
Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/florida-man-accused-of-97-million-robocalls-says-he-s-no-kingpin
======
rco8786
Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and
everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past
year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone
anymore unless I know who's calling.

~~~
fosco
> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller
is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important.

Any thoughts on this?

~~~
drewg123
Me too. The _vast_ majority of my spam calls are on the local exchange for my
phone's native number. I use Google Voice on a Pixel2, so nobody should even
be using the native number. I've often wished for a way to either:

Block any call for the native, non Google Voice number or Block any call
claiming to originate from any number in the native number's local prefix. Eg,
604-233- __ __

I haven 't found a call blocker that can do this, but it has been a while
since I looked.

~~~
gnopgnip
Hiya on android will allow you to block numbers that start with a prefix, so
you could block all calls that start with 604-233 604-232 and 604-234

~~~
Abundnce10
But will it allow me to block all calls from 604-232 and 604-234 that are not
in my contacts? Because I've noticed a similar trend where I get calls from
numbers that begin with the same 6 numbers as my phone number.. but I have
friends and family with phone numbers similar to mine and I don't want them
blocked. Just ones not in my contacts list.

Edit: I read a review of Hiya and it sounds like they're still missing what
we're all looking for: "Two things are missing. First, the ability to block
all calls not in contacts. I have to download a separate app for that. Second,
on inbound calls from the same area code (i.e., spoofed numbers) it does not
pre-screen the call."

------
inetknght
I've frequently wondered why, in this day and age, telcos are permitted to
provide telephone service without any guarantee whatsoever of the originating
phone number being accurate.

~~~
ghaff
Part of it is that their are legitimate reasons to spoof CallerID such as when
a company wants to set all outgoing calls to show the main company name and
number, even when the call originates from a direct inbound dial line.
Carriers could block calls from numbers that supposedly don't exist or dial
out--and I believe some are starting to offer than as a service. But if they
spoof as a real number, that won't work.

I suspect a higher-level issue is that illegal junk calls fall into the mild
annoyance category for most people. If the average person was getting a
hundred calls a day to the point where they couldn't use their phone service,
something would happen.

~~~
nonbel
>"If the average person was getting a hundred calls a day to the point where
they couldn't use their phone service, something would happen."

This does seem to be the endgame. The last excuse I heard was "what if a
friend of a friend wants to invite you to her party so she gets your number
from the shared friend, and she also does the same for a bunch of other
friends of friends?"

~~~
jessaustin
I'm not on it, but judging by the parties I've missed, everyone else uses
facebook rather than the phone for this purpose.

This also seems problematic?

~~~
jcims
Do you ever wonder if Zuck has some kind of ghost profile for you anyway? This
person that shows up in photos but has no profile...he probably knows your
name and where you fit in the social graph.

~~~
jessaustin
He probably has _numerous_ ghosts of me. I know that every time anything gets
updated about a small business (phone number, address, principals, etc.) FB
spins up a new ghost page for that business. They're not only bad at finding
dupes, they're also bad at removing dupes once they've been notified of them.

------
epalmer
I am 64 and am approaching the date I can enroll in Medicare. I am getting 30+
robocalls a day at home and a handful at work and on my mobile phone trying to
sell me medicare supplemental plans.

We just let the home phone roll to VM now. I don't answer the work phone and
only my mobile phone if I know the caller. Grrrr.

~~~
komali2
Given your age and the fact that you're posting here I'm gonna safely assume
you know more things than me, but just in case you haven't given it a shot - I
took a custom google voice number and almost _never_ get unsolicited robo
calls on it. The only ones I get are from a couple debt collectors that are
tossing around an old hospital bill they can't decide if I need to pay or not,
i.e. they got my number relatively legitimately.

Not sure if this is because of some sort of built in spam protection, or if
because my area code is weird,but, worth considering?

~~~
ada1981
You can request the debt collectors stop calling you and then they have to
decide if they will sue you or not. If they keep calling they can be fined and
you get the $$.

~~~
komali2
It's always a different debt collector. None of them have proof of debt so
they're all just shitting my debt down the pyramid lol. I'm guessing the value
goes down significantly each sell.

