Seems to me that the FCC doesn't actually want to stop these. Watch the senate commission deposition(?) of Adrian Abramavich. He says all these calls are routed through 5 or 6 tier-2+ VOIP firms who openly solicit robocall business and then blend the traffic to prevent the most obvious red flags. Just pull their licenses(?). Unless there's more to the story and everyone in the industry is getting rich from this, which sounds like is the case. Remember this is the same FCC that couldn't detect millions of fake anti-net neutrality comments. C'mon. Are we really dumb enough to think that they're that dumb?
If everyone in the industry is getting rich from this and the FCC is serving industry and not the people, then the plan of action would quite probably look like this:
1. Pass laws that make robocalls illegal to pacify the populace.
2. Charge one or two operators a year in civil court max, but not enough to actually deter people from doing it. And make sure to brand them names like "the robocall king" so that people think you've actually made a huge dent in robo-calling. Again, to pacify the populace.
3. Don't actually enforce the laws you passed on any meaningful scale and don't require technological changes which would stop this. Despite the fact that it doesn't happen in any other country, even third world ones, pretend that this is just a technologically intractable problem.
There have been several initiatives that the FCC as well as the FTC have done over the past 2 years.
They gave permission to providers to begin blocking unallocated numbers in 2017 which included IRS numbers and this reduced the number of IRS scam calls. Providers are not normally allowed to block calls so rules had to be formulated about when they could block calls like these.
The FCC authorized wireless providers to take measures to block spam text messages in 2018.
By the end of 2019, caller ID authentication is expected to be put in to use. The FCC cannot specify how providers are to implement a caller ID authentication system. An independent task force, the IETF, created an RFC for the STIR[1] and SHAKEN protocols to authenticate a caller's ID. These types of things have to take input from all involved parties and settle on a proposal after reviewing it and agreeing on it. The networks have agreed to implement it within their own networks first, at the behest of the FCC. This kind of system can't be implemented overnight and the FCC is not in a position to specify an implementation and force providers to use it.
In addition there have been a number of prosecutions of companies, like ABC Hispana Inc[2]. However, it is difficult to prosecute offshore providers in noncompliant countries although the FCC is proposing rules to allow it to charge such companies regardless.
Under Obama they made steps forward to stop these, penalties were drastically increased, and an actual investigation team was put together, but Trump defunded the efforts and now the complaint form leads to a massive master in pile with no hope of a single message being read.
The phone companies ARE able to stop the caller ID spoofing with a simple notch filter placed at the right point on the line, or packet filter on the right place on the firewall.
They could easily force businesses to give a valid return number on their calls and prevent jamming based caller ID spoofing, but instead they don't want to because these calls mean more money for them.
I wonder if one should not use a dialer to call them back, sending an automated message until someone listens and acknowledges? They have a huge outbound capability, but their weak spot is inbound and call completion - they expect basically no call to complete. So anything that keeps their agents busy will immediately reflect on the number of calls they make. Would it be legal?
I answer most robo calls and usually try to call back after I get them to hang up on me. The number is almost never in service. When it is and it leads to the scammer I'll sometimes continue calling and messing with them until my number is blocked by them.
I've been messing with spam callers for more than 20 years. I wish more people would answer these calls and waste as much of their time as possible.
The "in the wild" hack of the caller ID jammer is probably openly available if you look hard enough.
There are also likely phone system commands to quickly verify the incoming phone number a second time utilizing out of band signals. If how to derive how to do this, one might be able to detect spoofed caller ID and retrieve the actual source line information.
I wonder if either of these technologies could be used to detect robocalls.
Personally if I had the time and ability to write such a system, what I would do to incoming robocalls is go and route them (and pressing one if it is necessary) to an AI voice system just smart enough to pull the person's leg for a few hours making the person run in circles trying to explain the deal to what they think is a person who can't understand it. You know, robo the robo-call.
For $20 US a year for an app, robocalls are down
to a few a month
from several a day on each of a VOIP and cell line.
Nomorobo, Robokiller, and several more - do some research,
read some reviews, and pick one. I only wish it was as easy
to filter email spam for a 25-year-old email address.
Telephone service providers may offer robocall filtering
as well. One can deal with the problem now, or wait for
Shaken/Stir, whichever.
Be super careful as you do that research - check the Terms of Service. Some, like Truecaller, are harvesting your call activity and network and reselling it.
It appears Hiya and Nomorobo have sensible policies.
However...
The problem is the completely randomized neighbor calls.
They are “calling from” real numbers belonging to real people.
Hiya Premium has neighbor blocking, but only prefix by prefix, and you can’t bulk add the prefixes.
It appears adding a prefix adds every individual number within that prefix to the phone’s block list, and each call block plugin can only block so many numbers, so the more prefixes you have, the more plugins have to be enabled.
“WideProtect” aims to simplify this, your mileage may vary:
It sickens me that one must pay to have this problem fixed. The FCC needs to step in and either require a fix or require the providers to setup customers with these services out of their own pockets.
