
The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790 - simonebrunozzi
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fcc-has-fined-robocallers-208-million-its-collected-6-790-11553770803?mod=rsswn
======
lukebuehler
A lot of people point out that telecom companies should do something but
aren't because it's lucrative for them or too expensive to fix.

Are telecom companies not realizing how much they are hurting themselves with
this in the long term? People will stop using phone numbers altogether. Using
the phone has become such a pain, at least in the US, that whenever I can, I
used different ways of communicating. WhatsApp, iMesage, Skype, etc. The
incessant robocalls have definitely motivated me to move away from traditional
phone calls faster than I would otherwise.

Lastly, maybe this is what these companies want, i.e., that I just use their
data plan, but then that makes me way less likely to stay loyal.

~~~
Diesel555
"Are telecom companies not realizing how much they are hurting themselves"

After seeing cable companies fail to get into the internet, I'm convinced
companies try to stop progress instead of embracing it. They don't see
progress as an opportunity, but rather as a threat. They don't realize how
much they are hurting themselves.

I read an interesting article on here about the rise of the cell phone camera,
the amount of R&D into it compared to traditional cameras, and how slowly
traditional camera manufacturers have progressed. Sure, cell phones have to
overcome a smaller sensor... but traditional camera sales have been
obliterated.

~~~
tooney712
The go to example of this will always be Kodak.

Steven Sasson invented the first digital camera (and a device to display it
on) in 1975 while working at R&D at Kodak. He had a fully functional DSLR by
1989, complete with memory cards. Kodak never released his work, never
manufactured that camera. They kept the patent of the work and sat on it, and
when others tried to innovate and create a digital camera, Kodak sued them
with that patent and kept suing people right up until the patent ran out in
2007. By 2012, the company was bankrupt.

Innovation, true innovation that really pushes technology forward, is anathema
to the average business.

~~~
rlayton2
A "use it or lose it" clause would be great for patent law.

While I appreciate how hard it would be to implement properly, I don't think
that should be an impediment to getting the process started.

~~~
falcor84
>While I appreciate how hard it would be to implement properly

Isn't that part of what it means to acquire a patent? Trying to get a patent
on something that I don't yet know how to actually implement should be denied,
right?

~~~
salawat
Nope. It's actually best practice to get one even without an implementation
because usually the threat of a lawsuit is enough of a chilling effect to keep
the competition guessing.

Of course the risk is that if someone else challenges you on it, and you can't
provide the implementation, you can have your patent invalidated.

At least that's my understanding of the tactics of patent warfare.

------
ikeboy
The solution is simple, and I've proposed it before.

If someone used spoofing to break the law, there's strict liability for some
kind of statutory damages, say $100, applicable to everyone across the chain.
I.e. I can sue Verizon for sending the call to my phone, Verizon can sue
whoever connected to their network, they can sue whoever spoofed on their
network, etc.

This will quickly lead to networks requiring proof of authorization or at
least posting some kind of bond to be allowed to spoof numbers.

And there's no real downside. Nobody has a pressing need to spoof but not
enough to post a bond convincing the phone networks that they won't break the
law.

~~~
michaelt
So if I buy a $20 prepaid cell phone for cash and use it to robocall ten of my
friends, they'd share $1000?

~~~
ikeboy
A network shouldn't allow a $20 prepaid cell phone to spoof numbers. Give it
one number, if it starts spamming it can easily be blocked.

~~~
michaelt
Yes, my $20 prepaid cell phone would only have one number, and would be
blocked after my friends report the robocalls.

But whence comes the $1000 my friends are now owed, for the calls made before
their complaints were filed?

~~~
ikeboy
I specified the fine would be for spoofing that broke the laws.

That would eliminate spoofing, which would make it much easier to identify
where the bad calls are actually coming from.

------
ravenstine
I see people here saying that spoofed numbers is the problem. Maybe it's a big
part of it, but at the end of the day, the phone companies are complicit with
the criminals because there's no good reason that these robocalls can't be
treated like a DoS attack.

These crooks make _millions_ , of calls every year. My first employer was
apparently making robocalls, though none of us were aware of it(there was a
call center with actual human beings), and they were cracked down on by the
FTC a few years ago.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2017/01/ftc-a...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2017/01/ftc-announces-crackdown-two-massive-illegal-robocall-
operations)

The way I see it, there's no good technological reason why a system couldn't
detect millions of calls coming from one place, compare that with the number
of complaints and number-spoofs, and trigger an investigation. The dinosaur
phone system needs to either go extinct or be reformed, and the telecom
companies don't give a _fuck_. Every time I've asked either T-mobile or AT&T
to block the relentless robocalls, they tell me to install some 3rd party
Android app that fails to effectively block calls.

