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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
The robocall crisis will never totally be fixed
Years into the robocalling frenzy, your phone probably still rings off the hook with "important information about your account," updates from the "Chinese embassy," and every bogus sweepstakes offer imaginable. That's despite promises from the telecom industry and the US government that solutions would be coming. Much like the firehose of spam that made email almost unusable in the late 1990s, robocalls have made people in the US wary of picking up their cell phones and landlines. In fact, email spam offers a useful analogy: a scourge that probably can't be eliminated but can be effectively managed.
Finding the right tools for that job remains a challenge. The Federal Trade Commission has had a strong track record in its 140 robocall-related suits, including a recent victory at the end of March that targeted four massive operations. Bipartisan anti-robocalling legislation is gaining traction in Congress. Apps that flag or block unwanted calls have matured and are solidly effective. And wireless carriers—in part facing pressure from the Federal Communications Commission—have increasingly offered their own anti-robocalling apps and tools for free.
Yet the number of robocalls continues to hit new highs. The anti-robocalling company YouMail estimates that March 2019 saw 5.23 billion robocalls, the highest volume ever. And other firms recorded similar highs. But those numbers don't take into account calls that were successfully blocked. A more useful measure might be the number of complaints filed per month to the FCC and FTC, which remained mostly static in 2018 and the beginning of 2019.
"Even though we're at an all-time high, there's some good news," says YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. "The numbers may be creeping up a little bit, but the situation seems to be mostly stable at this point. We have not turned the corner, but maybe the corner is in sight."
In fact, some consensus has emerged about where that corner is. Industry groups led by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions have been working since 2016 on a pair of standards, dubbed "STIR" and "SHAKEN," that will be used across landline, mobile, and VoIP carriers to cryptographically authenticate the source of calls. Basically, this means that the "spoofed" phone numbers robocallers rely on to ramp up their call volume—also the reason so many robocalls appear to come from your area code—will be easily flagged as untrustworthy.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:51AM (4 children)
Well, of course not, too many loopholes in the law. If this congress doesn't write a better law, they should be voted out next year, all of them, they can't be trusted. Time to start from scratch. It can't make anything worse. If we don't send a message, nothing will improve.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:21AM
It's not loopholes in the law, it's that, like the GFC, not only does no-one involved in the process have any motivation to "fix" it, they have strong financial motivations to perpetuate it for as long as possible. For example the terminating network makes money from terminating incoming calls, so they get paid for robocalls. The originating network also makes money for originating calls, so they get paid for robocalls. The intermediate carriers get paid for carrying the calls, so they get paid for robocalls. It would be against the financial interests of everyone involved except the end-user receiving the calls to take any measures at all to prevent them.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:49AM (1 child)
There is a clear and present case for nuking from high orbit, although it is far from clear whether the target is congress, the telcos, or the callers. Perhaps all of them is the safest option.
Here in the UK they only call landlines. I ask for their name, company and phone number so I can call the Information Commissioner's office to report them. They hang up, but
for the people who offer to insure my white goods - they call back next month anyway.
The PPI people have taken to sending letters instead. The estate agents push flyers through the door.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:03PM
We have to "nuke" congress in order to elect people that will write proper law or be voted out the following election. Our problem is the voters' lack of interest in seeking out qualified candidates. They just do whatever they are told by mass media, reelect 95% of the crooks, and bitch at the people that point it out (kill the messenger). So, here we are... The source of the problem is in front of our nose (in the mirror), but we are in denial, blaming everybody else for our problems. These are psychological problems, not political.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:02AM
Its the Robo-government, stupid!
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:11AM (7 children)
Can someone genuinely "in the know" explain what is different in the US, that makes this problem happen? In the EU, we occasionally get cold-calls on our landline. These are entirely aimed at our former business (selling toner, etc.), not at us as private people. On mobile phones, basically never - I think I've had one cold-call in 10 years. And robo-calls? Never, not one.
