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John Oliver tackles robocalls by flooding FCC with spam calls:
"The host of HBO's Last Week Tonight has come up with a new way to encourage FCC commissioners to take a harder stance on robocalls: by robocalling them. On his show Sunday evening, Oliver debuted a system ... that robocalls FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and fellow commissioners every 90 minutes.
Can we call it treason? I don't think so, this guy is foreign, from U.K. Time to deport?
John Oliver Fights Robocalls. by Robocalling Ajit Pai and the FCC:
Comedian John Oliver is taking aim at the Federal Communications Commission again, this time demanding action on robocalls while unleashing his own wave of robocalls against FCC commissioners.
In a 17-minute segment yesterday on HBO's Last Week Tonight, Oliver described the scourge of robocalls and blamed Pai for not doing more to stop them. Oliver ended the segment by announcing that he and his staff are sending robocalls every 90 minutes to all five FCC commissioners.
"Hi FCC, this is John from customer service," Oliver's recorded voice says on the call. "Congratulations, you've just won a chance to lower robocalls in America today... robocalls are incredibly annoying, and the person who can stop them is you! Talk to you again in 90 minutes—here's some bagpipe music."
[...] When it came to robocalling the FCC, Oliver didn't need viewers' help. "This time, unlike our past encounters [with the FCC], I don't need to ask hordes of real people to bombard [the FCC] with messages, because with the miracle of robocalling, I can now do it all by myself," Oliver said.
"It turns out robocalling is so easy, it only took our tech guy literally 15 minutes to work out how to do it," Oliver also said. He noted that "phone calls are now so cheap and the technology so widely available that just about everyone has the ability to place a massive number of calls."
It would be a shame to waste all that time between phone calls doing nothing. Maybe John Oliver could be persuaded to add a 100 more people and maybe another 435 people while he's at it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @10:45PM (11 children)
Makes no difference when they call from the Ukraine or India.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 16 2019, @10:55PM (10 children)
One word: Whitelists.
There is exactly one person outside the USA that I wish to hear from; my stepmother in Greece. I should be able to put her number in my phone and never, ever, have to deal with a call from the Ukraine or India — no matter how many times they try to call me, or when they do.
This is one of a class of problems with a very, very long history of being completely solved.
The fact that we can't solve it on our end (at the phone) is a clear indication that the telephone companies don't want us to be able to solve it.
In addition, the fact that robocallers can spoof the number they are calling from is also a clear indication that the telephone companies don't want us to be able to solve it.
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A dyslexic runs into a bank and shouts:
Air in the hands, motherstickers!
This is a fuckup!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:41PM (3 children)
Isn't trying to coerce a government official a jailable/transportable offense?
Anyway, this is mostly a non-problem for me. If I see they're faking my prefix, I ignore. If I don't know the number, I'll give them a chance to leave a message. Anything else would be of incremental benefit, such as only ringing if the caller is known.
I don't get any SMS spam, why? Text messages cost money?
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 17 2019, @04:31PM
Nah. You just contribute to their "re-election" fund. Or make sure their cousin Lou in east bumfuck gets a nice stock tip or land deal.
Making these types of things easy is built into the system. It's no accident, either.
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You can't fix stupid. But you can elect it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 17 2019, @04:33PM
And you see this, how?
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Are you drunk?
☐ Yes
☐ No
✓
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @09:31PM
Most victims of most shady schemes are the young and the old because they don't know what they don't know, are more trusting by nature, and have the ability to get funds on short notice. In both of those cases, SMS spam isn't very effective. Younger people don't really text, they use social media, and the elderly are easier to manipulate with conversation and more like to have texts trigger red flags.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:54PM
yep that totally works! /s
The phone system assumes trust. We do not have that. They just spoof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday March 17 2019, @02:24AM
the telephone companies don't want us to be able to solve it.
People keep buying their stuff anyway, so why should they care? They don't see the demand, I mean, sure, the editorials raise a fuss, but the bottom line? Things are lookin' good. *Maintain speed and course*.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @03:45AM (1 child)
I'm sick of people telling me to "just whitelist" the numbers I'll accept. Do any of you other fuckers have kids? Don't you know that, unlike the previous generations, they RELY on being able to contact their parents now and then when plans change and friends bail on them. AND, they sometimes do this from a different phone than their own because batteries often die when you need them most. No one is a perfect planner. I can't ignore calls. It could be my kids. Once, my daughter called me from her track meet to let me know she finished early. From her friend's phone, the German exchange student. Yes, I asked why she didn't use someone else's phone.... have you ever been in a track meet or swim meet or anything like that? Boring as hell. Wait, wait, wait, run for three minutes, wait, wait, wait... They had all run their batteries down. And no, kids, especially teenagers, don't have a lot of self control when only 10% battery is left and there's another hour to go. Track meets are one thing. It's generally a safe space. But they also go to parties, to concerts, to poetry readings at small cafes downtown. The goddamn phone used to be a useful and important thing. Now it's just one more advertising vehicle. You know what, I'll bet those rich mutherfuckers have their own goddamn private phone network they use, like cable TV and PBS used to be. No more, Forget Orwell's 1984. This is Animal Farm, and we're the goddamn animals. We live in the slop, while the masters of the world live it up in the big house of the fruits of our labors. I guess every generation has its pigs. Some tend the herd better than others. This generation has a pretty shitty pig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 17 2019, @04:26PM
Sure. But us "other fuckers" have thought the problem through. At least, those of us who understand how phones and the phone system work.
Again, the tech is there (and has long been there, and is trivially simple) to address your concern. Just add one more feature to this: when a number isn't whitelisted, then:
Seriously, don't give the phone companies any credit here for "giving" you access to your kids while "having" to also give access to every random asshole who wants to scam you (and your kids, and your SO, and your grandparents, and your roomies.)
They could completely and easily solve this problem, while also protecting you from scammers. But they don't want to because those scammers are pushing money at them.
The phone companies are evil fuckers. The scammers are evil fuckers. They're working together to invade your life. That's all there is to this. It's in no way the fault of people who are trying to illuminate the solutions (IOW, not my fault), and when you call me a fucker for doing so, you're playing right into the hands of both the aforementioned evil fuckers.
But Wait! There's More!!!
Your elected representatives could, if they weren't evil fuckers:
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(√(-shit))²
Shit just got real
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @01:48PM
In 2019 I still can't put a regex on incoming call numbers to block specific known pests such as calls from India
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday March 17 2019, @08:31PM
That's my answer to robocalls as well. If a name doesn't show up on my phone I simple don't answer it. If it's not a salesman, a scammer, or a pollster they'll leave a voicemail.
If everybody did that, robocalls would stop.
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