~~~
nobodyandproud
Yup. It’s amusing to see people think there is some hard technical problem
here.

Tie the problem of robocalls to the telcos losing money, and this problem will
solve itself in months.

~~~
atoav
I got two unwanted robocalls in the last twenty years (central europe). This
seems like a profoundly american issue.

~~~
cameldrv
Lucky you. Approximately no one in the countries that these calls originate
from speaks any central European language, so they don't call.

~~~
elyobo
AFAIK they're not a problem here in Australia either, and the language here
could (charitably) be called English. I've never received one of these calls.

~~~
lysp
Aussie here, I get the odd one on mobile, but get a couple a week on my land
line numbers.

Land line numbers are also registered with Do Not Call, but doesn't make any
difference.

Answer the call and there will be either:

1) a few second pause and then a person will drop in with the call centre
voice noise in the background.

2) a few second pause and if there is no sound (you saying "hello") it will
hang up.

Those are usually from international call centres. In terms of locally based
ones, got a couple during the election with a recorded voice saying "this is
an important message from XYZ politician".

------
tamalpais
I enabled the Silence Unknown Callers feature [0] in iOS and haven’t answered
a spam call since. The downside is that it sends _every_ call from unknown
numbers to voicemail, including legitimate ones. It’s a worthwhile trade-off.

[0] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT207099)

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
I tried it, and within a week I missed an important call. I was waiting by the
phone, and it just never arrived. I realized too late that it had been
silenced. It's very frustrating that we can't just get something like a spam
filter, rather than a blanket "silence everything unknown."

~~~
cactus2093
Yeah part of the problem is there are tons of legitimate businesses out there
that will do important things only over the phone, from obviously an unknown
number, where if you miss the call it becomes a big hassle to get back in
touch with them. Happens with banks and other financial institutions, doctors
offices, deliveries and all kinds of other services.

It would kind of solve the problem if a norm emerged that these types of
companies first send a confirmation email with the phone number they'll be
calling from so you can add it to your caller id. But it's a lot of extra work
for people and I think it's probably asking too much of the average non
technical user.

Even better, why couldn't we have something like SSL certificates or DKIM for
phone calls? People for the most part understand the lock icon and a verified
flag in a user interface. Then a call could be signed to know that it's coming
from a particular entity.

It seems like some other countries have solved this problem by moving away
from regular sms and phone calls and instead letting a private company own all
communication, like WeChat in China. Which obviously is quite problematic in
other ways, but honestly at this point that would be an improvement in my
opinion, if businesses started only contacting me through Facebook Messenger
or Whatsapp so I could see who every message is associated with.

~~~
dredmorbius
Business opportunity.

~~~
dangero
I agree there’s a business here, but will walled gardens let the solution work
optimally? Apple locks down their phone and messaging apis so that nobody can
use them.

~~~
dredmorbius
Basically: selling the ability for a company to make phone calls from numerous
systems all of which appear to originate at a single, designated, known, and
generally callee-approved, number.

Needn't be a walled garden.

Though migrations from PSTN to various alternatives is also fairly likely.
Much of the present "social media" / apps space is actually probably a
jostling for supremacy / positioning in this regard.

------
OliverJones
Lots of these robocalls are fraudulent. They say nonsense like they're the FBI
acting on behalf of the IRS, with a warrant for my arrest. If somebody ran a
scam like that through the USPS, they'd become a guest of the US Bureau of
Prisons for a few years. Internet DoSers get prison time too. But not these
parasites.

If the scammers are offshore, an arrest or two in the customs hall at an
airport will get peoples' attention.

