
FCC threatens carriers with 'regulatory intervention' over robocalls - jmsflknr
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429867-fcc-threatens-carriers-with-regulatory-intervention-on-robocalls
======
pkaye
Particularly sucks for me because I'm on a kidney transplant list so may get a
call any time of a potential match and they didn't specific which number will
call me. So basically I end up answering all these unknown number robocalls in
case I miss one of these matches.

~~~
penagwin
I'm so sorry, but that's seriously the ultimate tease. Every phone call is a
"MAYBE ITS MY NEW KIDNEY?!" and instead you're greated with "Your cars
EXTENDED WARRANTY is about to expire, please press 1 now to speak to a
representative about your cars EXTENDED WARRANTY"

~~~
pkaye
To be honest, I still have a couple years wait on the kidney but there is a
non-zero change of a perfect match that gets to the head of the line. And I
certainly don't want to miss that.

I do have a trick in dealing with the calls though. I answer the line but say
nothing. Humans will always say something if there is silence for a while.
Robocalls will just hang up. And I notice if they hangup, the chance of future
calls are lower.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
> To be honest, I still have a couple years wait on the kidney but there is a
> non-zero change of a perfect match that gets to the head of the line. And I
> certainly don't want to miss that.

I got curious, and scanned
[https://www.organdonor.gov/](https://www.organdonor.gov/) to see how one gets
notified when an organ is available. I didn't see any information after a few
minutes of poking around the site.

When a kidney does become available, what is the process by which you'd be
notified? Do they make one phone call, and if you don't pick up, they call the
next person on the list? Do they broadcast a message to you & everyone you
know via every possible telecommunications & social media channel you've
provided, and then give you N minutes to reply with "hey, I'm on my way to the
hospital now!"

~~~
silencio
there's no way they'll give up after a single phone call. but the transplant
team and the person potentially receiving the transplant only have one hour to
respond to a notification of an available organ before UNOS moves on to the
next person down the list. edit: mind you, this is not a straightforward
yes/no - the transplant center needs to make sure that this particular organ
donation will work at that particular time etc. - so there's a lot of factors
involved.

my stupidest (but i guess not entirely invalid) fear is that i'm listed as the
primary contact for my dad in need of a kidney, and i basically can't go to
any shows using yondr or any similar situation where i won't be near my phone
for a while. or at least make sure that other people that will be contacted
too know that i will not be available to pick up.

edit: i guess i didn't answer the specific question though! at least the
center where my dad is listed - they have a bunch of contact numbers for us
and i have their numbers in my address book plus a request on my voicemail msg
to call me twice to bypass DND if necessary. and my dad's renal case manager
knows to text/email/call me too and her direct numbers are whitelisted in my
phone, always. the 1 hour limit means we (the patient/family) will have less
than 1 hour to respond.

i also do believe that the center that gets the notification from UNOS also
gets pinged if UNOS don't hear back at all whatsoever (like, a confirmation of
the notification at minimum) within 10-15 minutes of the original
notification. something like that. basically there's not really a situation
where a single missed call will make or break it (unless literally someone is
unreachable for the whole time.)

~~~
PopeDotNinja
I'm gonna track down some people who can comment on how organ availability
actually works. Who knows. Maybe there's a solution that could be wired up so
you can go see a movie without worrying about whether or not a kidney suddenly
becomes available.

~~~
silencio
the solution is my watch is always on and buzzes for calls :) and the center
has a lot of different people to contact that can contact each other. (we have
a little geographic redundancy here.)

but the reality of this is that, if you're on a transplant list, you basically
won't be doing any significant/major travel or be unreachable for long periods
of time.

i will say though, this depends on the organ i imagine. i think 1 hour is
standard across the board, but lists/priority and other things change
dramatically depending on which organ you need - kidneys are viable for longer
than hearts, etc.

UNOS/OPTN is where you want to look for information on organ distribution -
[https://unos.org/transplantation/faqs/](https://unos.org/transplantation/faqs/)
"How does the matching process work?" and
[https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/learn/about-
transplantation...](https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/learn/about-
transplantation/donor-matching-system/)

~~~
lozenge
For hearts you only get one call and a few minutes to decide whether you are
ready. If you don't pick up they go straight to the next person. My friend
used a basic Nokia phone with a heart-wrenching message on it to prevent
theft. (I'm not in the US)

------
newprint
Good + heavy $$$ punishments. My father had heart attack few weeks ago and my
brother refused to pickup a call, because he was thinking that it was a
robocall. It was a call from hospital in VA, they a left voicemail.

~~~
dba7dba
I think hospitals/police should really start texting a phone number first,
before calling to contact a family member.

Just something like, "Please call such such hospital at this number to reach
us. We need to get in touch with you. You can google the hospital name to
verify before calling."

I get one robocall every day. Interestingly, not 3 or 5, but just about 1 a
day.

