
Eliminating Robocalls - johns
https://www.twilio.com/blog/your-phone-your-call-eliminating-robocalls
======
godzillabrennus
I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central.

It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I
put it on my website.

Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo
calls. I get maybe one a week at most.

I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every
number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice number.

It's past time for Apple to integrate spam call filtering into iOS and Android
users have no excuse for not using Google Voice.

~~~
fossuser
I used Google voice for years while Google let it languish in relative
obscurity.

Eventually after I realized it was silently dropping group messages because
they were MMS and Google never worked on supporting MMS (images were dropped
too back then) I left it for iOS and iMessage. Getting dropped from group
chats meant people thought you were ignoring them and you'd miss invitations.

Google had a huge lead with voice that they wasted instead on Buzz, Allo,
Talk, Hangouts which all were killed or are being killed - I wouldn't go back.

~~~
js2
GV supports group chats/MMS now, however, you can't mute or leave a group
chat, at least not with the iOS client. (Given my family's penchant for
starting a group MMS for the most minor of occurrences, I'm not sure the group
chat support is a blessing or a curse.)

~~~
chipperyman573
I think that from a pure technical standpoint, you can't leave a MMS group any
more than you can leave a reply-all email chain. "Leaving" a group usually
just involves your phone dropping any texts it gets directed to that group.

(Obviously iMessage is different because it's not actually MMS)

------
StudentStuff
Getting STIR & SHAKEN implemented so we have proper trust of the caller ID is
going to be a massive undertaking for the industry as a whole. T-Mobile and
Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no
interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the
other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case).

STIR/SHAKEN also can break call forwarding, as a forwarded call may get
stripped of the forwarded from header by an intermediary carrier, resulting in
an unvalidated caller ID getting passed, causing the call to not ring the
destination.

Overall, the telcom industry is stuck in the past, with security being a joke.
TLS Registration & SRTP are rarely used, most carriers sling calls bare over
the internet hoping for the best.

~~~
kyrra
The FCC has a page tracking the response by the major carriers[0].

Also, from what the FCC chair is saying, while nothing is forcing the carriers
to play nicely, he is basically warning them if they don't work together to
create/implement a spec to help with the problem, the FCC will force something
(that probably won't be as easy to deal with). WSJ had a podcast interviewing
him recently about it[1].

[0] [https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication](https://www.fcc.gov/call-
authentication)

[1] (interview starts 23 minutes in) [http://www.wsj.com/podcasts/instant-
message/20-tesla-got-a-b...](http://www.wsj.com/podcasts/instant-
message/20-tesla-got-a-brand-new-car/6603B252-8C58-4CAF-A7A0-25FEE391B3EC)

~~~
floatrock
> the FCC will force something (that probably won't be as easy to deal with)

After the net neutrality debacle, including the FBI investigation into public
comment fraud [0], I'm writing off whatever "corporate difficulty" Ajit Pai is
threatening as a snowball's chance in hell. As long as he's chair, that agency
is squarely in the "regulatory capture" box.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/fbi-
investigatin...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/fbi-
investigating-identity-theft-in-net-neutrality-comments-report-says/)

------
rhacker
I'm waaay past trusting that network. I tell companies to text or email me.
And texting is also starting to get spammed out.

Right now, I can't even use apps like Hiya that implement prefix blocking. My
method right now is to forward ALL calls to a google voice number, and those
are transcribed or what-have-you. If you don't leave a message, I don't care
about you.

We need a signal, at the highest of levels to basically make the decision on
what's going to happen to the phone network, because honestly, a brand new
system is what I expect at this point, not a patch.

~~~
fossuser
Yes - a contact whitelist is all I want from iOS with two features: a button
to temporarily allow all calls for 30min (for Uber/door dash) and the option
to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within
2min of the first.

All other calls should go to voicemail by default.

The way Apple allows you to interact with CallKit makes this hard to implement
because a blacklist of numbers is required and a blacklist of all numbers is
huge.

~~~
hyperjeff
Isn't this exact feature available via Do Not Disturb? I have DND on 24/7, and
you can quickly turn it off for Lyft/etc if needed. If you make groups within
your contacts you can even hone the whitelist and can fairly quickly mod it.