I think it's reached the "penny stock" mark by now, I haven't had a call in 8
months.

~~~
ada1981
Hmm... if you make the no-contact request you can also ask them to attach that
to the file if they sell it.

Is it still on your credit report? You can challenge it.

If it goes to court you can most likely have it ruled invalid as well.

------
mancerayder
I'm glad something is being done and it's being reported. But it's only one
guy, and there's an epidemic of these annoying calls. My elderly father gets
dozens of them a week on his landline, and I get a spoofed number at least
once a day, from an exchange very similar to my own.

It's funny how freedom of speech is considered in light of for-profit stuff
like this (in the Bloomberg article it was the misleading nature of the calls,
not the calls themselves), but not with regards to stuff like hate speech and
political speech.

In an ethical world, it would be time for a flip: heavily regulate the
commercial elements of speech.

~~~
icebraining
_In an ethical world, it would be time for a flip: heavily regulate the
commercial elements of speech._

You're lucky: in the US, that's already the case legally. There's no such
thing as an hate speech exception to the First Amendment, and political speech
in general is mostly untouchable, whereas commercial speech can be much more
regulated.

Which is why this man is facing a $120M fine.

------
arosier
"This scheme was particularly abhorrent because, given its breadth, it appears
to have substantially disrupted the operations of an emergency medical paging
provider. It did this by slowing down and potentially disabling its network.
Pagers may be low-tech, but for doctors, these devices are simple and
dependable standbys. By overloading this paging network, Mr. Abramovich could
have delayed vital medical care, making the difference between a patient’s
life and death."

[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-80A1.pd...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-80A1.pdf)

~~~
chris_wot
A denial of service attack?

------
scarmig
Imagine that, on average, each robocall wastes 15 seconds of a person's time.
Let's round it out to 100M calls. That's 1.5B calls seconds, or over 45 years
of times destroyed.

He almost murdered someone, spread out across 100M people.

------
rconti
What an asshole. His whole line of logic seems to be:

* Open source software and long distance companies make it too easy

* Why didn't they stop me?

* They should have regulated me.

* Other people do it worse.

~~~
enzanki_ars
I can kind of understand his point though. We have the technology to stop
this, but the companies don't care enough to try. We face the same problem
with DDOS attacks and ISPs. It's too easy to do, and it's easy to stop, but
unless people are able to influence companies with their wallets, we won't get
anywhere.

~~~
rconti
We do have the technology to stop this, but it doesn't change what a miserable
sack of crap he is. It doesn't absolve him of being the ONE PERSON ultimately
responsible for his behavior. And you can't tell me if a simple blocking
method was put in place, that he wouldn't try to work around it. In fact, why
do you think they don't dial from the same phone number every time? He's
already trying to work around the (very rudimentary) methods people and
providers use to stop this garbage.

------
munk-a
So reading through the article, his main argument seems to be

"There are bigger fish in the sea so why are you even going after me?"

In the US there is a real problem with selective enforcement in general but
this is BS, the fact that someone else is breaking the law worse doesn't make
your crime not a thing.

~~~
gowld
Answers to his question.

1\. He's right, biased enforcement is a crime against society. It _encourages_
increased criminality by those who are "above the law", and unfairly harms the
personal social networks of prosecuted criminals, while the personal social
networks on non-prosecuted criminals thrive and have relatively more social
power.

2\. Random(ish) enforcement is a cost-effective deterrent. Convict 10% of the
crooks, make them pay 11x their gains, and the expected value of the scam goes
negative, deterring rational scammers.

~~~
jonhendry18
It'd be easier to enforce the law if _they 'd use their own damn caller ID_.

------
paul7986
This guy and other slimeballs helped changed the telephone landscape.

The population of those who do not answer unknown numbers possibly has risen
to 60% of the US population. I bet all of us here don't answer unknown
numbers.

Text or email me and if it's important or you are important to me then I'll
respond. Don't bother to leave a voicemail either unless you are going to give
me money, a new job or there's a situation that desperately needs my
attention.