~~~
athenot
Two problems with that:

1\. Many older patients don't use cell phones and are still on landlines.

2\. Current processes would have to change. Currently healthcare companies
first have to ask if the person picking up the phone matches name & DOB. If
not, they need to ensure the person is authorized to receive the health
information. This is done for confidentiality reasons (e.g. "hi your husband
tested positive to $STD… oops you weren't supposed to know that, oh well have
a nice day and tell him to make an appointment with us.").

~~~
vageli
> Two problems with that:

> 1\. Many older patients don't use cell phones and are still on landlines.

> 2\. Current processes would have to change. Currently healthcare companies
> first have to ask if the person picking up the phone matches name & DOB. If
> not, they need to ensure the person is authorized to receive the health
> information. This is done for confidentiality reasons (e.g. "hi your husband
> tested positive to $STD… oops you weren't supposed to know that, oh well
> have a nice day and tell him to make an appointment with us.").

Many healthcare providers now offer forms that allow you to specify the level
of detail you would like for messages (typically the same form where you can
add a verified contact who is eligible to receive medical information on your
behalf). I was able to select something along the lines of "Leave the full
details you are reporting, even if it is to a voicemail" though I can
understand that that is not workable for everyone.

------
nullc
Under the theory that the economics of scam-spam calls only work out if good
victims self select by not hanging up I have long considered it a civic duty
to waste the scammers time.

In the past, I managed to keep a scammer on the phone for an hour or more
simply by leaving it on speaker phone and making various "oh really,
interesting tell me more" sounds while half paying attention. On more than a
few occasions I eventually caused the scammer to either crack up laughing--
after I got tired of stringing them along and hit them with a devastating
pun-- or freak out screaming at me.

But in the last two years I've _never_ been able to bait one out long enough
for them to have scammed me if I had been an eligible mark and not for the
lack of trying. The majority of the scam calls just end up hanging up before I
ever get to a human, the majority of those that do make it to a human hang up
as soon as they hear my voice. The majority of those that don't immediately
hand up, do after a couple back and forth interactions.

"You've been selected to get $1000 back from the IRS for being a great
taxpayer!" "Oh man, thats great!" <click>

"You've been selected to get $1000 back from the IRS for being a great
taxpayer!" "Really? How did that happen?" <click>

"You've been selected to get $1000 back from the IRS for being a great
taxpayer!" "Whos this again?" <click>

I'm wondering if they're now doing some kind of demographic profiling using my
voice-- e.g. I don't sound enough like an aged or mentally impaired pensioner,
or perhaps even have some kind of machine-learning time waster voice
identification. ... or maybe there is some kind of meta-scam where someone is
charging another scammer to handle these calls but aren't actually doing the
work.

Regardless, I'd like to encourage all of you to do your civic duty and waste a
scammers time. It can be done with very little effort on your part and it
almost certainly protects real potential victims (even with my frequent
hangups, my actions are almost certainly extending protection via false
positives, if nothing else). I have confirmed that these actions have not
increased or decreased the rate of scam calls I get relative to my SO who
doesn't engage in this practice (because she simply does not answer
unrecognized numbers at all).

~~~
zkms
> Under the theory that the economics of scam-spam calls only work out if good
> victims self select by not hanging up I have long considered it a civic duty
> to waste the scammers time.

I used to immediately hang up upon receiving these spam/scam calls, but they
kept coming, and I decided to do this approach.

I once got a spam call from a "credit card rate reduction" scam and I was so
pissed at being interrupted so I decided to play along. I gave them a fake
credit card number (that checksums right with the Luhn algorithm, there's a
website that generates such fake "credit card numbers"), fake expiration date,
fake zipcode, fake SSN, and fake name. Of course, they were unable to charge
that "card", so the first-level scammer escalated me to his boss (not
kidding). The boss asked for my bank's customer service number -- I imagine so
they could pretend to be me and try to finesse the bank into letting the
transaction happen. I gave them some random police department dispatch phone
number, and she places me on hold. She comes back on the line, _literally
incandescent with rage_ after she called the number, and she screamed at me "I
talked with the police department, they gave me your address, see you soon,
bye bye" and hung up.