~~~
avodonosov
I have DnD constantly too and find it convenient.

~~~
ryandrake
Not just convenient. I’ve been in DND mode all day every day for months now,
and I’ve witnessed a drastically improved overall quality of life. Mostly from
the lack of texts and notifications, not just from the lack of phone calls. It
has also resulted in my not being glued to my phone responding to everything.
I can feel my mental health improving, and I don’t think I could go back to
non-DND.

~~~
pard68
I assume dnd is no notification or signal? I have had this since high school
(15 years I guess)? At the time phones weren't allowed so every day my phone
had to be on silent and I never turned it off. I started working and phones
weren't allowed. Then college and phones weren't allowed. I don't even know
what my ring tone is and I only assume my alert messages work because my phone
can play music...

------
tareqak
I don't get that many robocalls anymore after I signed up for
[https://www.donotcall.gov/](https://www.donotcall.gov/) . I also make a point
of reporting unwanted calls there too (I got two pretending to be from the IRS
saying that I was about to be sued).

I know that people find it annoying to go through the process of reporting the
call, but I consider it to be one of those things that fall under the "All
that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" bucket.

It'd be nice if there were donotcall.gov apps for Android and iOS though.

~~~
profmonocle
It's great that the DNC has worked for you, unfortunately it's not much help
for me since all my robocallers are criminals trying to steal from me.
Naturally, people unafraid of being arrested for fraud are unafraid of DNC
fines.

I've been on the DNC for years, and a couple years ago I decided to change my
number, since my old one was getting 4-5 robocalls per day, always from
different numbers.

~~~
tareqak
That sounds horrible. I wonder if there is a way to surrender that number to
the FBI, so that they could investigate further. Even one call every other day
would be too much to report manually for me in terms of effort.

~~~
masonic
Because "that number" is generally fake.

Caller ID became meaningless once VOIP was allowed to spoof it. Can we build a
new system atop ANI?

~~~
mehrdadn
> Because "that number" is generally fake.

I'm not really convinced this is true, because there are numbers that are
categorized as robocallers, and there are others that aren't. You'd think that
if they were fake then they'd be random/uniform.

~~~
masonic
Robocalls I get typically assign a caller ID of my area code (and sometimes
prefix) with random other digits.

Most 408-73x prefixes were originally specific to Sunnyvale CA and are
therefore easy to distinguish.

~~~
mehrdadn
Yeah but I'm not sure they're genuinely random. If you try Googling them you
see that they're generally listed as robocallers. Whereas if you Google people
you know, I don't think you'll see them being listed as robocallers (at least
it hasn't been the case when I've tried). That suggests they don't just
randomly pick numbers.

~~~
JohnFen
> If you try Googling them you see that they're generally listed as
> robocallers.

I just did a quick check of the last 10 or so I received. None of them were
listed as robocallers. They were all legit phone numbers of innocent people
who live in my area.

~~~
mehrdadn
Thanks for checking, I stand corrected then. Whenever I've tried they've
usually been listed as robocallers so I guess it's just your luck.

------
Noah-Huppert
I wrote a tool which uses Twilio to screen out robocalls:
[https://github.com/noah-huppert/human-call-filter](https://github.com/noah-
huppert/human-call-filter)

~~~
dgnorton
Ditto, except the one I wrote only works for landlines.
[https://github.com/dgnorton/norobo](https://github.com/dgnorton/norobo)

~~~
Noah-Huppert
Cool! Definitely very helpful. I still get tons of robo calls on the landline.

------
phaer
I read a lot about the plague that robocalls are on international forums,
especially from the U.S.

But I live in central Europe, Austria, and received only two SPAM calls in my
whole life, both by what seemed to be actual human agents on the other side
and hear from similar amounts from friends I've asked about the phenomena.

Can someone explain why it seems such hard to resolve problem elsewhere while
it seems hardly a problem at all here? Is there a difference in
infrastructure, a difference in legislature, ...?

~~~
__jal
The difference is regulation.

The US is firmly gripped by the belief that "regulation doesn't work", and
keeps electing people who try to prove that true via incompetence, cronyism
and ideological malice.

