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FTC to Award $25,000 for the Best Honeypot Design to Trap Robocalls

posted by mrcoolbp on Thursday March 05 2015, @10:46AM   
from the flies-with-honey dept.

n1 writes:

Ars Technica reports:

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced another contest to design a system to "identify unwanted robocalls received on landlines or mobile phones, and block and forward those calls to a honeypot." The agency will select "up to five contestants" as part of what it’s calling "Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back."

The first qualifying phase launches Wednesday and runs through June 15, 2015 at 10:00pm Eastern Time, while the final phase concludes at DEF CON 23 on August 9, 2015.

Here's the FTC contest page. There's another similar contest (with no cash prize) being held "as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking." It appears they have done something similar in previous years as well.

• Re:Good to hearRe:Good to hear (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday March 05 2015, @08:13PM

  by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Thursday March 05 2015, @08:13PM (#153633)

  As to why they have a hard time tracking down and prosecuting robocallers, that's basically because robocalls are basically a more modern version of email spam, which means that all the techniques the email spammers used are in use for robocallers. They're hiding the origins of the calls (hacking into vulnerable phone systems if necessary to do that), they're fly-by-night companies that disappear as soon as anyone starts scrutinizing them, and they're taking advantage of national and state boundaries.

  So let the government go hard after those who are benefiting from these promotions. If someone is outsourcing promotions they they should have to put strict guidelines in the contracts so they know exactly how their promotions will be handled. The excuse that they did not know the promotions company was going to make robocalls is, well, inexcusable.

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• Re:Good to hearRe:Good to hear (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 05 2015, @08:48PM

  by Thexalon (636) on Thursday March 05 2015, @08:48PM (#153647)

  Most robocalls aren't advertising or promotions of legitimate services, but scam artists of various kinds. The FTC has caught a few people, most notably one of the organizations responsible for "Rachel from Cardholder Services" [consumeraffairs.com].

  --
  "Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin

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  • Re:Good to hear(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday March 06 2015, @02:52AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Friday March 06 2015, @02:52AM (#153703) Homepage Journal

    Most robocalls aren't advertising or promotions of legitimate services, but scam artists of various kinds. The FTC has caught a few people, most notably one of the organizations responsible for "Rachel from Cardholder Services".

    Funny that. I get calls from group(s) engaged in an identical scam just about every day.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr

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