That caused the number of spam/scam calls i receive to go down noticeably.
These people don't respect any sort of do-not-call lists but I think they
_may_ place you on internal do-not-call lists if you waste their time and
infuriate them enough.

Couple months later, I got another “interest rate reduction” scam-call, and
the guy doesn't waste time with the social-engineering; he straight-up opens
by asking me for my credit card number and expiration. I decide to meet fire
with fire, and I ask “what name do you show on the account”, he replies “it’s
your name”. I pointedly ask “can you read it out for me” so he yells at me:
“don’t waste my fucking time, you mother fuck” and hangs up. After I did so, I
barely get any spam/scam calls at all -- maybe once every two weeks. It's
pretty incredible how a little trolling saved me so much annoyance.

Reminder; __never give any personal information __to people calling about your
credit-card /bank-account no matter who they claim they are. __Always HANG UP
__and dial the number __as printed on your payment card __, these scamming
shits always spoof caller-ID.

~~~
dkersten
Where I am, there isn't really a problem with robocalls and not many scam
calls, thankfully, but I still refuse to give out details over the phone,
_especially_ if they rang me.

I'm still shocked at the amount of times I got legit calls from my bank that
start off with _" please confirm your details"_. No, YOU confirm your details.
I always tell them sorry, I have no proof that they are who they say, but they
usually just say _" No problem, call us back on the number on the back of your
credit card"_ or somesuch, which is fine. I just wish they said that right
away and didn't ask to confirm details, since it makes scammers lives easier.

~~~
tialaramex
My good bank has a password. I actually usually can't remember what it is, but
that's fine since it's their password and I'll recognise it when they say it.
"Oh, that's right! You _are_ the bank"

But they never proactively asked me to set that up, it's just that I went
around this "I can't authenticate to you first, so I'll have to phone you"
loop and I pointed out it would work better with a password when I called them
back and to my surprise they were like "Yes, we can do that, what password
should we say?" and set it up immediately.

So, worth asking I guess?

~~~
dkersten
Interesting. I’ll have to try next time.

------
commandlinefan
Robocalls have made my telephone so useless as a telephone that I'm beginning
to wonder if I even need a telephone number at all, just as I started
wondering if I actually needed a house phone or cable.

~~~
porphyrogene
In the US, house phones and cable are for being advertised to, cell phones and
streaming are for contact and content respectively. That has been the case for
at least a decade. I can receive calls from numbers that are not in my
contacts but the notification is silent.

Now if only I were allowed to dispose of my mailbox I could have a home free
of advertising. Yesterday I received an infuriating catalog from Restoration
Hardware that weighed a pound and a half, all because I bought one awful
product that fell apart in a few months and had to be recycled. It amazes me
that we subsidize such obnoxious ads being delivered to every resident.

~~~
baroffoos
Cant you stick the wording "no junk mail" on your mailbox and be free of spam?

In Australia basically every mailbox has that on it and it is enforced by law.

~~~
jtokoph
I think the law is the opposite in the US. You legally can’t refuse the
things. Or at least the mail carriers are absolutely required to deliver it to
you.

~~~
AnssiH
You can refuse most items:

[https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/508.htm](https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/508.htm)

Sections "1.1.2 Refusal at Delivery" and "1.1.3 Refusal After Delivery".

Here in Finland I think 97%+ of physical advertisement "mail" is non-addressed
and the carriers of those respect "no ads" signs (no address => ad).

I think this might be different in US in that advertisement mail is usually
addressed?

------
markovbot
So the article doesn't seem to mention any of the ongoing efforts to stop or
reduce caller ID spoofing, such as SHAKEN/STIR. I'm not clear if that will do
anything, and it's certainly far too little too late, but the industry is
doing _something_.

On that note, does anyone know how SHAKEN/STIR is supposed to work? I
understand that it basically sets up a PKI with JWTs in SIP headers, but from
what I can tell there needs to be some sort of trusted CA which creates and
signs these things, but I can't tell who that CA is or if there even is an
agreed upon central CA.

I'd also be interested in any corrections/expansion on any of the things I
said above, I really don't know much about it and would like to.

edit: after making this comment I did a bit more research, and it looks
like[0] there will be per-country CAs that can issue certificates to owners of
phone numbers within that country. I'm specifically curious about which CAs
will be trusted in the United States.

[0]: [https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-burger-stir-iana-
cert-00.htm...](https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-burger-stir-iana-cert-00.html)