~~~
klenwell
Before my grandparents passed away, I considered it extremely dangerous for
them to answer their phone and did everything in my power to discourage them
from doing so unless they recognized the number. Even then, with number
spoofing, it made me nervous.

One wrong call from a motivated scammer and I feared it could end in
bankruptcy for them. On one occasion, a telemarketing scam ended up costing an
elderly relative a couple thousand dollars that required other family members
to help cover for her.

------
blang
I was wondering aloud at work the other day if robocalls could actually spell
the end of the phone number. It is extremely rare that I actually make a
telephone call to talk to someone, it's been replaced with facetime and google
hangouts, and it's very rare that someone calls me on my phone number that
isn't a scam call. Pretty much the only time I get calls that I need to pick
up are when my kid's day care is calling to tell me that my kid is running a
fever and I need to pick them up, in this case they could probably text or
email me.

~~~
randomerr
I think phones are stilled needed. They're still the most reliable form of
communication. But I see most people switching to white lists. Anyone not in
your address book will get sent to voicemail right away.

~~~
froindt
> But I see most people switching to white lists. Anyone not in your address
> book will get sent to voicemail right away.

Imagine the future of mobile adware...where they get access to your contact
list, generate generic names of similar ethnicity to your real contacts, and
add fake contacts. Or they add additional numbers to contacts you already
have.

"Oh, my friend Stan is calling. DANGIT NO I DON'T WANT A MEDICARE SUPPLEMENT
PLAN!"

~~~
JdeBP
Given what a lot of people now know (or _should_ know) about what Facebook and
Google record about everyone, this is not the future any longer. It is
achievable right now, and I would not be shocked to find that someone is doing
it already. (I'd be disappointed and irate.)

------
jakewins
Ugh, this guy calls me several times a week. I'm on the no-call list, I report
them to the FTC every time they call, and twice I've waited to get patched
through to the "travel rep" to ask them to remove me. It's infuriating.

On a related note, I'm curious about a scam that popped up when I added a
Craigslist ad the other day; I normally include my number, because I live in
the midwest and people buying construction material don't have email; that's
never been an issue.

But this time, I've gotten two separate robo text-messages asking I reply via
email to magalife3@gmail.com. Googling highlights this person is spamming a
few public places as well:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=+magalife3%40gmail.com](https://www.google.com/search?q=+magalife3%40gmail.com)

Curious if anyone else has come across something like that - is it just a way
to get past spam filters by having me make an outbound email to the scammer?

~~~
gowld
Google search is amazing. #4 result for me is this article, which _predates_
the popular usage of "MAGA" and doesn't include "magalife3" in the page
content, but _exactly_ answers your question.

[http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/01/is-item-still-
avail...](http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/01/is-item-still-available-
craigslist-scams.html)

Gem of a line on that page: "In reality, only poor people use Western Union,
so don't be a poor person and just stop using it. "

------
DanAndersen
>“Clearly regulation needs to address the carriers and providers and require
the major carriers to detect robocalls activity,” Abramovich said in testimony
submitted in advance to the Senate Commerce Committee.

It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the sheer _chutzpah_ needed to say
something like that. "The issue isn't that I did it, the issue is that you
didn't make other people stop me." Textbook sociopathic behavior.

------
rubicon33
In the US we just had congressional hearings over Facebook.

While Zuckerberg walked a fine line and performed as well as anyone could
under such situation, I was left disappointed.

He (more or less) took a beating from congress without ever pointing the
finger back at them, or at the telecom industry, or the NSA, or anyone else
who is breaking trust and downright abusing existing platforms and ignoring
privacy.

Robo calls are straight up scams. They're on the rise, and they're not being
given any attention. This is indeed hopefully the first domino to fall, that
will bring this to an end.

For those interested in these these scam calls, there's a guy on Twitch (live
right now) who streams reverse scamming these centers and taking up their
time.

[https://www.twitch.tv/kitboga](https://www.twitch.tv/kitboga)

~~~
mintplant
I feel like I've read the exact same HN comment, comparing Facebook to the
NSA, five times in the past couple days. Here it's barely tangentially related
to the topic at hand. Is there some sort of mini PR push going on to mitigate
FB's recent reputational damage?