Likely, the difference is some combination of technical measures and legal enforement. I've just never seen the differences clearly laid out. If someone could do this, it might give USAians a roadmap to fix the problem.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:17AM (2 children)
Because in EU the caller pays and the recipient of the call, pays nothing.
In US or Canada, the recipient pays and often the caller pays nothing.
So if it costs €0.03/minute to make a call in EU, it may become a little cost prohibitive. But when termination (calling) in US or Canada is basically free, and the recipient is paying $0.20/minute (for pay-as-you-go on cellphone) to get a call, then what do you expect?? So yes, make reception of calls free and the spam is stopped.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday April 10 2019, @05:15PM (1 child)
Even better plan would be to pay for accepting of calls. This was successfully used in Russia where some popular pay as you go plans would add to user's outgoing call limit whatever minutes she spends taking to incoming one.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:07PM
So you would pay for outgoing and incoming? That's fucked up.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:46AM (2 children)
Don't know about EU, but the AC is exactly right about Oz. We pay nothing to receive a call, the caller pays whatever the telecom charges. I have never received a robocall on my mobile. I do get them on the landline, less than 1 a day, so it must be cheap enough to call that they still turn a profit, but it doesn't cost me anything except time.
In the US, why would the phone companies ever stop it? They get to charge a cent or to to the bulk caller, and whatever your 'minutes' cost to you, for basically slightly higher utilization of installed hardware. i.e. practically zero cost to them. If the AC is right about them charging $0.20/min I wouldn't be surprised if the phone company was actually subsidising the robocallers.
Get your legislators to pass a law saying providers must provide a plan that only charges outgoing calls, and watch phones on that plan get no spam calls.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:18PM (1 child)
Or instead simply legislate that calls reported as spam cannot be billed to the recipient.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:10AM
Shill for the phone companies much?
You know that won't work because most people won't bother filling out a form claiming a call is spam in order to get a few cents off their bill. Under any system that bills recipients of calls, the phone companies have an incentive to allow spam. Filling out that form is likely to be per call, and quite possibly by ringing a non-free number to make that report.
The solution is simple. You pay for the calls you make, and maybe a network fee. Some asshole wants to spam, they pay for the privilege. You don't pay to receive calls.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:20AM
You are lucky then. In the UK (are you?) I get 2 calls a day on the mobile about PPI if I don't keep it switched off. On the land line lately I get frequent robot calls from "BT" that my line is about to be cut off, and I should press "1" to speak to an agent. To wind them up I have done that, and it's an Indian wanting to pwn my PC. I now disconenct my landline at night to stop them waking me up.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:36AM
It's literally only politics that is in the way.
I have a phone. I will now list all the unwanted, unsolicited calls I've received in the last month.
- 5th April - One spam call from a known-spam number. Went unanswered. Never called back.
- 14th March - One spam call from a known-spam number. Went unanswered. Never called back.
Both numbers were listed on a site that lists such things. Both numbers are reported to be "have you had an accident" calls (I've not had an insurance claim in over 6 years and haven't done anything else that they could have got a number from). Both went unanswered because I didn't recognise the number. Both were reported, as I'm on the UK TPS which means it's illegal to phone me without my explicit consent.
That's the literal flux of "dial every possible number", "throw away our number as it's being reported as spam and buy a new one". And both presented CLI that was known-bad numbers, and both could have been blocked by the telco. Both would have been blocked if I had any of those apps that automatically looks up the number first on the above services before even bothering to ring the phone.
Given that that's my main, primary, sole number to contact me on, and they represent less than 1% of the calls received I don't think that's bad. And, personally speaking, unless I have a contact entry in my list for you, my phone doesn't even make a noise or send you to voicemail. It just rings out, literally forever. Only if I know who you are in advance does it actually ring out loud.
Disturbance to me - zero.
Missed calls from known callers - zero.
Chance of missing something that was actually important - zero, they would ring back or text as well, and looking up their number would tell me who they are (I have recently looked up numbers that turned out to be my electricity supplier, for instance).
