Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Meta: The Curious Case of the Missing Journal Entry 111 comments

What started it all:

On 2019-08-24 13:02:01 UTC an accusation (https://soylentnews.org/meta/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=33244&page=1&cid=884682#commentwrap) was made that a Journal Entry "It would have been posted before 6 hours ago" (i.e. posted at approximately 2019-08-24 07:00:00 UTC) was deleted by a member of the staff at SoylentNews. The circumstances surrounding the making of the Journal Entry are elaborated upon in this comment. (https://soylentnews.org/meta/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=33244&page=1&cid=885191#commentwrap)

I have been with this site since before it went live. Its founding principal has been the making available of a forum whereby the community can submit stories — and post comments — to predominantly tech-related items. Further, each logged-in user has been made available the ability to post entries to their Journal.

As Editor-in-Chief I took this allegation seriously and performed an independent and in-depth investigation. My findings are presented below.

Note: It is not lost on me the futility of trying to prove a negative. It is for good reason that the criminal justice system in the US is founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty." It is not up the the accused to vindicate themselves, but for the accuser to bring sufficient evidence to bring about conviction.

NB: In the course of writing this, I discovered a bug in how the site displays wide elements contained in an ECODE element. It incorrectly wraps the text onto the next line (leading to a jumbled mess) when it should, instead, provide horizontal scroll bars. Please accept my apologies for its current appearance.

Executive Summary:

An in-depth investigation making use of: external resources, the UI presented by SoylentNews, and ad-hoc queries of the site database (DB) failed to locate a "smoking gun", i.e. found no clear proof that a Journal Entry was posted to the site and subsequently deleted by anyone other than an author.

It is my estimation that the user submitted an entry, but the site failed to receive and save it correctly. In other words, the user tripped over some kind of bug be it in the site's code, communications between the user and the site, or something else.

Recommendation: When a user completes making a Journal Entry and submits it to the site, the code should respond by using the newly-created journal parameters in conjunction with the normal journal-loading code to present the Journal Entry to the user as confirmation that the entry was properly received and saved. That is to say, affirmative feedback of receipt, storage, and accessibility of the Journal Entry.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:03AM (7 children)

    by AnonTechie (2275) on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:03AM (#884659) Journal

    It would be great if this works as advertised. I am quite sure that the scammers will soon find other ways to continue making Robocalls. I think it would work only if the perpetrators have to pay a high enough price (fines and jail time).

    --
    Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:12AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:12AM (#884660)

      Are politicians and their fundraising organizations exempt? Scammers are horribly greedy people, but they are amateurs when compared to politicians.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:12PM (#884684)

        I don't see a distinction.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:41PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:41PM (#884852)

        Yes, they are still exempt under these rules. For those who do not know, the following are exempt from robocall provisions:

        1. Political calls.
        2. Debt collection calls.
        3. Messages that are purely informational.
        4. Calls from some health care providers.
        5. Messages from charities.

        Note that numbers 2-5 are required to state in the message how to discontinue receiving future calls. Number 2 has that and additional situations where you can terminate them. However, number 1 does not have to have an opt out of any kind and may be continued even after you tell them you don't want any.

        • (Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday August 26 2019, @12:22PM

          by Muad'Dave (1413) on Monday August 26 2019, @12:22PM (#885608)

          > US consumers receive as many as 350,000 unwanted calls every three minutes ...

          1. Political calls. UNWANTED
          2. Debt collection calls. UNWANTED
          3. Messages that are purely informational. UNWANTED
          4. Calls from some health care providers. UNWANTED
          5. Messages from charities. UNWANTED

          What's the purpose of this new law again?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:36PM (#884830)

      fines and jail time
      You must be joking!

      "Nuke from high orbit - its the only way to be sure"

    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:32PM (1 child)

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:32PM (#884848) Homepage Journal

      I am quite sure that the scammers will soon find other ways to continue making Robocalls.

      SMS SPAM/scams anyone?

      Just got an SMS scam message yesterday (23 August) which included a link to eweaka-dot-com:

      $ whois eweaka.com
      [Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
      [Redirected to whois.namecheap.com]
      [Querying whois.namecheap.com]
      [whois.namecheap.com]
      Domain name: eweaka.com
      Registry Domain ID: 2425445495_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
      Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
      Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com [namecheap.com]
      Updated Date: 0001-01-01T00:00:00.00Z
      Creation Date: 2019-08-21T15:48:32.00Z

      While I have received quite a few scam calls, I generally only receive unwanted SMS messages from political candidates (which results in a response that I will not vote for their candidate as they chose to harass me. This actually led a staffer from one candidate's campaign to actually knock on my door after receiving such a reply -- which resulted in me reiterating my promise not to vote for said candidate, and a further promise to make it my mission to defeat them. Harassment isn't the way to win political support.), so this was new.