Prison time, big fines, and restitution will be a more effective deterrent
than what we have today. The American Graffiti (1974) writers correctly
described the current system of uncollected fines. [https://getyarn.io/yarn-
clip/6cac9bde-4762-41c2-8b76-264eba9...](https://getyarn.io/yarn-
clip/6cac9bde-4762-41c2-8b76-264eba949940)

Even if hard time doesn't deter these people, a few big cases will at least
let the federal government project the illusion they're doing something about
it.

~~~
colejohnson66
The problem is also that a lot of them are not in the US. We can’t touch them
usually.

~~~
Scoundreller
Unless they leave the country.

If/when they visit a country with... any... positive relations with US/Canada,
pounce.

And cutoff their bankers from the US financial system.

India won’t be happy if it starts to lose its call-centre industry as a whole
because of some bad actors.

India and the US have extradition treaties.

There’s a lot of ways to put on the pressure.

------
anongraddebt
I once needed to get my own health insurance plan for three months. I googled
"short term health insurance" and went to one of the first websites I found. I
put in my contact info ONCE. For the next six weeks I had maybe 75+ health
insurance brokers calling me and texting me. Just blowing up my phone at all
hours of the day. Some would try and make contact multiple times so I'd block
their numbers from call and text. They would then switch phone numbers. I
ended up having 50+ numbers on my block list.

I was so frustrated I just decided to pay out of pocket for all my medical
expenses those three months.

------
Semaphor
I have a question, why are robocalls such a problem in the U.S.A.? As far as I
know, they aren’t in Germany (or if they are, not on that level, I never got
one).

~~~
philipkglass
There are a lot of people living outside the USA who can speak English. Both
legitimate and fraudulent English-language call centers are easier to set up
internationally than German-language call centers. The robo part of the call
can obviously be automated from anywhere but there are actual humans
pretending to be from "Apple Support" when a target responds.

That raises another question: are other Anglosphere countries flooded by scam
calls like the USA?

~~~
Semaphor
So it’s possible to show a local number when the call is arriving from another
part of the world? That seems strange or rather insane, but would explain how
the problem happens ;)

~~~
JaRail
They'll buy tons of phone numbers from all over so they always have local
numbers to call from. They just use VOIP software to route it to wherever the
call center is located. As far as their provider is concerned, they're
probably just a local business. Or, at most, a local number for a foreign
company.

~~~
Semaphor
As I said in another comment, why allow international numbers to spoof
national numbers?

~~~
icegreentea2
In the parent's description, it's not spoofing at all. They've purchased real
american (local) phone numbers, and are routing calls through them through
other means (like internet...). There's no telephone network level trickery or
spoofing going on.

~~~
christinamltn
Not always. They will spoof legitimate numbers that they don't own. If you
call them back you'll usually get some very confused person who just got a
bunch of calls accusing them of making spam calls.

------
teddyh
So many knee-jerk “obvious” solutions in comments here, some with gratuitous
violent fantasies to boot. Might I suggest that you look at how your proposed
solution compares to other, older, suggestion on how the then-new email spam
problem used to be suggested to be fixed:

[https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt](https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt)

Also, this is a mostly exclusively a U.S. problem. In Europe, we basically
just don’t ever get “robocalls”, and have ever only heard about them in
stories from the U.S. Anyone proposing a complicated technological change
should explain why this is necessary when Europe seems to have found a
solution already.

~~~
ikeboy
There's no real email spoofing problem anymore because we have signatures
proving the source on every email.

There's a phone spoofing problem because carriers are allowing spoofing, when
they don't have to.

~~~
teddyh
> * There's no real email spoofing problem anymore because we have signatures
> proving the source on every email.*

(I assume that you are referring to DKIM, and not OpenPGP or S/MIME, since the
latter two are obviously not frequently used.)

DKIM signatures (not to mention DMARC to actually _require_ a signature) are
not actually that common either. Spoofing is _mostly_ still rejected by a
combination of plain old SPF and spam filtering of the mail contents. All in
my experience, of course.

> _There 's a phone spoofing problem because carriers are allowing spoofing,
> when they don't have to._

Is this what Europe is doing which the U.S. isn’t? If it is, then you’re
probably right. I don’t actually know. I’m just saying that whatever Europe is
doing is evidently working, and any other proposed solution would have some
significant benefit and proof of efficacy to be considered over a proven
concept.