Calls that I couldn't have told you were spam before it was answered - zero.
And if the telco bothered to co-operate or monitor their services, even those two wouldn't have got through (Why can I not dial a number AFTER receiving such a call to say "I don't know who the last caller was, I suspect it was spam"... then the telcos could monitor and shut that stuff down in hours rather than long enough to have a month's worth of reviews on a spam-number-website).
If personal robocalls are a problem, stop accepting calls from numbers you don't know (set your ringtone to silence, add contacts into a group with a non-silent ringtone).
If you're a business, invest in a system that takes those calls and robo-answers them. So unless they actually bother to interact with the system, it doesn't even get through to your business switchboard. You can literally do this in the cloud for pence nowadays.
It doesn't need massive legislation (though that would be nice). It doesn't need extreme technically measures, just a primitive call-screening. And people genuinely trying to contact you won't be hindered at all. They'll text to say "Hey, it's John, I just tried to call you, but this is my new number" or whatever.
Rather than spend millions on technical measures that should have been deployed from day one, millions more on legal drafting and all sorts of suits, just spend ten minutes configuring your phones to ignore this stuff.
"Withheld number"? Then I will respect your privacy, and not be able to call you back. If it's important, I'm sure you'll find a way to get through (e.g. actually show me your number) or inform me some other way.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:44AM (1 child)
And in related news we all should hear fewer calls about a getting a free medical brace. Why? Because the scammers filling the orders got busted. [apnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:06PM
Oh that is awesome, i live near a retirement community in Florida and have been getting a bunch of them recently.
(Score: 2) by lars on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:54AM (4 children)
Have not tried this, but I'm betting a good way to get rid of them would be to sign up for whatever they are selling with stolen credit card info. Still like that would make their credit card processor drop them or increase their rates. Either way, they sure won't want to deal with you ever again.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nuke on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:25AM (3 children)
You can find ineffective credit card numbers by Googling for their images. It will waste the scammers' time but won't stop the calls, because by now your phone number is on a list being circulated around India.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:41AM (1 child)
What's more, as soon as you give them the cc details, they immediately attempt to charge the card. When it's declined, they say "are you sure that's the right number?"
So no. That doesn't really waste their time. Keeping them on the phone wastes their time. Wasting their time to the point where they get your fake card details is more important than fake card details. You'd do better to go with something like "Uhh..just a minute. Where's that damn card?!? Hold on. Shit! It was right there in the drawer! Madge! Where'd you put the Visa card? Madge! I don't care if you're taking a shit. I need that card! Okay. I'm really sorry, sir/ma'am. Please just give me one more minute and I'll be right with you."
Then put the phone down and make a bunch of noise like you're looking for something, then just go and do something else while you wait for them to hang up. Or you can do what I do. [soylentnews.org]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by lars on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:56AM
I was actually thinking numbers that are still "fresh," that could be used.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:07PM
I have a number of Canada.. so some scammers or whatever started calling. Telling them you are not interested doesn't really help. But then I went onto a philosophical discussion for 10-20 minutes with them about what they are trying to sell me and why I'm hesitant and why would I trust them, etc... No emotions on my side, but definitely wasted like their time. I think I got blacklisted in India. Not a single call since.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:44AM (11 children)
I waste the scammers'.
I get through to them and listen their spiel for bit. Then, if the scammer is male, I remark that "It's funny, when I was fucking your wife last night, she didn't mention that you were going to call." If that doesn't get them to hang up, I continue by describing a variety of degrading and very intimate sex acts I performed on their wife, explaining how much she enjoyed them. Once in a while, they give me some back sass, but that's fine. As long as they're talking to me, they're not trying to scam someone else.
If the scammer is female, it's usually "You should really go back to turning tricks, honey. It's more honest work." Oddly, none of them ever tried to argue with me, they just hang up.
