare that there's somebody not already in my | contacts that i actually want to be able to call me. they can | go to voicemail, and i'll deal with it later. | hsbauauvhabzb wrote: | I live in Aus. Spam calls use unredacted numbers. Several | places, including the police, do redact their number. I have | no idea why they don't use a single egress number so I know | who's calling, but here we are. | | Just imagine reporting to the police that a stalker is | calling you from an unknown number, only to have the police | call you on an unknown number. | crazygringo wrote: | Except for when a restaurant is calling you to let you know | that your table is ready. | | Or your doctor's office is calling to let you know they | suddenly have an opening this afternoon. | | Or your Uber driver is calling to let you know you left | something valuable in their car, right after they've dropped | you off at the airport. | | And so forth. I've learned from hard experience that | silencing all calls from non-contacts bites you in the ass. | There are legitimate calls that benefit you _now_ , where | going to voicemail defeats the purpose. | JohnFen wrote: | My doctor's office is in my phone book, so that's covered. | | For things like restaurants, I know that I'll be receiving | a call from an unknown number and will just answer it. | | For unexpected things, like Uber, they'll leave a message | on my voice mail. I'll be notified of that as soon as | they're done and will check it immediately. | | That all works for me. It's a shame that I have to do all | of that rather than just answer the phone, but there's no | other option that I can see. | ghaff wrote: | Yeah. I'm willing to bet that the casual "so what if they | can't reach me" crowd don't have elderly parents, kids, | spouses, don't put themselves in group trip situations | where you don't want to put everyone's number in your | permanent contacts, etc. No it's pretty much idiocy to | basically throw away voice calls because you get a usually | obvious junk call now and then. | Waterluvian wrote: | To each their own, and everyone's life has different | complexities, but a decade of never answering a number I | don't know has yet to be a problem. A few times a year I'll | get a message from the doctor on my _answering machine_. | That's about it. | | Generally they prey on people who cannot override their | fear of missing out. It's the "you may have already won!" | trick in a different format. | TylerE wrote: | I would do that, but my doctors office seems to have at least | 100 phone lines, and the number that shows up on the caller | is basically random after the first 4 digits. | renewiltord wrote: | If you use Google Fi, you just view the voice transcript | and then call back. | TylerE wrote: | Oh I wish. I'm in Optimum (Former Suddenlink) territory. | | It's only in the past year I was able to upgrade from | 300mbps to gigabit, and it ain't fiber. Also obvious that | the local techs have no clue what they're doing since the | link goes down several times a night briefly, always at | exactly 15 minutes after the hour. It's obvious there's a | switch or something that they're just rebooting every | night. | lamontcg wrote: | Google Fi != Google Fiber | | One is a cell phone plan, one is an ISP. | TylerE wrote: | Oh. Shrug. I hate android so I don't really follow that | ecosystem | pixl97 wrote: | Quite often you'll find that the doctors office is part of | a larger system for an entire medical center. Your call can | get routed out any open physical line. These days fully | VOIP systems will mask the number as the primary, but some | systems still have physical connectivity to the phone | companny. | capitainenemo wrote: | I don't like rejecting calls. I prefer they go to voice | mail/transcription, so I set my main system ringtone to a few | seconds of silence, and then a custom ringtone for everyone | in my contact list (plus a few additional ringtones for | family and close friends). | | Bonus, if I happen to notice the phone screen light up with | an unknown number and I know I'm waiting for a service | station to call, I can always try my luck that it is actually | legit. | Trias11 wrote: | This. | | Problem solved. | ars wrote: | Do you have family? Because I've heard horror stories of | people who did this, and then no one could contact them when | a family member was seriously hurt. | njovin wrote: | I do this and I have family. If somebody leaves a voicemail | I check it right away. | | About 6 months ago I started getting 10-30 calls per day so | I really have no other option. Most of them are Medicare | scammers (I'm not even old enough to qualify). I cannot | fathom how: | | 1. The FCC/telcos have managed to allow anyone to spoof any | number they like with no oversight and no (effective) abuse | reporting system. This has been going on for years with | absolutely no improvement. | | 2. Medicare is apparently so easy to scam out of money that | all they need is my name and birthday to get money out of | the system on my behalf. When I've answered and played | along by giving them fake information, they always hang up | as soon as they have these 2 pieces of info. | manicennui wrote: | If scamming Medicare were that easy, they would just buy | a list. | thfuran wrote: | I set up an IVR that requires (non-white listed) callers to | press a number to ring through. My spam calls went from | several most days to less than one a year. I suppose I also | miss out on automated appointment reminders, but whatever. | kevinventullo wrote: | This is the one feature I really wish iPhone had. | coder543 wrote: | iOS 17 won't be bringing the automatic call screening, but it | will be bringing the ability to send calls to "voicemail" and | screen them yourself, picking up if you feel like it's worth | answering. | Laremere wrote: | Honestly, this is what I wish Android's call screen was. | Call screen starts by explaining itself, which I think | could waste time, can be confusing, and possibly is | insulting. Compared to a quick "Hey please leave a message | after the beep." | | I want to be able to send basically all unexpected calls to | the screening, and only pick up if it's something I want to | respond to right now. It feels rude to, eg, send a neighbor | to a call screening service when I definitely have their | number but don't want to drop what I'm doing to hear them | complain about something. | cdchn wrote: | Pretty much the major thing preventing me from switching to | iPhone at this point. | neeleshs wrote: | 100%. Call Screen and the usual spam detector in Pixel has made | call spam a non issue. I also don't pickup any calls that are | not from my phonebook