Because (at least in Germany) it's illegal and comes with very high fines.
> telephone calls to consumers for sales purposes are illegal if the calling company is not in possession of an explicit and effective declaration of consent by the consumer
In addition to the enforcement others mentioned, costs are higher.
Calls to Sweden mobile numbers are $0.07 to $0.20 per minute depending on the carrier, vs $0.01 to US numbers. Plus swedish speaking 'sales' talent is probably also more expensive than english speaking.
A lot of the replies suggest a language barrier being the reason, but we don't really get them here in Ireland, despite English being a national language.
Developer of RoboStop here. If anybody here in the comments section happen to use an Android phone and are plagued by telemarketing calls from Indian dev shops offering to build you a website, check out my app! http://robostop.org. It's pretty simple, just hangs up on anyone not listed in your contacts. Very effective. Just make sure to turn it off when you order an Uber.
P.S. it's not on the Play Store anymore because I got booted off along with all of the other apps which access users CALL_LOG(s).
I'm getting daily calls where they leave a voicemail in Chinese. I live in a metro area where at most there are 0.05% Chinese speakers. The costs must be so low they just do not care.
Course I block the numbers but they seem to have an almost endless supply. Interestingly my Pixel doesn't report the call ever as suspected spam.
I don't understand why the robocalls are a thing. Why are robocalls able to cause such a stir? Why are they referred to as "robocalls" in the first place, when this is such a lowbrow term that it might imply that the victims are part of the problem, due to an inability to adequately cope with something that requires very little effort to deflect.
To give them a special name, in and of itself, raises phonecall spam to a new level of shenanigans, when this is something of a script kiddie skill. Same as email, this is a mild nuisance. It's not some crisis tearing at the fabric of society.
It's sort of like complaining about how windows are transparent, and that you shouldn't need curtains to prevent people from looking inside. It's like there's this expectation that it should just be illegal to look inside any window.
If it's a phone number, people are going to call it. If you don't want to be disturbed, don't let your phone ring? If you only want to be disturbed by familiar individuals, only ring for those numbers, or screen voice mail?
Seems... almost too easy to deflect this sort of thing.
Except for literally causing financial harm to the elderly that they prey on. With email there has always been extra scrutiny, after all it is the tech literate who were and are most likely to use email. And by literate, I mean can turn on their computer and visit Gmail. I doubt we will see the similar scenario with email due to spam being commonplace since the beginning.
Not to mention every other person is actively bothered in the real world by a real alarm instead of just scrolling past while checking their email. Email spam vs robocalling is not even comparable in terms of the effects. I miss real phone calls from people, such as job offers, due to spammers forcing me to send everything to voicemail. I'm not a hateful person by any means, but I honestly wish the absolute worst on anyone who is behind scamming robocalls purely due to the amount of minor annoyance built over time.
From TFA: Emergency room doctors, nurses, and first responders were getting delayed alerts. This was not just an annoyance; it was a matter of life and death.
What is your "almost too easy" solution? Block all local calls? Have you applied for a job and expected a call back only to be directed to a cruise/timeshare?
Because, like spam email, it only has to work for a tiny fraction of a percentage of targets to be profitable, and enforcement is rare.
Except it's more annoying than spam email because it actively interrupts people.
And since origins are spoofed, I usually can't determine if it's a robocall unless I answer. Especially if you are expecting unknown number calls (selling something, etc.)
[+] [-] 55555|6 years ago|reply
If everyone in the industry is getting rich from this and the FCC is serving industry and not the people, then the plan of action would quite probably look like this:
1. Pass laws that make robocalls illegal to pacify the populace.
2. Charge one or two operators a year in civil court max, but not enough to actually deter people from doing it. And make sure to brand them names like "the robocall king" so that people think you've actually made a huge dent in robo-calling. Again, to pacify the populace.
3. Don't actually enforce the laws you passed on any meaningful scale and don't require technological changes which would stop this. Despite the fact that it doesn't happen in any other country, even third world ones, pretend that this is just a technologically intractable problem.
Pathetic.
[+] [-] onetimeusename|6 years ago|reply
There have been several initiatives that the FCC as well as the FTC have done over the past 2 years.
They gave permission to providers to begin blocking unallocated numbers in 2017 which included IRS numbers and this reduced the number of IRS scam calls. Providers are not normally allowed to block calls so rules had to be formulated about when they could block calls like these.
The FCC authorized wireless providers to take measures to block spam text messages in 2018.
By the end of 2019, caller ID authentication is expected to be put in to use. The FCC cannot specify how providers are to implement a caller ID authentication system. An independent task force, the IETF, created an RFC for the STIR[1] and SHAKEN protocols to authenticate a caller's ID. These types of things have to take input from all involved parties and settle on a proposal after reviewing it and agreeing on it. The networks have agreed to implement it within their own networks first, at the behest of the FCC. This kind of system can't be implemented overnight and the FCC is not in a position to specify an implementation and force providers to use it.