I guess The Grateful Dead [youtube.com] had it right. At least for scammers.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:34AM (1 child)
FYI, Man Smart (Woman Smarter) is a Calypso standard predating the Grateful Dead by a few decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50nS2ldCXJk [youtube.com] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Smart_(Woman_Smarter) [wikipedia.org]
compiling...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:44AM
Thanks. I knew that. In fact, that wasn't the version I was looking for to link in my post. I was looking for a cover by Melanie [wikipedia.org] but I couldn't find it. I hemmed and hawed a bit as to whether I wanted to go with a Harry Belafonte cover or the Grateful Dead cover. Since Jerry Garcia is dead, I decided to go with the Grateful Dead. FYI.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hoeferbe on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:34PM (1 child)
I've done (a less vulgar) form of this. The calls I get are an automated voice prompting me to "press 1" to be connected to an agent. I wonder, however, when I press that to talk to the live person if that just marks my phone number as `a live one` in their database, causing me to get more unwanted calls in the future.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:21PM
Not being a phone scammer, I couldn't say. However, I do recommend that you be more vulgar.
I was chastised once for doing so by my sister in-law, who suggested that these folks were "just trying to make a living."
I pointed out to her that while that might be true, the way these people make their living is by scamming people and stealing their money. Vulgar speech isn't nearly enough for these people, IMHO. But it's what I can do, so when I have the time, I do.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:24PM (1 child)
Or you could just hand the call off to Lenny! [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:28PM
I could. But Lenny and I have been on the outs for a while. He's been spending way too much time (shocker!) with Carl [fandom.com]. I don't like it!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:44PM (4 children)
I've been told that if they are Indian what you should do to really wind them up is say something like "You should have studied harder in school like your parents told you!"
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:50PM (3 children)
Don't underestimate the power of telling *any* man how much their wife enjoys getting fucked up the ass, regardless of ethnicity.
Actually, given Indian men's dirty little not-so-secret [bbc.co.uk], it would likely work even better on them.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:12PM (1 child)
Actually, that wouldn't phase me one scintilla of a bit. I would simply shut the wanker down with "Look dude, your fantasies do not interest me! Take your wank fantasy someplace where someone might care!" So, why do you guys get so worked up when some guy who you obviously have never met--and your wife has obviously never met--get so worked up about this? How is it that your emotions can so easily shut off the logical part of your brain? Maybe you should get some professional help for this condition?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:14PM
Such a statement wouldn't bother me either. What's more, unless you're a moron, it's obvious that this is *designed* to annoy and not as, as you say, a "wank fantasy."
Consider the situation we're talking about. This isn't a couple of strangers chatting down the pub or some random internet interaction. If your goal is to convince such a person to give up their credit card details (which is why you invaded their privacy in the first place), your reaction would likely be colored by that goal.
You know, it's funny, when I was fucking *your* wife up the ass last night (she *really* loves that, especially when I cum in her mouth when I'm done treating her like the skanky whore she is -- she loves to swallow!), she didn't mention how poorly your grasp of context is, or how literal-minded and lacking a sense of humor you are.
I don't know. I certainly don't. But then, I'm not dumb enough to think that something said to a scammer in an effort to annoy them and waste their time is some sort of fantasy or an expression of desire.
What's more, there are these things called "context" and "humor" that I generally consider when reading a discussion on the Intertubes. Perhaps you should try it sometime. Just a crazy thought.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:31AM
A more effective approach I've found is to explain to them how much negative Karma they're racking up from all the people they're pissing off. Think about it man, all that karma. You're coming back as a cockroach, if that. Maybe you can erase some of the bad by doing some good. Shut down that place, save your co-workers. Get them involved in saving humanity from the scourge of the unwanted, annoying and time wasting calls.
I've had a few get emotional and start apologizing. Then I repeat, do the bigger good, shut it down. Save your co-workers.