------
beerandt
There needs to be postage imposed on connecting calls between systems, payable
to the person called, and potentially refundable upon lack of complaint for
being unsolicited.

This could work for email spam, as well.

Bonus if people get to set their own postage rates.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Well there was a guy in the UK who set up a premium number after getting sick
of cold sales calls. All companies get his 10p/minute number as contact (he
gets 7p of that). Only friends and family get the real underlying number.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462)

~~~
beerandt
I like the idea, but it doesn't solve the problem of _when_ your real number
makes it onto call lists.

But I do like the idea of giving out a 1-900 number to people. It would
certainly get some interesting reactions, depending on context.

~~~
dredmorbius
There are few available phone numbers which aren't already on numerous
telemarketing / robospam systems. Exhaustive wardialing is highly tractable.

I've had numerous recent mobile and/or office numbers beseiged by dunning and
marketing calls, apparently aimed at earlier holders (if even targeted at
all).

------
piinbinary
Start billing the telecoms, and they'll fix the issue real quick

~~~
concerned_user
Or force them to make a pool of trusted callers and any untrusted number they
pay you.

------
yellow_lead
This should get better once carriers have implemented STIR/SHAKEN. Many are
currently doing testing right now.

~~~
stjohnswarts
supposedly the big three have implemented it but you have to have certain
phone models.

~~~
ac29
T-mobile has, but its only supported on Samsung and LG phones right now:
[https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/mobile-
security](https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/mobile-security)

------
brenden2
Honestly I'm surprised they've managed to collect that much. Good job guys.

~~~
nobodyandproud
This is a market-based problem rather than a policy problem: The problem is
the low cost of making calls.

Make calls cost money and the problem will naturally go away.

~~~
vkou
No, this is a problem where the necessary resources used to punish white
collar crime are not being allocated.

If there was a known Florida-based drug dealer that was bringing in
$120,000,000 of drugs/year, there'd be dozens of cops working around the clock
to bring him in.

A Florida-based robo-caller, fined $120,000,000, who isn't paying a penny?
Nobody cares.

I understand lack of enforcement against some robocall firm incorporated on
Mars, or somewhere else beyond the reach of law enforcement. I don't
understand the lack of enforcement against ones based in the US. Jail them,
take their homes and cars, put their kids up in foster care.

~~~
briandear
To be fair $120 million in drugs and $120 million in uncollected fines are
apples and oranges. The drug money is financing murdering drug cartels that
have brought Mexico to their knees. Robocalls are kind of not on the same
level as funding human-trafficking, murderous cartels.

~~~
stjohnswarts
No one is saying that it's as bad as murdering, but it should be a minimum of
at least 1 year in prison for everyone involved.

------
throwaway56564
Twilio, when do they become accountable for enabling robocallers.

~~~
codeplea
I've been a Twilio customer for a long time. They don't allow you to spoof
caller ID. You can only set outgoing caller ID to a real number that you own
or have access to.

~~~
throwaway4120
How does not allowing spoofing caller ID help defeat robocallers.

People use twilio to robocall individuals from their same area code. No
“spoofing” caller ID is needed. Twilio makes is stupid simple for robocallers
and I can speak with authority on this matter hence why this is a throwaway
account.

------
zackmorris
Does anyone familiar with the law know why these fines couldn't be converted
to tax liens or some other legal device that could be used to go after the
offenders?

Then the IRS could garnish wages or prevent loans to the businesses until the
liens are paid, or do all kinds of things to throw a wrench in their plans and
make robocalls too much of a hassle to be lucrative.

~~~
JaRail
I'd assume they're mostly fines against foreign or shell companies. What's
effectively a shell company is set up to forward calls, then goes out of
business when caught.

~~~
hinkley
"Piercing the corporate veil" is a process for dealing with this.

~~~
hn_dead_app
"Massive arrests" is another.