~~~
toast0
Authority for the North American Numbering plan currently falls to the FCC,
after the breakup of AT&T; they contract out administration, Ericsson got a 5
year contract in 2017, previously it was administered by Neustar (and Lockheed
Martin, before Neustar was spun out).

I'd imagine Ericsson would spin up a new CA instance just for this. As the
administratior, they keep the records of who phone numbers are assigned to,
and where they've been ported.

My understanding is once a +1 area code is allocated to a country, that
country's telecoms regulator manages further allocations (or contracts it
out).

~~~
markovbot
Cool, thanks for the info. Any idea what the timeline on creating that CA is?

~~~
toast0
No idea. I wasn't aware of this proposal (STIR), I just am aware of a lot of
number allocation stuff. Does STIR have any support from telecoms companies
and/or ITU? Or is it IANA only?

I see Neustar has a page that seems related: [https://www.home.neustar/atis-
testbed/index.php](https://www.home.neustar/atis-testbed/index.php) ?

~~~
markovbot
From what I can tell, the telcos are implementing it, or at least say they
are:

* "Caller Verified is T-Mobile’s implementation of the STIR and SHAKEN standards" [0]

* "Verizon reiterates both our commitment to deploying the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication technology" [1]

* "Sprint supports efforts to build the SHAKEN/STIR call authentication system" [2]

* AT&T doesn't seem to mention STIR or SHAKEN by name on their robocall page [3] but the FCC sent them a letter thanking them for their "commitment to implement a robust call authentication framework in 2019" [4]

* "Comcast is proud to be at the forefront of efforts to address the scourge of illegal spoofed robocalls in this country, including the development of the end-to-end call authentication protocol known as SHAKEN and STIR" [5]

etc

[0]: [https://www.t-mobile.com/news/caller-verified-
note9](https://www.t-mobile.com/news/caller-verified-note9)

[1]:
[https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1119062987519/2018%2011%2019%20...](https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1119062987519/2018%2011%2019%20Verizon%20Call%20Authentication%20Framework%20WC%20Docket%20No.%2017-97.pdf)

[2]:
[https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1091391175368/Sprint%20Call%20A...](https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1091391175368/Sprint%20Call%20Authentication%20Comments.pdf)

[3]:
[https://about.att.com/sites/cyberaware/ae/robocall](https://about.att.com/sites/cyberaware/ae/robocall)

[4]:
[https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354933A2.pdf](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354933A2.pdf)

[5]:
[https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/111974588343/Comcast%20Resp%20t...](https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/111974588343/Comcast%20Resp%20to%20Chmn%20Pai%20re%20SHAKEN%20STIR%20\(11-19-18\).pdf)

------
WD-42
Funny, Pai "celebrated" repealing Obama era anti robocall laws back in March.
Maybe it took him a year of robo calls on his own phone to change his mind.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/courts-nixes-fcc-rules-
targeting-r...](https://www.cnet.com/news/courts-nixes-fcc-rules-targeting-
robocalls/)

This guy is anti consumer. Don't let him fool you.

~~~
ams6110
The earlier regulations were too broad and in theory could subject callers to
a fine if they called or texted anyone else without prior consent.

What he is asking for now is that caller IDs be verified. I don't know how
realistic that is given the way they are implimented (trivially spoofable) but
that's a narrower demand.

~~~
whyaduck
I'm all for requiring businesses to get explicit permission from me before
they can make the little box in my pocket buzz and interrupt me.

~~~
munk-a
I'm... not so much, I'd prefer that they be required to register with an
organization that can bop them on the head if they abuse it.

I wouldn't want to see statistical surveys, polling and other grey area items
here impacted.

~~~
dvtrn
_I 'd prefer that they be required to register with an organization that can
bop them on the head if they abuse it._

I know the FCC doesn't have express _legislative_ power here, but can't they
impose fines or am I mistaken-on either or both?

~~~
sureaboutthis
The FCC fines television and radio stations for regulation violations.

