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posted by martyb on Saturday August 24 2019, @09:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the ANI-port-in-a-storm? dept.

Phone companies and state attorneys general join forces to fight robocalls

US consumers receive as many as 350,000 unwanted calls every three minutes, according to the FCC. Despite multiple efforts to end the onslaught, an estimated 4.7 billion robocalls hit American phones in July alone. Now, attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are teaming up with 12 carriers in a united effort to prevent and block the spam calls.

Under the new agreement, the carriers will implement call-blocking technology, make anti-robocall tools free to consumers and deploy a system that labels calls as legitimate or spam, The Washington Post reports. The companies also agree to aid investigations by law enforcement. The major players -- AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget's parent company) -- are on board, as well as smaller carriers -- Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Consolidated, Frontier, US Cellular and Windstream. Though, there's no deadline for the companies to implement these measures.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by SpockLogic on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:42PM (8 children)

    by SpockLogic (2762) on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:42PM (#884695)

    All smoke and mirrors.

    If you want to stop Robocalls, I mean really stop them, then target the carriers CEO's. Mandate the reduction in the CEO's annual remuneration package by $1.00 for every call that gets through to a customer. They will find a way to stop them in a week.

    --
    Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:34PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:34PM (#884714)

    Won't happen for a bunch of reasons.
    The easy self-enforcing way - demand a phone plan that only charges for outgoing calls. That's all it takes.
    Somebody has to pay for that spam call and if the carrier can charge you everyone except you is happy.
    Demand free received calls and whoever is placing the call pays or the phone company does it for free. Big surprise when spam calls drop to almost zero.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:55PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:55PM (#884813)

      But that is already the issue. The Robocall scourge is a consumer visible expression of just how cheap it really is to initiate a phone call, i.e., it is the part that says "you, consumer, are being way overcharged for whatever it is you are paying, to the point of being screwed".

      That is also why the carriers are all dragging their feet on any cure. Those calls are already being 'paid for' by the caller. But the payment is on the order of tenths to hundredths of a cent per call. So it only takes one mark out of a few thousand calls to fall for the scheme and hand over a few grand of money, and they gain back 95+% profit margins, even including the costs to pay for all the calls that went to voicemail or were never answered (although I think non-answer ends up being no charge). But from the phone carrier viewpoint, those Robocalls are a nice chunk of the daily profit margin, and stopping them would reduce their revenue. So the carriers drag their feet. The carriers could stop them immediately if they wanted to, which is why the GP's "reduce CEO's salary by $1 per robocall" suggestion would actually work. Since every single one of them is billed through the accounting system, there is already a record of exactly where they came from, and accordingly a way to both trace them back to the source, and ultimately stop them (by cutting off the sources that are creating the problem).

      But the carriers have no incentive to cut off their own profits (even if their customers are complaining, since where are you going to go, all the other carriers deliver robocalls too).

      The fix to robocalls will ultimately involve changing the incentive structure such that it is better for the carriers to block them and remove them from their networks than to ignore them. Cutting the CEO's pay by $1 per call might be just one of those incentives that just might work.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @05:11AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @05:11AM (#885074)

        It doesn't matter how cheap it is to call, what matters is who pays. If they can push the cost off on you they make money. The phone company makes money from spam. You pay.
        The only way to fix it is to turn the system around and stop the payments. Then the spam will stop. (I would bet that the spam call centers get free calls.)

        You should start a class action suit to :
        discover,
        1/ How much the phone companies charge the spammers,
        2/ How much they charge customers to receive spam
        and to demand a refund and costs and punitive damages for 2/.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @09:37AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @09:37AM (#885121)

          Not paying for receiving calls won't stop spammers. In most of Europe this is the case but we still must put up with over a dozen spam calls per month to land lines. And most of these calls they just hangup on pick-up. Although is true that there are less spam calls to cellular lines.

          But can you guess whom are the absolutely worst offenders? Telcos and ISPs resellers to offer internet and voice services with fake discounts and promotions.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @10:38AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @10:38AM (#885128)

            "A dozen a month."
            The yanks are complaining about dozens per day to their cellphones, and they have to pay to receive them.

            Once the calls are free you can play games. Have 'talk to a spammer day' where everyone competes to keep them on the call as long as possible. Waste their time and money until they give up.

  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday August 24 2019, @03:51PM (2 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday August 24 2019, @03:51PM (#884787) Journal

    All smoke and mirrors.

    Hidden in the smoke is an elephant: "The companies also agree to aid investigations by law enforcement."

    So, all your calls are routed to the police station... Tapping the line is so much easier now.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:59PM (#884814)

      Nothing new here, all your calls have already been available to the police, and available for tapping, since sometime not long after the invention of the phone company. This line is one of those that the politicians insert, and the carriers don't bother to negotiate away because it does nothing but describe the current status quo. But it makes the ignorant public feel like this new agreement has "done something".

      In fact, all the data is already present for tracing every single call, including robocalls, back to their source in the billing system that charges the various carrier transport/interconnect fees. The carriers just have been dragging their feet because the robocalls contribute some percentage of their gross revenue, and they have no incentive (yet) to cut off their own revenue stream just to stop robocalls.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday August 25 2019, @04:53AM

      by edIII (791) on Sunday August 25 2019, @04:53AM (#885072)

      So, all your calls are routed to the police station... Tapping the line is so much easier now.

      That ship sailed [wired.com] so long ago. The FBI attacked the telecom industry a long time ago to go around the enforcement departments that existed at the time. A telephone wiretap did require a warrant, and the telecoms actually enforced the law. This was no longer acceptable to the FBI and they were pushing for an honor based system where they just had access period. This is why Ma' Bell was broken up as a monopoloy, the real behind the scenes reason. This threw the telecoms into some disorganization (Golden years of Phreaking), and the FBI got it what it wanted. This was roughly at the same time of the failed Clipper Chip initiative that would've gave them backdoor access to all modems. The Internet has really given them some problems though, and also made some things very easier. SS7 used a telephone protocol across networks made one thing fantastically easier, and that was collection of phone call data. Just tap at the level 1 networks, the really big pipes or "arteries" of the Internet. This is that famed NSA room.

      Now all PSTN telephone phone calls pass through these mediation switches at some point. It is being collected as we speak. Theoretically, it should only be accessed if there is a direct need. In practice, there is mass surveillance. They've been deep dicking you all along. Sorry, buddy. The only thing they don't have a full handle on are communication apps that use the Internet. The moment they were poised for domination, our technology radically evolved before their eyes :)

      Anyhoo, I think what they mean here is that the telephone companies are going to be more responsive to the local police departments. That will translate into actually making it a lot easier to trace the traffic back. Usually, each hop of that traffic has their own lawyers and a default setting of "fuck off". Now what I imagine is that you will trace back to Company A and they will happily lead you to Company B, which leads you to Company X that is exchanging packets with a final VoIP provider, or the malicious actors themselves. If they all cooperate, you could rebuild the entire signalling path. This could result in VoIP companies terminating service for TOS violations because it indirectly addresses spoofing too. That cooperation allows us to demask people trying to cover themselves too.

      If the cop is just is rebuilding and verifying the signalling path, it's not the same as a tap. They're just establishing who actually talked to who, which customers and companies were involved. That can aid in prosecution of harassing phone calls, and at least tracing a lot of the SPAM shit back to where it leaves the U.S. I would be very surprised if they actually keep domestic call centers.

      There could be some real promise this time if the telecoms actually cooperate with each other and investigators.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.