I dunno. Maybe it'll cause some turmoil? It does get their attention.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:17AM (1 child)
My home phone is now set up with ~30 numbers (family, school, doctors, dentist, etc...) that ring and everything else goes directly to voicemail. I'm looking into setting up something similar with my Android phone, though I haven't gotten as many junk calls there yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @12:20PM
Years ago I switched my default ringtone to be one second of silence. Everyone in my address book has a ringtone based on a category (some people have their own) so I have an idea of who is calling when I hear the phone ring.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:28PM
Hello? HELLO?? HELLO??! .... [bweep] [click] (Why did you bother?)
Hello?
"SomeGuy?" (Cheerful female voice)
Who is this?
"SomeGuy?" (exact same inflection, fuck, it's a machine again)
Fuck you!
"Oh, you are so much more polite than the last person I talked to!" (kill me!)
[slam!]
"Hi, this is Victor with CardHolder Services!" (oh, look, Rachel's brother is working for them now!)
[slam!]
"This iS GLaDOS with ApplE supPort. We haVe detEcted a seCuriTy prOblem with youR Apple accoUnt. Press oNe to speak to a sUpporRt reprEsentative now... and afterwaRds there will be cake!"
[slam!]
"We are with Suchandsuch Research firm, please take a moment to complete our political opinion survey. If you hang up we will just keep calling you back for the next two weeks until you do! One: are you registered to vote?"
[slam!]
"ho, this is your dear old mother, I was just wondering if.."
[slam!]
Oh, shit.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday April 10 2019, @05:15PM (1 child)
No, this problem will not be solved by the cryptoweenies. This problem is about money and political will and can only be solved by attacking it at the root.
Thought experiment:
We (as in we tech types) know the difference between the spoofable callier-id and the non-spoofable ANI used for internal billing purposes by the telephone network. So if the goal is to stop robo-calling add a *code to report it. Collect N reports in Y time of number X and a human at a government agency investigates and drops a telephone death penalty on them: shuts down the service of that customer and that legal entity AND the registered physical address goes onto a blacklist for a year and can't purchase phone service in the U.S. Cost to spin up legal entities is non-zero and renting office space certainly is. Worse, landlords will be impacted and quickly cut a deal to avoid the penalty by agreeing to refuse business to them, using the same public blacklist. Problem instantly vanishes.
This solution is simple, instantly effective and 100% impossible to even conceive of a path to implementation for. And there is where the problem lies, solve that and everything else follows. And we probably solve a lot more currently "intractable" problems at the same time. As others have already noted, the telcos make far more money from the boiler room operations than they make from you. Both the scammers and telcos own more politicians than the tiny slice of one your vote represents.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday April 11 2019, @01:39AM
Both the scammers and telcos own more politicians than the tiny slice of one your vote represents.
How about 150 million of our votes? I mean, you know, if people were interested in, like, doing something? The non-voters alone are a big enough block to completely clean out the House. *sigh* If they would only try.... They could turn all that lobbying money into confetti with the push of a button. The effort is truly trivial.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:20PM
If the caller isn't in my address book, I let it go to voicemail. Robocalls usually don't leave a message, and in the unlikely even that they do I don't have to think on my feet--I can see it's a scam because I'm in the right frame of mind to analyze calls.
The only thing that concerns me is if they spoofed a number that was in my book, and then they'd have to also imitate the voice of a person I know and convince me to to something to their advantage like... I dunno... meet them for coffee so somebody can rob my house while I'm away?
I don't think the evil AI is quite there yet. In the meantime, QUIT PICKING UP ON UNKNOWN CALLERS. You're feeding the beast.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:37AM
Don't forget the biggest exemption of them all: political calls. Political calls are exempt from almost all rules dealing with robocalls and robotexts. Worse, with the political season coming nigh, expect them to increase once again.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Thursday April 11 2019, @01:35PM
If they can 'cryptographically tag' the call end to end to know if it is the right number-
DON'T LET BAD NUMBERS FUCKING CALL.
Block it, prevent the call, report the attempt to the FCC. Telcos can do this, but they make money from both ends of the problem. So they won't.