------
wil421
Robocalls are terrible and a valid reason to have regulations. We should sign
up every Senator and Congressman’s cellphone to N number of scammy sites. See
how fast the issue is solved. SS7 issue be damned, AT&T and Verizon will solve
it if you force their hands.

~~~
AceJohnny2
Good luck finding a congressperson's personal cell phone.

~~~
jasonjayr
What would it cost to Wardial a whole area code with TextToSpeech +
SpeechToText on twilio?

~~~
shpx
[https://www.twilio.com/voice/pricing/us](https://www.twilio.com/voice/pricing/us)

If you need 1 minute per number: ~10,000,000 minutes * 0.013 $/minute =
$130,000

~~~
snuxoll
Not quite that many, the NANP only allows NXX numbers that would match this
Regex:

[2-9](?!11)[0-9]{2}

So there's only 7,200,000 numbers allowable within a singe NANP area code.

------
gist
The vast majority of robo calls are done for someone either in the US (a
company) to make money or uses the US banks to collect money in some way.

What they may want to consider is a team of people to actually take the calls
and trace them back to the source. Or at least the people that are making
money in some way. And don't say or react 'oh that wouldn't work'. Of course
it would work if done correctly. No point in selling health insurance by way
of a third party making calls or on your own if it will get you in hot water.

From what I can tell nobody is making robo calls to simply be annoying. It's
quite different than a DOS attack done for fun or many other 'crimes' if you
want to call it that.

Not that they shouldn't approach this in the way they are. But to simply make
as if there is no way to get the perps is a bit ridiculous. Someone is in the
end selling something or collecting some name or something like that.

I am reminded of what I thought back when graffiti was a bigger deal than it
is now. Why not simply set honey pots that you know are going to get tagged?
Or monitor various locations likely to get graffiti.

Now this doesn't mean that offshore people with scams won't get involved. That
could happen. But as a start might make sense to at least gut the people in
the US that are benefiting from this (in addition not instead of other
'remedies' by the carriers).

------
org3432
Still no word on when they'll crack down on USPS junk mail too, I miss
important letter because my mailbox is piled up with spam. And people to have
to buy bigger PO Boxes just to support their racket.

~~~
adrr
USPS would go bankrupt if it wasn't for junk mail. It is pretty much the only
mail I get since I opted out of physical billing statements.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Possibly, but they also do quite a lot of business in package delivery, which
is something customers actually still want.

------
RandomInteger4
I've stopped answering my phone completely unless the number is in my
contacts. If I plan to communicate with anyone (recruiters, etc.) I make it
explicit that I won't answer their call unless they give me the number they'll
be calling from ahead of time, and then I tell them I'll place them in my
contacts with that number.

My hope is that this is training these individuals to be more aware of the
issue, assuming they've forgotten about it due to being desensitized or using
some paid caller ID spam service that not everyone has access to for lack of
funds.

I've also long turned off my voice mail; it's just a waste of time.

~~~
wetpaws
I stopped using phone completely, period, even for known numbers. It's in
permanent silence, no vibration, no checking mode. It took some time for
friends to learn they have to use Skype or whatsapp to contact me, but after
that I don't have to worry about spam and midnight calls anymore.

~~~
ghaff
So, you're basically not reachable in an emergency unless someone knows the
special code to get hold of you? To say nothing of local service people etc.
who you might have to deal with.

I don't like junk calls either but cutting myself off from normal
communication channels doesn't seem as if it would be very practical.

~~~
wetpaws
People can use texts for emergency messages. If they want to voice call, this
usually mean situation is not so urgent in a first place.

~~~
UncleEntity
I think I'd take issue with a text "Umm, yeah, your mom died so call me".

And, yes, I do in fact use punctuation on text messages...

~~~
wetpaws
No offence, but something is seriously wrong with your head

------
fernly
While I was reading the last paragraph of this story, my phone rang, showing a
number in a nearby town. And of course, as I confidently expected, it was "Hi
there! This is Stan, from your local air duct cleaning service!"

Nice to get that evening call from Stan, or James, or Dave, wanting to clean
my ducts. Every fucking evening.

Yes, FCC. Do it do it do it!

