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The House and Senate finally agree on something: Robocalls – TechCrunch
In these times of political strife, it’s nice that despite our differences we can still band together as a nation in the face of a catastrophe that affects us all equally. I speak, of course, of robocalls, and it seems that the House and Senate have put their differences aside for the present in order to collaborate on a law combating this scourge.
[...] As often happens in Congress, two competing versions of the bill emerged to address this issue, and both passed in their respective chambers earlier this year. Now the leaders of the committees involved have announced an “agreement in principle” that will hopefully allow them to pass a unified version of the bill.
The “Pallone-Thune TRACED Act” owes its name to its primary sponsors — Rep. Pallone (D-NJ) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) — and the earlier and superior acronym from the House act, Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.
“Our agreement will require telephone carriers to verify calls and allow robocalls to be blocked in a consistent and transparent way, all at no extra charge to consumers. The agreement also gives the FCC and law enforcement the ability to quickly go after scammers,” said Rep. Pallone in a statement accompanying the news.
The bill text is expected to be finalized in a matter of days, and it will hopefully make it onto the legislative calendar in a hurry.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday November 17 2019, @04:34PM (6 children)
who enter your phone number onto websites for "shipping confirmation" and other things deserve what you get. I get one robocall a month, if that, because I've maintained vigilance for years and years about who gets my number.
Seriously, stop entering your personal information except where absolutely *necessary*
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Sunday November 17 2019, @05:16PM (2 children)
Anyone who still uses electricity deserves what she gets. Guns and oil is the answer.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @12:11AM (1 child)
You're overly complicating things. Guns. Lots and lots of guns are the answer.
If you have those, you can get everything else. Well, until someone shoots you to death. Funny how that works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @08:26AM
Reminds me of a joke a comedian whose name I can't remember said, "The solution to every problem is the right people having guns. That includes the problem of the wrong people having them, of course."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 17 2019, @06:53PM
An interesting exercise is to setup a Google Talk or similar phone number for the express purpose of catching all the crap that comes from "give us your phone number or we won't process your order" B.S.
I did something similar with a "give us your name/address to access our newborns website" 18 years ago when my first child was born - I gave the name Gizzy Tcat. 18 years later, Gizzy still gets the occasional piece of junk mail.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Sunday November 17 2019, @07:24PM (1 child)
I find it surprising that you only get 1 robocall a month. There's only a finite number of 10-digit phone numbers, and a good proportion of them are in use. There are definitely robocallers that don't use lists and just increment through the possible phone numbers, which is obvious in places where there are bunch of phones with sequential numbers like in an office. I'd expect any phone number to get at least a few spam calls a week, no matter how careful one would be giving out the number.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday November 17 2019, @11:30PM
Maybe I'm just lucky, but as I said, I've been vigilant for years, and if there were a convenient way for me to anonymously upload my call history, I would do so to prove it.
Unfortunately, as far as the article is concerned, it's more likely that this is only popping up at all because the Congresscritters themselves have no opsec and are being harassed incessantly.