In addition there have been a number of prosecutions of companies, like ABC Hispana Inc[2]. However, it is difficult to prosecute offshore providers in noncompliant countries although the FCC is proposing rules to allow it to charge such companies regardless.
[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/stir/about/
[2] https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3108/a...
[+] [-] Ruedii|6 years ago|reply
The phone companies ARE able to stop the caller ID spoofing with a simple notch filter placed at the right point on the line, or packet filter on the right place on the firewall.
They could easily force businesses to give a valid return number on their calls and prevent jamming based caller ID spoofing, but instead they don't want to because these calls mean more money for them.
[+] [-] ditn|6 years ago|reply
Not couldn't - didn't want to.
[+] [-] kimi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SethTro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Ruedii|6 years ago|reply
There are also likely phone system commands to quickly verify the incoming phone number a second time utilizing out of band signals. If how to derive how to do this, one might be able to detect spoofed caller ID and retrieve the actual source line information.
I wonder if either of these technologies could be used to detect robocalls.
Personally if I had the time and ability to write such a system, what I would do to incoming robocalls is go and route them (and pressing one if it is necessary) to an AI voice system just smart enough to pull the person's leg for a few hours making the person run in circles trying to explain the deal to what they think is a person who can't understand it. You know, robo the robo-call.
[+] [-] willvarfar|6 years ago|reply
If you haven't heard a few, listen to some of the calls on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3OxCWLEmoIhNMm-hnvBm9Q
[+] [-] dmckeon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terretta|6 years ago|reply
It appears Hiya and Nomorobo have sensible policies.
However...
The problem is the completely randomized neighbor calls.
They are “calling from” real numbers belonging to real people.
Hiya Premium has neighbor blocking, but only prefix by prefix, and you can’t bulk add the prefixes.
It appears adding a prefix adds every individual number within that prefix to the phone’s block list, and each call block plugin can only block so many numbers, so the more prefixes you have, the more plugins have to be enabled.
“WideProtect” aims to simplify this, your mileage may vary:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wideprotect-spam-call-blocke...
[+] [-] bronco21016|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jetpks|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dewey|6 years ago|reply
> telephone calls to consumers for sales purposes are illegal if the calling company is not in possession of an explicit and effective declaration of consent by the consumer
https://www.limegreenipnews.com/2017/08/germany-federal-netw...
[+] [-] toast0|6 years ago|reply
Calls to Sweden mobile numbers are $0.07 to $0.20 per minute depending on the carrier, vs $0.01 to US numbers. Plus swedish speaking 'sales' talent is probably also more expensive than english speaking.
[+] [-] iandioch|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geddy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Radle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] topherPedersen|6 years ago|reply
P.S. it's not on the Play Store anymore because I got booted off along with all of the other apps which access users CALL_LOG(s).
[+] [-] dewey|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stef25|6 years ago|reply
When my wife was pregnant the hospital called me to say she'd been admitted after falling in the street.
Surely hanging up on anyone not in your contacts is a bad idea?
[+] [-] rmason|6 years ago|reply
Course I block the numbers but they seem to have an almost endless supply. Interestingly my Pixel doesn't report the call ever as suspected spam.
[+] [-] toast0|6 years ago|reply
Blocking numbers of spam calls is like blocking numbers of spam email; most of them are spoofed so it's most likely not to help.
[+] [-] pg_is_a_butt|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] deflector|6 years ago|reply
To give them a special name, in and of itself, raises phonecall spam to a new level of shenanigans, when this is something of a script kiddie skill. Same as email, this is a mild nuisance. It's not some crisis tearing at the fabric of society.
It's sort of like complaining about how windows are transparent, and that you shouldn't need curtains to prevent people from looking inside. It's like there's this expectation that it should just be illegal to look inside any window.
If it's a phone number, people are going to call it. If you don't want to be disturbed, don't let your phone ring? If you only want to be disturbed by familiar individuals, only ring for those numbers, or screen voice mail?
Seems... almost too easy to deflect this sort of thing.
[+] [-] sl1ck731|6 years ago|reply
Not to mention every other person is actively bothered in the real world by a real alarm instead of just scrolling past while checking their email. Email spam vs robocalling is not even comparable in terms of the effects. I miss real phone calls from people, such as job offers, due to spammers forcing me to send everything to voicemail. I'm not a hateful person by any means, but I honestly wish the absolute worst on anyone who is behind scamming robocalls purely due to the amount of minor annoyance built over time.
[+] [-] travisporter|6 years ago|reply
What is your "almost too easy" solution? Block all local calls? Have you applied for a job and expected a call back only to be directed to a cruise/timeshare?
[+] [-] 0xfeba|6 years ago|reply
Except it's more annoying than spam email because it actively interrupts people.
And since origins are spoofed, I usually can't determine if it's a robocall unless I answer. Especially if you are expecting unknown number calls (selling something, etc.)
[+] [-] happy_dude|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]