------
Waterluvian
Are robcalls something that ALL Americans deal with daily, or is it just
really bad for some people?

~~~
ravenstine
I get several of them every day and I know other people who do, too. I just
disable phone calls most of the time because T-Mobile doesn't care at all to
address the issue, no matter how many times I've reported it. Their answer is
for me to install a 3rd party app that doesn't actually block the calls but
hangs up on them.

~~~
toomuchtodo
T-Mobile has put much effort into not only identifying scam calls but also the
ability to block them. No app required, no extra charge.

[https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-38784](https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-38784)

~~~
ikeboy
I've gotten plenty of legitimate calls marked as spam caller, which means
T-Mobile can't be trusted here.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I haven’t gotten any spam calls after enabling it on my phone number that I’ve
had with TMO for 20+ years, nor have any legit calls been marked as spam. I
suppose everyone’s milegage may vary.

~~~
ikeboy
How do you know if they blocked a legit call?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Fair point. I make it extremely easy to find me through methods besides a
phone call, so I assume if a legit call did not come through because of
T-Mobile blocking, I’d find out through an alternate channel (the caller
iMessages or emails instead).

~~~
ikeboy
What I've specifically found is I miss calls from businesses that I've
requested, but did not know would be coming on that day or from that number.
And they aren't going to send me emails about the missed call, usually.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I give out a Google Voice number to callers of this type that doesn’t ring
anywhere. I get an emailed voicemail transcription, and can choose to return
the call at my leisure. Consider it!

~~~
ikeboy
The fact is, in the business world people often don't leave messages. You can
miss important conversations if you don't pick up every call.

~~~
toomuchtodo
If you’re not leaving a message, the call isn’t worth returning. I don’t lose
any sleep operating this way. I can appreciate that some people have no choice
if inbound calls are business leads or the like. Find a more resilient inbound
funnel flow I’d argue.

~~~
ikeboy
FYI, I was paying attention recently and calls from my bank that I requested
have been marked that way, for e.g. 2FA verification. If I had turned on the
option to block such calls I'd have been left clueless why I wasn't getting
the requested call.

------
Animats
The FCC previously proposed giving carriers "freedom to block".[1] That didn't
fly. Insisting on tighter standards for caller ID is reasonable enough.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/20/fcc-
has...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/20/fcc-has-new-plan-
combat-unwanted-robocalls-spammy-texts/?utm_term=.bfa8093ddfc0)

------
bradleyjg
I understood the problem to be, at least in no small part, regulatory to begin
with. To what extent are carriers permitted to deliberately not complete a
call originating outside their own network (what about from a foreign
network)?

------
newnewpdro
I've noticed that my prepay burner phones, some of which I've kept in service
for years, _never_ receive robocalls.

It's definitely not a blind system of calling all numbers, you can have a
robocall-free existence. I've simply never supplied the numbers for those
phones to any personal information selling (or leaking) services/businesses,
and that seems to effectively keep them off the call lists.

------
the_watcher
Putting aside any discussion of Pai's motivations and political
considerations, is there a reason that carriers wouldn't want to eliminate
these robocalls? Are the spoofers paying the carriers? It seems like any
carrier that figured out how to effectively eliminate (or even reduce) them
would have a massive competitive advantage until the others caught up, right?

~~~
asdff
That would require cost sunk into innovative engineering, while the business
model of telecoms is stasis at best and anticonsumer practices at worse.

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ArtDev
I almost exclusively use my Google Voice number and its remarkable how good it
is at filtering spam-calls. I want to tell everyone to get Google Voice.. but
given their history of killing successful projects. Well, its only a matter of
time.

Dear Google: here take my money! Keep Google Voice!

~~~
rincebrain
Nearly 100% of the spam calls I get on my cell phone in the past few years are
to the actual cell phone number (which I've never given anyone), not the GV
number. :(

Sadly, I'm not aware of a good way to filter these out.

~~~
Sylamore
It's a bit of work, but what I've done in the past is to set the default
ringtone to a silent ring tone (or the mosquito one if you're old enough and
want to annoying your kids), then for each of your contacts set a custom
ringtone. Doesn't scale well if you've got a lot of contacts to deal with.

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bad_charlotte
Hopefully this regulation will really make illegal telemarketers stop calling
us with those spam calls.I also read an article that might be useful for
someone who has similar robocalls problems at
[https://www.whycall.me/news/consumer-wins-
massive-229500-rob...](https://www.whycall.me/news/consumer-wins-
massive-229500-robocall-lawsuit-against-time-warner-cable/).

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jacobsenscott
I'm sure Pai "threatening regulatory intervention" has them quaking in their
boots. They just toss him a few benjamins and the he shuts tf up.

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davesque
Thank god. It's getting ridiculous. I get 3 or 4 of these every day now.
That's something like 90% of the calls I get.

------
AnimalMuppet
What needs to happen is jail time for systematic violation of the "do not
call" list. Anything less is bandaids.