      I haven't visited the link provided in the SMS message, so I can't say what the scam may be -- probably some malicious javascript. I could use curl/wget to retrieve the link data, but I don't care enough to do so.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:50PM (#884859)

        A great service I use is urlscan.io because they show you all the requests, the DOM, everything. Plus it is better than most services because they use Chrome in headless mode. Here is the analysis of transactions for that main url: https://urlscan.io/result/83a6aab7-d3d5-4b6b-a893-dc8088ba7044#transactions [urlscan.io] It shows that the root of that domain does an HSTS redirect to the https version and then that redirects you to mobn-dot-it and that request 404s. That 404 page also loads a New Relic tracking script and JSON payload.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Saturday August 24 2019, @11:08AM (9 children)

    by BsAtHome (889) on Saturday August 24 2019, @11:08AM (#884672)

    This story also appeared on Ars:
    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/us-phone-carriers-make-empty-unenforceable-promises-to-fight-robocalls/ [arstechnica.com]

    I'd say, it is nice PR work for putting extra items on the bill that do you no good. It will increase shareholder value and stuff some CEO's pockets. Nothing will change because that would actually cost money. Cannot have expenses in the company. That would make it less profitable. The sheeple, ehm customers, are not getting rid of their shiny comms device anyway, so who cares about them.

    • (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
      • (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.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:16PM (#884686)

    It ain't working till the bad calls stop and the good ones still work.

    So far, no cigar.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:56PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:56PM (#884726)

    I got an unsolicited phone call about California proposition (something) and hung up on them mid sentence.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:05PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:05PM (#884730)

    It's anti-terrorism.
    We've all seen the TV plots where the bad guys wire a phone to a bomb so they can call and remote detonate it at the time of maximum impact. What if all the phone spam is a way to prevent that.
    Scenario:
    (Scene 1)
    Montage of Modamneded assembling his pressure cooker and plugging the phone in. We see him carry it out to his SUV.
    (Scene 2) A view through the windscreen as he drives to his Target (or Walmart).
    (Scene 3) Cut to a darkskinned individual in a white shirt sitting at a desk talking into a phone headset. He has an indian accent and a nametag of "Reginald".
    (Scene 4) Cut to closeup of some paperwork for Modamneded's phone. The camera zooms in until the last three digits fill the screen.
    (Scene 5) Cut back to some more of Modamneded driving.
    (Scene 6) Cut to somebody screaming into their phone and hanging up on "Reginald". He calmly starts dialing the next number on a list. The camera zooms in on the keypad as his fingers hit the same last three digits as we saw before.
    (Scene 7) A closeup view into the SUV through the windscreen. Modamneded is calm and at peace driving it. Suddenly, the sound of a phone's ringtone. Modamneded's face turns to a panicked expression. The camera pulls back as the SUV fills with fire before exploding all over the highway.
    (Scene 8) Cut back to "Reginald" waiting for an answer. He gives up and starts dialling the next number. The scene fades as the credits roll.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:09PM

      by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:09PM (#884735) Journal

      If there is an app for thatâ„¢, it should allow you to specify an incoming number or list of numbers for triggering detonation.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @03:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @03:23PM (#884778)

      (Scene 2) Trump uses the presidential alert system and calls every cell phone number at the same time.
      (Scene 3) Every wannabe Mohammad clockboy goes "poof"
      much better

  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:09PM (3 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:09PM (#884920) Journal

    Right in the posts above me.

    Let me buy a plan where caller pays, just like those 976 "sex-chat" ladies have.

    That's right! Now you can interrupt someone else with your important spam call! Just 99 cents per minute! Call Now!

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:12PM

      by anubi (2828) on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:12PM (#884923) Journal

      Whoops.. needed to add that if I dial a code during the call, it's on me.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Sunday August 25 2019, @04:56AM (1 child)

      by deimtee (3272) on Sunday August 25 2019, @04:56AM (#885073) Journal

      I've said that before. Phone spam is only a problem in countries where you pay to receive phone calls. It is a fucked up system that the phone companies have somehow convinced you poor buggers is normal.
      Due to bulk calling rates they make a shitload more off of you receiving calls than they do off the spammers. No surprise they can't solve the "problem". From their point of view it isn't one, on the contrary it is an income stream.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 27 2019, @02:50AM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday August 27 2019, @02:50AM (#885910) Journal

        This kind of corruption seems a general problem with capitalism, not just telecoms. There's constant sliding towards monopolism, fascism, and plutocracy. The strongest market participants seem more interested in killing off the market in their greed to have and keep all the wealth and power they can accumulate.

        Medical providers make more money by managing symptoms rather than curing patients, laws are made and enforcement performed for purposes of revenue generation 1st and public safety a distant 2nd (eg. speed traps, parking meters), the Prison Industrial Complex profits from incarceration, the Military Industrial Complex promotes fear, violence and war, the finance sector holds the entire economy hostage in exchange for bailouts as well as inflicts a steady stream of fees and absurdly high rates on "customers", intellectual property law makes us all into pirates and locks away our culture for forever minus one day, fossil fuel energy producers get away with externalizing a huge amount of the costs their business incurs, and there's all kinds of smaller, pettier bribery, regulatory capture and favoritism all over the place.

(1)