~~~
MockObject
We have plenty of regulation and government attention on the issue, and I
somehow doubt Congressional pockets are being lined by the campaign
contributions from Big Spam.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Do_Not_Call_Registry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Do_Not_Call_Registry)

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Politicians are not being supported by the spammers themselves, but by the
telecoms that do not want to make costly changes to their network to stop or
enforce this problem.

This couldn’t be more obvious in our fcc chair who is basically against any
kind of government regulation.

~~~
JohnFen
And don't forget the little fact that the telecoms make money from providing
service to the spammers.

------
toephu2
This is why I leave my phone on silent 24/7 (no vibrate either). If someone
from my Contacts calls me, then I see the missed call and know to call them
back when I have time. However I live my life on my time, nothing is ever so
important I have to drop whatever I am doing to pick up someone else's call
right away. You might say, what if there was an emergency? Well how many times
has someone called you about an emergency where you could actually do
something about it? Maybe some have, but I bet most haven't.

~~~
abrookewood
What happens when one of your friends behaves in exactly the same way? Do the
two of you ever manage to actually talk to each other?

~~~
system2
Texting.

You send a text, receive a text or vice versa. Then you can actually arrange a
call if you want to catch up. I have some friends call me, and I call them
back. If they don't call me back they at least send me a message telling me
when they can be free. I guess this is becoming a norm among most people.

------
jader201
It’s 2019. Why has Apple/Android not added the ability to reject (or at least
send directly to voice mail) all calls outside of contacts, and make this the
default setting?

Seems like this would solve almost all of these problems.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118664](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118664)

~~~
pard68
Have you checked lately? I can't speak for Apple but my Android (S7) and my
wife's (unsure of the make) both have these types of options. My wife has all
numbers not in her contacts go to voicemail. My phone just hangs up on any
unknown number.

------
rp36
Interestingly, Robocall algorithms use phone numbers closer to my phone number
(either real of fake) and since I live in different Area code, it is much
easier to block the numbers.

Though it is not recommended to pick up the phone, I have had some success by
picking up the phone, wasting the agent's time and letting them know that my
car is real old and would not need extended warranty.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Same here, but unfortunately Apple provides no mechanism to do so. Even
RoboKiller, a third party app, has limited success with neighborhood spoofing,
as it’s called.

I’m perfectly fine with blocking the entire NNN beginning prefix of my number
but there appears to be no way to do it (they can only do NNN-NNNN).
RoboKiller says it’s a limitation in the iOS API they have access to.

------
mcv
I wonder why I'm not getting this barrage of robocalls. I live in Netherland,
not the US, so presumably that's why, but are robocalls not a thing in Europe?
Do we not have these kind of predatory companies? Do we have surprisingly
effective legislation to stop robocalls?

The only phone spam I'm getting are people trying to sell me new energy
contracts (that's something that happens when you have a company for some
reason), and tons of British recruiters trying to get me to work in Belgium or
Germany for some reason. Very rarely, I get a tech support call from Microsoft
India. But always it's real people, not a robocall.

~~~
bgeeek
Yes, they are a thing in Europe too. It's not just to do with entering numbers
in "sketchy" websites. It's who resold or leaked your details, what apps you
have installed on your phone, or if you were just unlucky.

They are trying to get vaguely smart too - whereas before a number would call
from quite far away, so you could assume it was a robocaller. Now, they can be
close to your location, which is a bit spooky.

~~~
mcv
It's apparently easy to get my phone number from the Chamber of Commerce,
which is where those energy peddlers get it. Seems like an easy source of
phone numbers for robocallers too. And it's not like I'm very careful with my
phone number; I've entered it on tons of websites.

Still no robocallers for me. Maybe European data protection measures do work.

------
jnaddef
> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration
> calls and impair the economics of robocalls.

Do they really expect us to believe the reason they bill by the minute is to
fight against robocalls?

