
FCC hits robocaller with agency's largest-ever fine of $120M - wbsun
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/22/fcc-hits-robocaller-agencys-largest-ever-fine-120-million/103102546/
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cletus
So basically robocalls can only exist because of second tier telcos who cater
specifically to them. They have enough legitimate traffic to essentially
launder spam. They charge robocallers more and know exactly what they're
doing.

A lot of people deal with robocalls incorrectly by declining calls from
unknown numbers. Don't do this.

The correct solution is to answer the call, say nothing and hang up after 3
seconds.

If it's a real call you'll hear background noise most of the time or the
caller will say "hello?" Or they'll call back thinking something went wrong.
Most robocallers are programmed to do nothing until they hear a voice.

But the critical part of all this is hanging up within 6 seconds. This is the
one thing that hurts the telco knowingly supporting this. If a telco has too
many such calls they essentially get punished as a bad actor, which is why
they need legitimate traffic. I think robocallers and their telcos have wished
up to this as I suspect they'll stop calling you if you do this.

When I started this I got 2-3 robocalls a week. Not a huge amount but
annoying. Now I think it's been at least 2 months since I've gotten one. It
could be that crackdowns on robocalls are yielding results but I'm not
convinced.

~~~
wfunction
The whole point of blocking calls from unknown numbers is that your phone
doesn't ring or distract you. Picking it up is obviously not a solution.

~~~
JadeNB
I believe that cletus's suggestion is that the short-term inconvenience of
picking up on a few such calls will yield the long-term reward of reduced or
eliminated robocalls.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I think it's incorrect. If you pick up a robocall, you get flagged as a legit
number. They'll call you more, not less.

~~~
nacs
> say nothing and hang up after 3 seconds.

The "say nothing" is the important part here I think. Most robocall systems
would wait for some kind of voice before starting their spam and that's the
point where they probably mark the number as 'legit', not as soon as you pick
up as they don't know if it's an actual person that picked up.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It just seems unlikely. I suppose it's not impossible, but in my experience
robocalls start immediately. And maybe it would work if you pressed "mute",
but without that, you'd leak environmental noises into the call. (People
talking around you, cara going by on the street...)

It might just be a trick that people pass along regardless of effectiveness.

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nsb1
IMHO, the way to stop robocalling is to go after the services that employ
them. If they're asking people to buy something, follow the money and slap a
fine on the seller instead of the robocalling service. Robo calling profits
ought to dry up as vendors become wary of using them.

~~~
CaptSpify
The problem I see with this is:

If a business wants to damage their competitor, they can just start making
robocalls on their behalf.

I like your idea and would like it to happen for pretty much all advertising,
but it seems like it can be easily abused.

~~~
zo1
Of course you won't just follow the "product". You'll follow the money, too.
And that will probably very clearly _not_ lead to the target product that
you're trying to damage.

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nugget
I've quit answering any unknown calls due to this out of control robocall
spam. At first I felt tinges of anxiety thinking that I might miss an
important call, but that passed very quickly. Now I figure that if it's really
important the interested party will find another way to reach me (email, sms)
and I feel zero anxiety. It's an interesting change in behavior. I'd almost be
willing to use an app that restricted calls to my address book plus a
whitelisted group of vetted companies.

~~~
johnnyb9
My attitude as well. If someone wanted to get in touch with me for something
important, I imagine they would leave a voicemail or text or email me.

In my iPhone I have "do not disturb" setup and it only allows people in my
address book through.

~~~
jrnichols
I ended up subscribing ($19/yr) to NoMoRobo and it's worked well so far. Hiya
was moved to a secondary position. That and T-Mobile's Call Protect (free) and
the number of junk phone calls has dropped to maybe 2 a week, where it was up
to 5-7 a day.

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cordite
Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of declining an "Unknown Number".
Correctional complexes do not identify the number as only the inmate can call
out and no call back number is provided.

However I have not received any spam from "Unknown Number" due to this herd
immunity to unknown number spam, which I am grateful for.

Given my area codes are no longer where I live, I just assume numbers close to
mine are accidents and don't bother answering them. Voicemail seems to
validate this when a message is left.