~~~
dang
Please don't post comments insinuating astroturfing or shillage unless you
have some more substantive reason for it—in which case you should email us at
hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. All this is in the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

It's natural for things to seem this way, but that's because there's enough
data on HN to produce seeming patterns of all kinds. Overwhelmingly, it's just
users being users. Unfortunately the internet habit of leaping to "shill!" or
"PR!" as an explanation for $annoying_view does more damage, because it's more
widespread. That's why we ask people to inhibit the reflex.

I've posted a ton about this if anyone wants more background:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturfing&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturfing&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0).

~~~
mintplant
You're right, on reflection this was unnecessarily silly/snarky of me to post
here. Thanks for the course correction.

------
jdfreefly
I'm against the death penalty, but I'm willing to re-evaluate the position.

------
lordnacho
I am wondering why I do not know of an app that can take over a call and keep
the person occupied with an AI. It wouldn't have to be particularly smart,
just a plausible synthetic voice (randomized) that holds up the call for a
bit.

The robocallers are already using NLP to call me, so why doesn't someone use
it to waste their time?

~~~
Willson50
These apps exist. Here's a rather funny one:
[http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/](http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/)

------
paulie_a
Ive literally called my cell phone company to ask if I could block entire area
codes...in one case I actually asked them to block Texas. Unfortunately that
feature is not available.

~~~
komali2
Hah, the phone equivalent to when Hiroyuki / 4chan banned all Russian IPs
during a DDOS attack.

I spent a solid couple minutes trying to find the screencap, but it went down
in 4chan history for the distinct Hiroyuki-style response, that went something
like

>Many DDOS IPs were from Russia. So, we block Russian IPs. Now, DDOS ended.

------
jpindar
I too have mostly stopped answering calls from numbers I don't recognize.

What I get are not spam calls, but silent calls. When I answer them there is
no sound at all from the other end. If I let calls go to voice mail they leave
long silent voicemails.

I also get calls which ring for only a couple of seconds, hardly long enough
to reach for my phone before they hang up.

I've heard that these may be scammers trying to trick me into calling back, so
they could charge me however many dollars per minute.

~~~
delinka
They might be attempting to get you to call back, but likely they're calling
more numbers than they can actually connect. It increases the odds of getting
answers on particular attempt, but they can also keep track of those that
answered even if their talking robot can't service every connection. Now they
know they've got a live number and will try you again.

------
makecheck
Frankly, unwanted calls could be much less aggravating if phones had a proper
UI.

In _2007_ , when the iPhone was first released, maybe the “phone” part was an
important app. Now though, I can’t believe the phone app is _still_ allowed to
_immediately_ interrupt anything I am doing and take over _the entire screen_!

What’s worse is that the Answer and Hang Up buttons could easily appear right
under your fingers while you’re in the middle of using a definitely-not-phone
app, causing you to do things you don’t want.

And why are my only options to “Do Not Disturb” (blocking _everything_ ,
including stuff I don’t want to block), or to just sit and wait for the
ringing to end? If I answer _or_ hang up immediately, the spammer knows I’m a
real person with a valid phone number and I probably end up on a list for more
spam.

Here’s what I want: a checkbox that says “do not _ever_ ring my phone, allow
voicemail”, with an option to use a standard notification if a call comes in.
Period. Tired of the full-screen-screw-whatever-you-were-doing-here’s-some-
spam interface.

~~~
nichtich
I think 'do not disturb' has an option for only allow people from your
contacts? and there are crowdsourced blacklist apps for scammer/harassment
phone numbers.

------
chris_wot
He wants his fine reduced? I believe it should be increased! This is taking a
property used for the common good (the phone system) and abusing it in such a
way that it becomes worthless. These sort of people need to be made an example
of, lowering the fine would definitely be sending the wrong signal.

------
mmanfrin
I got THREE spam calls this morning before I intended to wake up. I hope they
throw the book at these jerks.

------
esfandia
How many of these people get prosecuted every year? Is there some sort of
Interpol of spam/scam/phishing to coordinate efforts against these guys? They
should be easy enough to catch. It seems that right now there's not enough
disincentive for these people to stop what they're doing. If the decentralized
web wants to have a chance to succeed, we'll need to find a solution against
spammers and scammers.