------
Abundnce10
All I really want to do is allow calls through to my phone that are stored in
my contacts. If they're not in my contacts, I'd prefer not to be notified and
have it sent to voicemail.

~~~
cronix
One problem is they can easily spoof the number. I've received 2 calls from
Bank of America's 800 number, that weren't actually from Bank of America (they
were pretending there was a problem with my account...phishing for info...).
They were in my address book, and showed up as such. You can't trust caller
ID. They might not have your friends phone numbers, but you probably also have
other major institutions that you trust in there as well.

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-answer-
th...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-answer-the-phone-
when-your-bank-calls-2017-03-30)

~~~
orev
The fact that it is not perfect is pretty irrelevant to the need for this kind
of basic functionality. I'm going to assume iPhone here because I'd be
surprised if Android doesn't have this capability.

~~~
cronix
Andoird does. I think they added it in Lolipop about 5 years ago (only
allowing calls/notifications from contacts). You have to set up do not disturb
and then go and make exceptions for contacts.

------
tchaffee
I just never answer calls or listen to voicemail anymore. I use WhatsApp etc.
and give folks that ID. Maybe in a few years the phone companies will
implement some of cool stuff mentioned in the article but until then phone
calls from everyone are blacklisted.

------
simonebrunozzi
Great article, but I jumped there hoping that Twilio had a solution to offer.
Not yet, it seems.

I've been pestered by Robocalls for the last few years. Lately, I did the
mistake of shopping online for health insurance, and signing up with a
provider (I ended up not purchasing it from them). Since then (three weeks
ago), I've received ~20 calls per day, half of it from robots, half from
humans.

These people should f*ing go to jail. All of them.

~~~
manfredo
Jesus, 10 robocalls a day? I thought I was unlucky when I got 2 or 3 in one
day. Did you end up using an automated answering service?

------
oldgradstudent
The death penalty for robocalls coming from inside the US, and drone strikes
and extraordinary rendition for robocalls originating outside the US are out
of the question, right?

But seriously, why is it so difficult to eliminate these robocalls. Each
operation has to have employees, a call center (to handle the marks), payment
processing, etc. It seems like a very easy target.

~~~
bradthater
A lot of these robocall call centers are operating illegally in foreign
countries that skirt their own laws, with export partners within the US that
pop up and disappear quicker than the government can than they can be hunted.
If you are interested there is a really good podcast by Reply All about
tracking down one in person. Episode #102 and #103, some of their best stuff
to be frank.

~~~
oldgradstudent
Just started the first one. Fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation.

[https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-
distance](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance)

[https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/103-long-distance-
part...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/103-long-distance-part-ii)

------
hartator
I disagree with the solution. A simple App that send to voicemail numbers not
in my contacts will be far than enough. And it won’t require to change the
whole infrastructure!

~~~
vitaflo
You can already do this in iOS. Set your phone on Do Not Disturb and then in
the iOS settings tell it to allow numbers in your contact list to get through
even when DND is on.

I've done this for years and never get robocalls.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
This also affects other notifications (sms, other app notifications) which
might not work for most people.

Especially for people that are on PagerDuty, this solution just wont work.

------
lucb1e
I've never received a robocall and the whole thing seems dystopian. Is it
something uniquely American? Is there EU legislation that prevents this, such
as the "don't call me" register (bel me niet register)? I'm not on that,
though. General anti-spam laws then? (Since it's unsolicited commercial
communications directed at consumers). Genuinely curious what's different.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Canada and the USA also have national Do Not Call laws, and telemarketers are
not allowed to cold call numbers that are on the list (in Canada, there are
certain exceptions such as local newspapers selling subscriptions, charities
soliciting donations, and companies that do telephone surveys, e.g. Ipsos-
Reid). It works, too, because I never, ever receive legit telemarketing calls.

But the DNC list doesn't do anything to stop phishing/scam calls because
apparently criminals don't care about DNC laws (obviously). They always spoof
local numbers, but never have a caller ID name. This means I can pretty safely
ignore all calls without caller ID names, unless I'm expecting a call.

The problem is, these scammers spam voicemail inboxes too, and on my phone and
carrier (Android on Koodo in Canada) _the only way_ to dismiss the "New
Voicemail" notification is to call my voicemail number and listen to it. I
don't care about voicemail, so I disabled it.

------
nmstoker
Seems like this is much worse in the US - I've had the same number in the UK
since 2000 and not had a robocall EVER. The occasional human spam call comes
in (like once every two or three months) but I tend to just hang up and
usually Google offers to block them (my Pixel 2 has the spam call blocker
built in)

------
paulie_a
If it is an area code outside of 4-5 I block it. If it isn't in my phonebook
but in that range, I check the voicemail then 99 percent of the time I block
it. Sometimes I answer and mess with the caller to waste their energy and ruin
their numbers.

What irritates me is the spoofing of numbers. That should be a felony and
charged in criminal court. They steal real people's numbers briefly in my
experience. Either arrest and throw the person calling in prison or blacklist
that Carrier.

And fine the carrier you use for allowing it to even happen.

EDIT: on a side note you are not able to block Texas and Florida. I could
block those two entire states without worries and I'd receive a lot less
calls.

------
lowlevel
I have resorted to using DND mode as a whitelist. If a caller does not
identify with a number in my contacts list, the phone doesn't ring. I feel
whitelisting is the only thing that's going to stop the calls... extreme or
not.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I would do this, but at least on iOS, this silences text messages and other
app notifications, including other messengers.

------
ungzd
BTW, in Russia labor is cheap so spam phone calls are usually done by people,
not robots. I have to keep phone always in silent mode due to lots of such
spam, sometimes 2-3 calls per day from different companies.

------
abacate
As usual, it's not that complicated, and it's not that simple.

The simple solution would be for the network providers to validate the caller
ID numbers for its subscribers, but that requires changes to punish the ones
that don't do it.

I've worked with telephony for 15 years and I know the big providers do this
for most common telecom protocols, but VoIP providers tend to be more lax. But
that's where they shouldn't, and the ones that break this shouldn't be allowed
on the network.