~~~
khedoros1
I think that for the most part, people aren't talking about when the phone
literally says "unknown number", but when they've received a call from a
number similar to their own that they don't recognize.

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syphilis2
I made the mistake of registering a .us domain and using my regular phone
number, after six months I've started receiving the infamous robo IRS calls.
The robot call is listed as being from 1-866-978-6618 and in the voicemail
requests that I call back that same number. Online this number is listed as
being used for the IRS scam in June 2017. How does a scammer set up an 800
phone number without having it traced back to them? Why is this number still
operational after a week of scam calls?

~~~
dawnerd
I've resorted to only using a google voice number for my domains. It's insane
how much spam you get from being forced to provide contact info to the public.

~~~
finnn
I have a VoIP line that goes no where (no voicemail, just drops the call) for
things like this. Absolutely no legitimate communication will be made to my
whois contact, so why bother routing it anywhere?

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ghaff
I probably get about 5 spoofed Caller ID robocalls a day between my cell and
my landline. I don't pick them up but they're still enough to jerk me out of
whatever I'm doing.

I just wish there was an easier way to report them. At this point I've given
up on the going online and filling out a form which basically requires me to
have listened to the whole spiel to answer fully. I block the number but it's
pretty pointless as they rotate at least the last four digits.

~~~
mysterydip
What's worse is false positives. It conditions you to ignore any calls you
don't immediately recognize, which can have consequences if someone is trying
to get ahold of you for some timely legitimate reason. Some people don't leave
voicemails, either.

~~~
ghaff
Which makes the local ID spoofing especially annoying. I'm pretty sure no one
in Florida has a reason to contact me. Someone ostensibly in my town? Not so
sure.

Cell phone is actually easier because it's not a very local number anymore.
But it also means I have to set it to Do Not Disturb while traveling across
time zones. So no one can get me in the middle of the night in a legitimate
emergency.

~~~
dmoy
This is the one time in my life that I've been glad to have a number from a
place I don't live. All the hassle of trying to explain to people that yes, my
area code is actually an area code, no it isn't from around here, etc. All
absolved when I know I can ignore any number from my area code, 'cus who the
hell wants to call me from there? Nobody.

~~~
khedoros1
Mine is from close enough that people recognize it, but far enough that the
only people from there that would ever contact me are family members, and of
course I already have their numbers programmed in. It _is_ very convenient!

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mderazon
How about CAPTCHA for unknown calls - numbers not in your contact list will be
required to answer something only a human is capable of answering before
getting through to you.

Or another approach that Google does with Google Voice is to ask the caller to
identify before the call goes through. Then the phone rings on your side and
you hear the name of the caller before you decide to answer.

~~~
thomastruett
I'm working with a friend to build this. You can sign up to beta test at
[https://quitcalling.us](https://quitcalling.us). You can also text a
telemarketer's number to 865.407.2730 and our system will file a complaint
with the FTC on your behalf.

~~~
duskwuff
This is only effective against the relatively honest telemarketers that use
correct Caller ID information. The really bad ones, like the one involved in
this article, use spoofed Caller ID -- reporting them to the FTC is a waste of
time for everyone involved.

~~~
MichaelGG
It wouldn't be if anyone actually followed through on the complaint. Each
company knows who sent them the call, even if the caller ID is misleading.
(Though you might have to keep digging though several companies to find the
actual call sender.)

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finnn
When I get a call from a spoofed number, can my carrier tell which carrier
sent them the call? After I started getting a lot of these, I called T-Mobile,
who proceeded to be completely unhelpful and offered to block it based on the
caller ID number, acting as if that would somehow help.

~~~
MichaelGG
Not really. They'll know who immediately delivered it to them, but then need
to get that company to reveal their customer. This chain may run several
companies deep.

I've seen a ton of these complaints come through. They're basically ignored or
given a useless "that caller ID has been blocked" response just to say
something was done. At the end of the day, sales wants these calls to keep
flowing so they're not gonna get too hard on customers unless they're really
abusing the betiejr (placing tons of no-answer or short-duration traffic).