~~~
deathanatos
I agree completely, though I wonder why do-not-call even needs to be a thing
here. These spammers are calling _repeatedly_ for the sole purpose of
committing _fraud_ ¹. Fraud, normally, is illegal. Why do phones need special
legislation here?

¹The factory warranty on my vehicle is going to expire? I don't have a vehicle
with an expiring warranty. "This is your final notice" how I wish those words
would be true. Or my "medical-grade knee brace" that I supposedly wear. Or the
interest rate I could get on the CC I don't have.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Why do we need do-not-call? Because even if it isn't fraud, _I still don 't
want them to call me_.

[Edit: And I think it is in fact working, in that the non-fraud people don't
call me much anymore. So the ones who do call are the ones willing to break
the do-not-call law, which means they're probably _also_ willing to break
other laws, like the ones against fraud.]

------
_bxg1
I like how Pai is championing this issue only because it's the most
uncontroversial action he can possibly take. So that he can say "Look! I'm
doing something! I'm totally not giving the telecom companies a free pass!"

------
solotronics
I have a phone number from a city I used to live in 10 years ago. I don't keep
up with anyone from that city so if I get a call from that area code its most
likely a spam call.

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eruci
It is out of control. A robot selling health insurance keeps calling at all
hours, although I live in Canada where I enjoy universal health care.

------
lsllc
I get about 5 junk calls a day, at least 2 usually in Chinese. Does anyone
know what the ones in Chinese are about?

These days I just don't answer unless it's someone in my contacts, if it's
anything important they'll leave a message.

Wonder if it's possible to have a plan with NO voice on it!

------
MiddleEndian
Just give consumers the ability to see the actual number or VOIP address
that's calling them instead of "Caller ID", even if the number is blocked.
Then consumers can accurately create an adblock-like list of spam numbers,
block calls from outside their country, etc.

~~~
reustle
The problem I notice is that I'm getting calls from my local area code (low
population area). Chances are those numbers are registered, used, and
released. Poor dev or person in the near future will find themselves on a
blacklist.

~~~
MiddleEndian
Those numbers are just the caller id rather than the true origin of the
caller. Anybody can claim anything as their caller id. The phone companies
know the true origin (usually outside the US) but they do not pass that
information forward.

------
heyjudy
NoMoRobo is free for landline VOIP in the US (maybe Canada too). Works like a
charm in 98% of the time.

For cell phones, you'll usually have to pay for such an app that can intercept
calls and check RBLs of naughty numbers.

~~~
nikanj
Checking for naughty numbers is completely useless, when the incoming caller
ID is spoofed every time.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Robocalls aren't the worst part of caller id spoofing. Robocalls are basically
annoyances. However, there are real scams such as the IRS scam
[https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-urges-public-to-stay-
alert-...](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-urges-public-to-stay-alert-for-
scam-phone-calls) where people are getting called with numbers that appear to
be from the government, and are losing millions of dollars.

We really need a solution to prevent number spoofing.

~~~
Buttons840
I'm one who has used number spoofing for good. I create a system to call
patients and remind them of medical appointments many years ago, and we would
spoof the Caller ID number so that it showed the call coming from the
appointment desk of the relevant Doctor's office, even though all the calls
were actually originated from a central location. The company had ownership of
all phone numbers we displayed, and it was beneficial to users who could call
back and reach an appointment desk with the power to help them.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah, that's one of the issues. There are actually quite a few legit reasons
to spoof Caller ID. So "ban spoofing, period" is pretty much a non-starter.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Just do it like SPF does for email; the legitimate owner of a number may
delegate its use to anyone they choose.

------
newshorts
Good. Robot calls have rendered my phone a “voicemail only” machine. I never
answer my phone, please text or leave voicemail.

------
auiya
If the FCC were interested in the least this would have been done years ago.

------
RickJWagner
Yyyyyyyyesssssssss!

It's about time.