~~~
WhyEmail
Yeah, but they can at least do the following things:

\- Don't connect calls coming from numbers they own that they have not
assigned

\- Don't connect calls from a number to itself (my wife recently received a
phone call from "herself". Then she received 20 more phone calls from irate
people sure that she spammed them)

\- Don't connect calls where the calling number is coming from an invalid area
code or LATA

\- Don't connect calls where the calling number is a string of only digits.
There are no people or businesses with this type of name, most likely.

This would solve between 10-50% of the spam calls I get, I'm pretty sure.

------
cdransf
I use Robokiller on iOS -- it screens the calls and answers spam with
prerecorded scripts paced to match response times and then sends me the
recording of the interaction.

~~~
hermitdev
What strikes me with robocalls that leave messages - they cut off by "talking"
too early so I cannot identify who they are, yet if I answer, I get nothing
but silence if I answer with "Hello? Hello?" Calm and slowly paced. That's my
personal rule. I say hello slowly twice, and if theres silence, I hang up.
Dont care if I start to hear a connection as I'm going to hang up. You called
me, have someone on the line. My time is worth money to me. I am not amswering
the phone to be put on hold for the next representative. Fuck off and call me
when you have someone ready to talk to me.

~~~
cdransf
I generally don't answer any number that's not in my contacts. If I don't know
who it is they can leave a message or I'll look up the number and block it
proactively.

------
JohnFen
I've solved the robocall problem personally, by simply not answering my phone.

I'll answer the call if I'm expecting one, if it's from someone who has texted
me that they're going to call (this covers 99% of the legit calls I get), or
if it's from one of a very tiny number of people who might call me due to an
emergency.

Otherwise, it goes straight to voicemail and (thanks to Tasker) doesn't even
make my phone ring.

------
willart4food
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbgAD1oehQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbgAD1oehQ)

> FCC Chairman Ajit Pai explains the importance of the FCC's proposed new
> rules banning illegal spoofed text messages and international calls. The
> proposed rules would enable the agency to address consumer concerns about
> unwanted text messages and scam calls from overseas.

------
gesman
Here's very simple idea for Apple:

Let only calls from known contacts ring, the rest auto-goes to voicemail.

Why is this so F __*ING hard for Apple to implement?

~~~
drexlspivey
Because it's already there, it's called Do Not Disturb mode

~~~
gesman
This is not even close to what I described.

------
hawkice
I've actually blocked all telephone calls. This might be ill-advised, but I
haven't been burned by it yet.