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wfunction
Can someone explain what "neighborhood spoofing" technology is? Is it legal
(beyond the fact that it lets you spoof and match the first few digits)? Can
anyone do it? What's a legitimate use case for it?

~~~
tyingq
It's just spoofing caller ID. Caller ID has no verification or security around
it, other than what a provider might optionally choose to put in place.

Here's how to do it with the open source asterisk pbx:
[http://allanfeid.com/content/caller-id-spoofing-w-
asterisk](http://allanfeid.com/content/caller-id-spoofing-w-asterisk)

Or, just find a cheap VoIP provider that doesn't verify control of a number
before allowing it to be used as CID. Voip.ms lets you spoof CID right from
their web based config:
[https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Caller_ID](https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Caller_ID)

The legit use cases are where you spoof a different number that's still your
number. Like your landline presenting your cell number. Or a business
presenting the main number for all phones.

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matthewmcg
The CallKit blocking list feature in iOS 10 helps with this, at least in the
case where the caller is not spoofing a legitimate number.

I have a Miami area code and robocalls were a constant problem until I
installed Nomorobo.

~~~
yoda_sl
The CallKit framework is definitely a welcome addition, and Nomorobo is quite
good. I am actually working myself on a new app similar to Nomorobo, but with
some additional features that so far no other app using CallKit provides. I
decided to write such app because of the daily robo/telemarketers calls I am
getting.

~~~
Terretta
I will pay well for this provided you do not harvest call activity and your
TOS has teeth against that.

All others I’ve found so far harvest and resell your call network.

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ansgri
The first time I've received a robocall here in Russia I was really amazed at
the impudence: it's bad enough when a live person calls you, but when you get
a robocall? Immediate blacklisting of the number and the brand. And when I'll
get another one, I'll probably go out of my way to report to some agency.

IMO this is nearly as bad as a stranger insulting you in the street: they're
at least a live person taking your time.

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ajmurmann
How is it that we haven't solved this yet the same way we solved email and
blog spam? Why can't I mark a number as spam on my phone and if "enough"
people do that the number will be automatically blocked. This could just beer
implemented by a single phoned manufacturer and already have a significant
impact. Not mentioning of one of the big ones like Apple did it.

~~~
Fej
The Google dialer already marks numbers as spam. If a call comes from a spam
number, the dialer pop-up is red instead of green and says "Suspected spam
call". There is also a "report not spam" button.

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ableton
Great, now I know who was kindly calling me several times a week on behalf of
Marriott offering a "free hotel stay".

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arikr
Awesome. I think I was called by these guys, and I reported them to the FCC
via Do Not Call Registry, which I'm on.

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guelo
I got hit by this several times a week for over a year and then it suddenly
stopped a month ago. I was always confused how they were allowed to spoof
phone numbers with my area code and first 3 digits.

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mderazon
The best solution imo is to block any call from a number that is not on your
contact list and direct all other people that need to reach you to email. Your
friends and family can still reach you and legit people who need to reach you
can still reach you via email. Email spam filters are much better at blocking
unwanted traffic.

It's far from ideal, and people might give up and not try to pursue getting to
you but the situation with robocalls has got so much out of hand that drastic
measures are needed.

~~~
jjeaff
Rather than go that drastic, you could simply get one of those answering
service apps that require the user to announce themselves and press 1 to get
through. You can set that functionality to only happen for numbers not in your
phone book.

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wbsun
Actually I am wondering how much these companies can make by doing this so
that they may be able to afford the $120M fine.

~~~
jjeaff
I'm assuming that is a fine meant to completely destroy your company. I would
be very surprised (and angry) if they are able to pay that fine.

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noobermin
I'm guessing they couldn't afford to lobby Ajit Pai.

~~~
jessaustin
Perhaps they'll be comforted by this notion: his future lobbying efforts will
be that much more effective when he mentions what a shame it would be to
donate too little, like those poor robocallers did.

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coding123
They should triple the fine.