------
chooseaname
Stop allowing spoofed numbers. Period. I'm sorry BigCorp, but this is a public
nuisance and trumps your "need" for a single phone number.

~~~
Aloha
As someone with a heavy background, it would break a fair bit of the PSTN -
while moves are in place to change the technical limitations of the PSTN that
prevent this kind of verification, they're not complete yet, and will take
several more years to implement fully.

~~~
nordsieck
>> Stop allowing spoofed numbers. Period.

> As someone with a heavy background, it would break a fair bit of the PSTN

As it stands, I think quite a few consumers are ready to just walk away from
PSTN unless something pretty drastic is done quite soon.

~~~
Aloha
And go to what exactly? There isn't a real alternative out there.

~~~
jjoonathan
I already see support and customer service offered through WhatsApp or
emphasizing chat/email. The switch doesn't have to be frictionless, it just
has to be less painful than spam. It doesn't need to happen all at once,
either. We're already seeing early adopters walk away from PSTN, so unless
they can fix the spam situation before the alternatives hit an inflection
point, PSTN is doomed.

I'm sure it will live on in many places that aren't concerned with customer
satisfaction, though.

~~~
Aloha
How does WhatsApp replace 911?

------
sg47
Can we try robocalling them to collect the remaining?

~~~
smittywerben
Makes me wonder how long distance rates are charged in the first place. A
little OT but did we used to call websites?

~~~
dredmorbius
In dialup, you (or your modem) would dial a POP server, or point-of-presence.
That was a modem bank on one side, and Internet backbone link on the other,
generally as a local call. The website was reached _via_ the POP, but you
could reach _any_ website anywhere on the public Internet without having to
dial up each individually.

More specifically, PSTN is a public, _switched_ , telecommunications network,
in which each communication occurs over a direct, and until recently physical,
circuit. The "switches" refer to how those circuits are set up and broken
down. By contrast the Internet is _packet routed_ ; each data packet is routed
across the network by the best available route. Users don't have dedicated
_circuits_ (though there are dedicated _addresses_ ), but rather data from
multiple communications is commingled on common transmission channels.

There were BBSes which you'd call directly (the job board DICE ws initially a
BBS), but BBS != website. Similar in ways to today's SPAs though.

[https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1704/point-of-
presence...](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1704/point-of-presence-pop)

[https://networkencyclopedia.com/point-of-presence-
pop/](https://networkencyclopedia.com/point-of-presence-pop/)

~~~
smittywerben
That's impressive how POP servers communicated across the Internet backbone
considering some websites were long distance. I get to read about Erlang now.
Carrier-grade NAT in regards to ip addresses reminds me of my grandparents had
a shared phone-line for their neighborhood. It's funny you mentioned BBS, I
think that's what I was initially unclear about. That answers many of my
questions, ty for the time.

~~~
dredmorbius
Clarifying: dialing the PoP was generally lpcal.

The backbone connectiin was TCP/IP, not PSTN. There are no distance charges,
only bandwidth, generally at 95%ile peak "burstable" billing:

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

------
jagged-chisel
How do I set up a system that has the phone company bill incoming callers on
my behalf? I'll answer every call if I can charge them for the privilege of
talking to me.

------
drtillberg
My VOIP vendor provides a spam-scoring system for inbound calls from an outfit
called TreCNAM. Needs more participation to be highly effective, but it's an
idea!

The VOIP vendor also enables call treatments that can require a caller to
press a specific number after the call is connected, before it actually rings,
and to whitelist specific legitimate callers. Together, those phone screening
tool reduced rings from robocallers on my VOIP phone to a very rare event.

------
etxm
These have gotten outrageous.

The WhiteStone health calls are incessant, I can’t even begin to comprehend
how much money they are scamming if they can afford to pay people to do the
volume of calls they are making. Theyre also nabbing a legitimate companies
identity. [1]

I got called by them 13 times in one day. Requested to be put on DNC list
(obviously a waste of breath). The numbers are seem random. I don’t know if
they are spoofing them somehow or if carriers sell short access to numbers but
they do the first N characters of your number trick.

I decided to go ahead and “get scammed” and walk through as much of the call
as possible and the bullshit detection of these callers is PHENOMENAL.

We will get through a few questions with me trying to answer to sound like I’m
interested and then eventually you’ll get a ~“fuck you man” and they’ll hang
up on you.

These MFs need to be shot into a brick wall on a rocket sled.

1- [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/whitestone-healthcare-
llc_we-...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/whitestone-healthcare-llc_we-
wanted-to-post-on-our-page-here-as-well-activity-6595332022019899394-v5iN)

------
notyourday
The problem is enforcement. Sorry, technological solutions are not workable -
there's always going to be a way to get through because there's nearly no risk
of enforcement, which is where the work should concentrate. The thing is that
the only reason why robocalls work is because there's a nexus before the
phantom callers and real businesses buying those services and those businesses
have records because they are paying money. So start chasing those records
using existing playbook:

Hire law firms that specialize in collecting fines. They will go through reams
of paperwork and paper trails and eventually have a sheriff show up at a
Thanksgiving dinner of a whoever owns the companies, after their corporate
shields will be pierced, taking away chairs, pans, fridge and a turkey fryer.

When that starts happening robocalls will very quickly.