~~~
jonhendry18
Not many. And they make enough money that the fines aren't much of an
obstacle.

------
pcunite
Wish Apple would make it so that, if a number is not in my contacts, it goes
straight to voicemail (without turning on _Do Not Disturb_ ).

------
us0r
I really wish Google would step up and put some of its power to use and stop
Stephanie (My Google listing expert) from calling me (and probably thousands
of others) 3 times a day. I have given them plenty of info and even offered to
buy their bullshit so they can follow the money. Google couldn't be any less
interested.

~~~
djangowithme
I HATE these calls too. Godaddy does the same thing, but uses local numbers so
that they might trick me to answer.

------
skate22
Whats stopping us from having longer phone numbers. Everyone i care about
talking to can scan a QR code or something. Also it would be awesome to have
seperate outgoing and incoming numbers so i cant get added to a call list when
i contact a business.

~~~
jonhendry18
What would longer phone numbers accomplish?

~~~
skate22
The reason you get calls from similar phone numbers is because they crawl from
their own number. If we change up the way numbers are assigned so your number
+- 1 isnt valid, this technique will no longer work.

------
asdsa5325
All the robocalls near me spoof the area code AND the next 3 digits to match
mine.

------
vsviridov
I usually pick up the phone, but stay silent. Robocalls use voice detection to
start playing their spiel, so if they don't hear anything for a few seconds
they disconnect (and hopefully mark the number as inactive).

------
sol_remmy
That's 1 robocall for every married couple in the U.S...

It's a shame Mr. Abramovich did not learn respect at yeshiva, if he was raised
in my orthodox community he would not be acting like this..

------
rb808
I gave up my home phone because of this. Now my cell is starting to get a few
a day. I'm going to be Viber/Skype/Messenger/Facetime only soon.

------
rak00n
I wonder if Project Fi has a good spam detecting system. I don't remember when
I last got a spam call.

------
jchrisa
It's like the final scene in The Lawnmower Man but instead it's Florida Man.

------
afo
Nomorobo founder here. I'm the "robocall guy" that everyone quotes in the
news.

Instead of just popping my head into every comment, I wanted to give some
insight into what's actually happening out there.

Background: I won the FTC Robocall Challenge back in 2013. I turned my
prototype/idea into Nomorobo, which is the leading robocall blocker out there.
In 4 years, we've stopped over 630 million robocalls from reaching people.

I'll actually be testifying at next week's House subcommittee hearing on
robocalls.

# Not picking up unknown numbers

Unfortunately, this is what people think is the best solution. Even the
government gives this advice. #1 is to use a robocall blocker and #2 is to not
answer numbers that you don't recognize.

That frustrates me to no end. That's not a good answer.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do 'this'. Then don't do 'that'."

I really get worried when people say they turn on Do Not Disturb. What if
there's an emergency? You have no idea who needs to call you.

This is especially important for people with kids. Is it a school? Is it a
neighbor?

This is an actual story that happened to me - no BS.

My Uncle wound up in the hospital last month. Ambulance had to come pick him
up off the bathroom floor and everything. No one in the family knew it was
happening.

I got a call from a number that I didn't recognize but, since I trust
Nomorobo, I answered it. It was my Uncle telling me what happened, what
hospital he was in, etc.

Damn good thing that I answered that call.

But the fun doesn't stop there.

A few hours later, I go over to his house to pick up a bunch of his stuff and
bring it over to the hospital for him. While I'm getting things together, his
old flip-style cell phone starts ringing. I figure it's one of his friends
that's worried about him.

I answer it.

"Congratulations! You've won a free cruise."

# Neighbor Spoofing

Yep - if the number shown is close to yours and it's not in your contacts,
it's probably a robocaller. But spoofing is the norm with robocall scams.

Our algorithm detects over 1300 new robocalling numbers _every day_ and
they're basically all spoofed.

Whatever number is shown usually can't be called back. It usually doesn't
belong to the actual robocaller. And they usually try to make the call take a