and let them go to VM/assistant, and | listen to them immediately. | thanhhaimai wrote: | This so much. I don't remember that spam calls exist anymore | until I read a post someone complaining about getting spam | calls. It works so well. I haven't had a false negative in the | 3 years of using it. All the people who truly wanted to contact | me would say something into the assistant, and the phone rang, | and I'd pick it up. | onedognight wrote: | Apple does this as well, but this is a Band-Aid. Think of the | old people who get scammed by these calls. This is a system | issue and should be fixed as such. It's frankly embarrassing | how the phone companies have effectively killed the "phone | call" through their neglect. | Nextgrid wrote: | > phone companies have effectively killed the "phone call" | through their neglect. | | They haven't - they're still making bank on the spam | traffic, which is also why they're reluctant to implement | solutions despite it technically being trivial. | | If phone spam was actually making a dent in revenue (aka | legitimate call revenue was going down and the revenue from | spam wasn't making up for it) they would've got their act | together very quickly. | luma wrote: | Nope, not quite public yet. Google has had this for years | but Apple is just now about to get it with the release of | iOS 17 and "live voicemail". Still have a month or so | before that's out of beta. | p_j_w wrote: | I've recently gotten an iPhone (coming from a Pixel 7), and | it's honestly not in the same league for dealing with Spam | calls. It's much more of an annoyance since I switched. | rrauenza wrote: | I really like it when someone in the middle has changed the | caller id to say "FRAUDULENT". | | Someone I know believes strongly that the telco's don't care to | police and would rather push people onto cheaper to maintain | mobile technology. (We get orders of magnitude more scammer calls | on our landline than our mobiles.) But there's a lot of | assumptions in that belief... | | Is there any truth to those economics? Is there a bad incentive | here for the telcos? | AdrianEGraphene wrote: | The product isn't necessarily true (mobile -> landline push), | but the profit-seeking is certainly expected, as it is for all | businesses. While the amount of minutes & attentions that are | generated from spam calls helps the telcos, because they get | paid either way... that doesn't mean they're negligent. They | just don't have the right tools to police this since they're | common carriers. Things are changing little by little and with | upcoming changes in telco infrastructure, I expect Q4 this year | to show a strong signal of what the future holds. | throw9away6 wrote: | Just force them to buy phone numbers like we sell ips. Each | number could be $1 and you burn them when an operator gets caught | iforgotpassword wrote: | And soon we will have 20-digit numbers :-) | callalex wrote: | That's almost exactly how the system currently works. The spam | is still profitable despite that. | Rygian wrote: | Then the price is not right. Make it expensive from the | start, and then gradually give back most of the price when | the user has had a good standing for long enough. | kstrauser wrote: | Sort of like charging a deposit on them? Don't screw it up | for a year and we'll apply it to your next bill? | kabdib wrote: | They'll just buy numbers with more stolen money. | re wrote: | The submitted text file is missing some formatting, making it | difficult to read. Links to PDFs for this letter, as well as a | related press release and a letter sent to One Owl, are available | here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-notifies-carriers- | repeated-... | to11mtm wrote: | OK now do the bigger providers that allow robotexting without | consent... | | I received unsolicited texts from a "Buy your house cash" company | last year. Of course, they did not identify the company name in | the texts, not even with prompting... | | I was able to trace the number to a larger provider... [0] The | provider was unwilling to tell me who originally called me. Which | is _strange_. If a company wants my business, shouldn 't they be | willing to say who they are? If a VOIP/TOIP provider doesn't | disclose who communicates with you, isn't that a way to shield | harassment? | | But, as always, it's about who pays the most money to the | lawmakers via lobbying... | | [0] - By 'Large', I will say that they are a provider for | Microsoft Teams Voice calls/texts in the US. | supertrope wrote: | The US cellular industry is cracking down on SMS spam. Lots of | "legitimate" businesses that rely on SMS are complaining about | 10DLC. | to11mtm wrote: | Yeah, I actually worked on the compliance side for a publicly | traded company. | | The amount of work 'legitimate' providers make you put in can | sometimes be painful, especially when they don't do what they | say they are gonna do. But we did our part to make sure we | stayed compliant. Making sure that even our 'semi-automated' | messages (i.e. the user selected from a dropdown and the | template filled in blanks) were registered, making sure | appropriate unsubscribe verbiage was always present, while | still fitting meaningful context into 160 characters. _Then_ | making sure each of those messages was registered, reviewed, | and approved with the provider. Unfortunately there were | still times that the provider failed to do their part, and | despite being told we were 'good to go' we would discover a | large volume of our texts were blocked by our provider or a | downstream network, because someone dropped the ball. [0] | | I guess that's what frustrates me; our company did the right | work, and even then our provider sometimes got in the way | with their own mistakes... But far less scrupulous companies | appear to get away with all sorts of non-compliance and their | provider doesn't care for whatever reason. [1] | | [0] - Worth mentioning, the texts in question were not even | solicitations. They were texts related to the 'process' | people had already agreed to. Without divulging the actual | industry, the best analogy would be things like being told | that there was a problem with your vehicle order and to call | us, or that your vehicle had been delivered was ready to be | picked up tomorrow. [2] | | [1] - My gut says, the reason those providers don't care, is | that they get to collect more money for more texts sent. | | [2] - No, it wasn't automotive, I'm just trying to give a | good analogy here. Less life impacting than surgery but more | life impacting than a simple package delivery. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-08-02 23:00 UTC)