~~~
chapium
This can be solved with keys

------
tasssko
Frustrated UK user here. I hardly ever answer my phone anymore it just isn’t
worth it. We get hounded by insurance, PPI, investment scams, trading scams,
there is a new one going around now for windows. I don’t even answer my mobile
any more just in the habit of checking voicemail and my reception catches
dozens of calls a day. We have a virtual reception that charges by the call
they answer and sometimes these add up to over £100/ month. Vodafone block
outright scams now I basically get a call try to answer and it gets cancelled.
Vodafone sent me a text regarding it. My landline is off just a voicemail box
now. The telcos are dead if this continues, whatsapp, facetime, facebook, ios
and android messenger, slack, hangouts, MSTeams, Wechat are how I communicate
now. Is that a sign of things to come?

------
abartl
Very simple: Telcos are incentivized to allow robocallers so that they can
sell robocaller blocker services.

------
toss1
Obviously, from only the headline, issuing fines is failing to do the work,
with a shortfall on the scale of 5 orders of magnitude.

The FCC needs to start criminal prosecutions, including for officers in the
major carriers who continue to enable these crimes. The massive scale of the
waste of resources in unconscionable, even beyond the scale of the illegal
scams.

This is not a hard technical problem to solve, only requires a bit of will.
Perhaps implement a system of verified call call sources, all un-verified call
sources pay 10¢/call -- probably instantly uneconomical. Until then, jail for
these criminals, and by that, I mean the officers of the scam companies, not
the call center workers

------
scythe
Lots of clever ideas about catching robocallers with technology here. But I
don't think that technology is the solution.

I suggest placing bounties. Information leading to the assessment of a fine
will result in a proportional reward to the informant. _Someone_ knows who is
making these calls. We just have to get them to talk.

------
paulie_a
I've asked my provider to just block Texas and Florida and they refuse. I
don't know anyone that lives in those states.

I've tried a new method when I have the time. I waste their time. Ask a lot of
questions so they have to explain things. Play dumb. Keep them on the phone
for as long as you can

------
ricebowlz420
"Many of the spoofers and robocallers the agency tries to punish are
individuals and small operations, he added, which means they are at times
unable to pay the full penalties." \- cant pay the fine? Go to jail, you are
breaking the law.

Yet another example of the incompetence of the FCC and Pai

------
dredmorbius
Even the assessed fines are manifestly too small.

The WSJ article cites estimate of up to 48 billion robocalls made in 2018.
$208 million is $0.005 per call.

Fines need to be several times higher. _And_ collected.

As many others in this thread have said: make this the telcos' problem.
They'll solve it.

------
hinkley
Why doesn't my phone have a 'report spam' button that is reported to the
carrier?

------
smabie
While robocalls are annoying, what's the moral justification for making this
illegal? If a person is allowed to call you, why can't a computer? Also the
line is getting blurred recently, so it seems like a problematic distinction
at this point in time.

~~~
philipkglass
In context, people mean "illegitimate robocalls." Nobody is proposing to
outlaw legitimate robocalls (like when a pharmacy makes an automated call to
notify you that a prescription is ready.)

It's mostly illegal to make human or automated marketing calls to numbers in
the US that have signed up for the national Do Not Call registry. The problem
is that huge numbers of illegal calls still reach numbers on the Do Not Call
registry. Most of these illegal calls have no connection to any real business;
they are instead trying to defraud people. I have often been called by
"Microsoft Support" to alert me to Windows problems that need fixing. I don't
have any Windows computers.

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

~~~
smabie
I’m not talking about legality, I’m talking about morality. What moral
framework can we use to classify the moral status of unsolicited robo-calls?

