
FCC to require anti-robocall tech after “voluntary” plan didn’t work out - vo2maxer
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/ajit-pai-follows-congress-instructions-requires-new-anti-robocall-tech/
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DaiPlusPlus
I built and run a popular prank-calling website (with spin-offs for wake-up
calls and call-my-phone-because-I-lost-it amongst others) and the prank
calling site allows for caller ID spoofing (disclosure: the site only lets you
use a number you’ve verified ownership of) and this “just works” because
there’s nothing in SIP and SS7 that’s equivalent to SPF/DKIM/PKI/TLS. Any and
all anti-spoofing measures take place between my upstream SIP trunking carrier
and the recipients’ service provider.

Such as it is, the entire PSTN/SIP/SS7 ecosystem and infrastructure was
designed without any notion of authentication or verification of Caller IDs
(just like SMTP’s From: header); I suppose everyone assumed back in the days
of landlines that because there’s physical links and an accounting paper-trail
then _surely_ the phone companies would dutifully investigate reports of
spoofed numbers and disconnect/disable abusers.

I’m unsure how this will pan-out. I’d wager the majority of on-prem PBX and
Asterisk boxes are sitting there unmaintained for possibly decades - and many
of those systems (e.g. legitimate call-centers) will be entirely dependent on
Caller ID “spoofing” to work as-intended.

What’s frustrating to me is how mobile phone networks live in their own
separate bubble with minimal interoperability. I’m sure we’re familiar with
VoLTE/Wideband-audio on our smartphones - but that’s only supported for calls
to recipients in the same network. If you have a fancy on-prem all-IP SIP
infrastructure that supports every Wideband audio codec ever made - and have a
great trunking provider - you’ll still get nasty analog phone quality if you
try to call someone on T-Mobile. If we can’t get things like preserving call
quality right then I’m very doubtful we’ll get Caller ID authentication
working.

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londons_explore
In many parts of the world, calling through traditional phone numbers has
dropped to nearly zero.

As well as giving up my landline years ago, all the calls I care about go via
WhatsApp/Facebook, and my carriers phone services are now relegated to
outgoing calls only.

I checked my phone logs, and in the last 3 months, I have received 8 spam
calls and 0 wanted calls. I've just switched off incoming calls entirely.

Phone networks doing voice are going out of fashion. Anti-robocall tech isn't
going to save them.

If just a few percent of people like me switch off incoming calls, the entire
phone system becomes less useful for everyone else, leading to a cascade of
people doing the same.

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jpistell
> Pai framed it as his own decision, with his announcement saying the chairman
> "proposed a major step forward... to protect consumers against spoofed
> robocalls." But in reality the FCC was ordered by Congress and President
> Trump to implement this new rule.

This process should have begun years ago. What the hell is Ajit pai doing?

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bediger4000
I suspect there's a certain amount of... emoluments... changing hands over
robocalls. There's no way something the scale of call-every-North American-
number sequentially robocallers aren't noticeable, trackable and stopable. I
get between 2 and 7 robocalls a day, and I have for more than 5 years. The
robocallers are on the verge of ruining the phone system for human
communication, the same way Sanford Wallace ruined faxing, and spammers ruined
email.

Someone's getting paid off. And it's not on the scale of a couple of rounds of
bikini golf with 20-something junior marketers, either.