confusing journey through "the tubes" that's impossible to trace back.

Neighbor spoofing is really hard for carriers to stop because a lot of people
have sequential numbers and they don't want to accidentally block good calls.

It's especially confusing when people don't understand what's going on and
they call back the unknown number:

Person A: Why did you call me? Person B: I didn't call you. Why are you
calling me? Person A: Because you called me. Person B: No, I didn't. Person A:
Yes, you did. Person B: Leave me alone, crazy person. [blocked]

But, as an app on your phone, it's really easy for us to stop.

If you give us permission to look at your contact list (they never leave your
phone and are never stored by us), then we can fully block all neighbor
spoofed calls. If you don't give us that permission, we simply identify them
as "Robocaller" whenever they call.

# Wasting their time

Don't waste YOUR time. It will not help. You are trying to warm up the ocean
by pissing into it.

The scale that these automated callers work at is unbelievable.

According to our stats, 40% of all calls in the US are spam robocalls.

Someone mentioned Jolly Roger Telco. We worked with them this holiday season
to make www.DoNotCallChristmas.com. It was fun and it makes people feel good
but that's about the only impact it has on the problem.

# So...why don't the carriers just make the calls stop?

There are a lot of tech people here on HN. You know TFW someone says to you,
"Oh, that's easy - you just hook up a database to a web page, right?"

"And put some that blockchains in there while you're at it."

Well, it's the same way with the phone system. It's not as easy as it looks.

The phone system has a birth defect. Call it one of the worst cases of
technical debt, ever.

When it was first created, it was a closed, trusted system (with AT&T running
the whole shebang). No one could imagine a situation where someone would lie
about the caller ID so they didn't require it to be verified.

But then the system changed. Deregulation. The rise of VoIP.
Interconnectivity.

Whoops. Toothpaste is out of the tube. It's tough to put it back in.

So, yes, secure and verified caller ID systems are being worked on
(STIR/SHAKEN) but it's years off.

Will it reduce voice spam? Of course. But, this problem will NEVER go away.

People still get ripped off every day by thinking that the Nigerian Price is
going to make them rich.

# What about the Do Not Call list?

The laws that govern automated calling were written back in the early 90's.

I was using a 14.4k baud modem and connecting to BBSes at that time. The
internet as we know it didn't exist. People were still paying by-the-minute
for long distance phone service. Then technology rocketed past regulations.

Today, the Do Not Call list is virtually useless against modern robocalling
scammers.

At the House subcommittee hearing next week, I'm actually going to advocate
that the government scrap all the existing laws and rewrite them with a
simple, plain thought:

High frequency, automated phone soliciting should be opt-IN, not opt-out.

You must have the express written permission of the person that you are
calling. Period. Full stop.

It doesn't matter if your number is on the Do Not Call Registry or not. It
doesn't matter if you're calling a landline or a cell phone. It doesn't matter
if it's a business or a residential line.

Got permission? OK. Don't have permission? Nope.

Note: If you're sending a purely informational message, this doesn't apply.
I'm only talking about commercial solicitations here. Think of it like
preventing modern day door-to-door salespeople. Ride hailing notification,
doctor's office reminders, schools closing, etc. just aren't the same type of
thing.

# Closing thoughts

So, in 2018, the best way to stop these types of scams is by using a robocall
blocker. I'm _highly_ biased here but I think Nomorobo is the best one out
there. We understand the problem and the solution better than anyone else.
It's completely free on landlines and has a 14-day free trial on mobile. On
top of all that, we're extremely privacy friendly.

And, while I never blame the victims, there is a bit of a shared
responsibility that we all have here. The more people that use robocall
blocking technology, the less effective these scams will be. The less
effective they are, the less of them there will be. It's a virtuous cycle.

Let me know if there's anything else that you'd like to dig into. I'm all
ears.

------
jimhefferon
Death penalty.