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paulie_a
Everyone that works for a robocalling firm should be arrested down to the
person that answers the phone. The phone companies should be fined 100k per
illegal call. They have done nothing to stop fraud. At this point they are
complacent

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EGreg
Why are we still using the legacy phone system when there is VOIP all over the
place?

None of the apps and networks have this issue. All mobile phones connect to
VOIP. We should have been upgrading from the phone like we did with faxes.

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GrumpyNl
I have build and managed several voice systems witch all could easily be
transformed to robocall machines. The biggest money makers on all those
services, incoming and outgoing calls has always been the telcos.

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mullingitover
I would love it if smartphones were offered with the option to opt out of a
legacy phone number, and instead just a data plan. most of the calls I receive
are marking or pure attempts at fraud.

~~~
throwawayjava
You can get a data-only SIM on most carriers. It won't save you much money.

~~~
mullingitover
As the saying goes, it's not about the money. It's about sending a message.

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jacquesm
Never knew you could contract it has into it's as well.

~~~
vharuck
I remember asking my high school English teacher if I could use the
contraction "shouldn't've" for "should not have." She said no. I still
disagree.

~~~
macintux
A perfectly valid construction.

My science teacher once insisted rivers couldn't flow north because on a
globe, north is up.

So, yeah, education is a bit of a mixed bag.

~~~
Marsymars
> My science teacher once insisted rivers couldn't flow north because on a
> globe, north is up.

Did he just not consider, say, the Nile?

~~~
chopin
Or the Rhine. Maybe there is no north bound river where the GP lived?

~~~
macintux
The closest large one I’m aware of is the Maumee, and that’s a few hours away.

We pointed out the Nile on the globe. Even that wasn’t convincing apparently.

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pearapps
Weird because I am pretty sure if I don't pay my bills I go to jail

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lukejduncan
Why is it not possible to get a “phone” with data and no phone number?

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droithomme
Interesting. How much did it cost the taxpayers to collect the $6790?

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shadowgovt
The next step is to fine telephone exchanges for allowing robocallers.

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Trias11
We need to give power against robocallers back to citizens!

#wedontcallfcc

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nomadadon
Bet campaign contributions are going great though

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luckydata
The US' political system and law enforcement only serves businesses and not
its citizens. Until that stops this is just another symptom of the problem.

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throwaway35784
It's darling startups like twilio that enable this. We love them and hate what
they do.

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coding123
Jail time instead then?

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YeahSureWhyNot
instead of increasing taxes on middle class the govt could tax every phone
call just 1 cent and eradicate this problem while pulling in revenue.

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tempsolution
Calling is broken. I wished Apple would just add an option "Block all calls
unless their number is in contacts". It's ridiculous that this option is only
available in Do Not Disturb. It's like Apple was trying to somehow profit from
robo-callers.

It's time to put calls into the grave. The next step needs to be something
like we have for websites. You need to get a personal SSL certificate to call
and it will be bound to your identity. Then whenever you call, a random
certificate will be generated to authenticate yourself to the callee. The
callee will verify that the anonymous root certificate of the caller wasn't
revoked. And then either block the call or let it through.

Robocallers would simply get their root certificate revoked and would be
unable to carry out ANY other call in the name of that company until they paid
the imposed fines and re-imbursed their victims for the lost time and
annoyance. People creating these companies would lose the ability to obtain
another certificate for another company until the previous charges are
resolved.

This is just a momentary brain dump, but essentially all problems in our
society revolve around a lack of accountability. We have the technology to
anonymously impose accountability in everything digital. Let's start using it!

~~~
manigandham
That option is in iOS 13, it's called "Silence Unknown Callers":

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT207099)

~~~
tempsolution
Hmm cool :). Not the ultimate solution, but this sounds useful! Thanks