------
gist
I am guessing that the direction this is heading in is twilio somehow coming
up with a solution that they can implement and sell to someone. Maybe the
multi part blog post is part of the way to gather thoughts in order to learn
more and incorporate ideas and reactions from people.

------
mirimir
Maybe there ought to be a robocall service for ~anonymously targeting the
callback numbers provided in robocalls. Many years ago, I setup an autodialer
to hit an 800 number provided by a persistent robocaller. And pretty soon,
they stopped calling me.

------
davidhyde
> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration
> calls and impair the economics of robocalls.

That sounds like marketing BS to me. Why can’t they just create a one way
fingerprint of the audio and block duplicates.

~~~
mnw21cam
Because you need to pick up the phone in order to get any audio to make a
fingerprint of.

------
noahmbarr
I wonder what % of robocalls are run on Twilio. My sense is a non-
insignificant #

------
Taniwha
I get none, our house has an asterisk box that does voicemail and provides
individual VM for everyone at home - it means that anyone calling in has to
dial a single digit extension, I haven't had a robocall in years

------
tomerbd
"TrueCaller" App

~~~
TheHypnotist
TrueCaller seems to work great if you keep their spam list updated and allow
them to screen your calls. I have no complaints.

------
amthewiz
I'd love to take the robo-callers on a long winding road to nowhere. Is there
a conversational AI robo-answering app based on something like Google Duplex?
If not, should I build one?

------
sureaboutthis
I consider articles like this, which don't answer the point in the title, and
then say you have to wait for Part 2 to presumably get the answer, no better
than Robocalls and spam.

------
amelius
The solution is to use a whitelist for phonecalls.

------
flavor8
Reply All (podcast) had a recent episode about the increase in robocalls. It's
a fun listen. [https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-
conun...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-
conundrum#episode-player) (The TLDR is a law changed.)

Also, I've had success running Calls Blacklist (app) on my android phone -
it's set up so that it will block any call that's not from one of my contacts.
I haven't had a spam call since I started using it.

------
jeena
Is there a way to only let the phone ringing if it's a number which is in your
address book?

~~~
arawde
In Android Pie, Do Not Disturb mode makes it so you are only notified of calls
from your contacts. All other calls are received silently.

------
jedberg
I was hoping this would be a blog post on using Twillio to block robo callers.

------
instaheat
I've posted about this before. There is a solution to this.

Google "Robocalls Cash" and you'll see it has been featured in several news
outlets.

[https://robocalls.cash/ref/keven/](https://robocalls.cash/ref/keven/)

------
kinard
Great blog post, actually looking forward to the second part.

------
minikites
Was there a reason the author redacted parts of the robocall phone numbers?
They're robocalls, the numbers should be garbage by definition.

~~~
noah256
The point of the article is that the phone numbers that robocalls come from
are trivially spoofed. So, it's plausible that these are real people's phones
being spoofed, and it would be quite rude to them to publish their phone
numbers in a way that could be read as indicating the number is a robot.

~~~
minikites
So it's preventing the equivalent of dialing random numbers and hoping it's a
real person?

~~~
dgnorton
No. When you get a spam call, the caller ID is often not random. It's usually
the number of some other person on the spam caller's list of people to call,
often someone from your same area code. That way, you see a call from your
area code and are more likely to answer it. If you get upset and call it back,
you won't be calling the spammer. You'll be calling some other innocent victim
of the spammer.

~~~
bigtex
Most of the time the caller id shares the same area code and first 3 digits of
the recipient's phone number. Many times the last 4 digits are the same just
in a different order.

------
dividuum
Sounds like a technical solution for a problem that just needs regulation and
laws. I'm in Germany. I _never_ had a ad/scam call on my cellphone number in
basically 20 years. I get some kind of poll call every two months on my
landline number. That's all.

~~~
nemothekid
Don't quote me on this, but I do believe there are regulations and laws
preventing this - but just as the article states they are impossible to
enforce given our current infrastructure. Fines are meaningless to a blackhat
organization doing spoof calls over VoIP somewhere in India.

~~~
undeadsushi
Last Week with John Oliver & Reply All both went into details with there most
recent episodes, but something changed in federal policy with the Do Not Call
list.

