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We've become so desensitized to spam and robocalls due to the scale of the problem - but these should absolutely be treated as attempted theft. If there were a gang going door to door trying to con elderly or otherwise gullible people into giving them thousands of dollars, there would be task forces formed and police patrols on every block. Instead, since it happens over the internet and on the phone, we give it benign names and treat it like a minor hassle and let everyone fend for themselves.
How did we become "okay" with having most of the communication that reaches people be malicious? What is Federal law enforcement doing? Why the hell hasn't the FCC nuked these companies' ability to operate? Who is lobbying for this shit?
Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to solicit votes, so why would they fight against themselves?
A politician's job is to stay in power and work towards their reelection, not make your life better. In some cases those goals happen to align but that's merely coincidence and should not be taken for granted.
In this case, effective anti-robocall legislation would also work against their own interests.
The innovation needed here is for everyone to be able to have a premium rate phone number, and be able to set fee rates for contacts or "classes" of callers. Spam & robocalls need to become too cost-prohibitive to pursue. Everyone's time has value, so it seems mad that we can't set fees for incoming calls or texts.
There are gangs going door to door attempting to coerce and extort elderly people. My grandmother invites them in for tea. They try to sell her funeral insurance and extended car warranties or they tell her that her grandson whose name they can't say is in jail and this is their one and only chance to ever get bailed out or would she like to donate to their political campaign.
> What is Federal law enforcement doing?
Probably negotiating with India behind closed doors to shut down the scam callcenters, but as a recent scambaiter video (I think it was Jim Browning) showed, corruption in their police is endemic and callcenter operators still get warnings before raids. The profit these centers can make is utterly insane, and so they can afford a lot of bribes.
> Why the hell hasn't the FCC nuked these companies' ability to operate?
SS7 is an international system with seriously lax access controls, it's many decades old and as a result it's extremely difficult to get everyone to upgrade their systems - you don't want to cut off entire countries, particularly poor ones, from international telephony, the fallout would be catastrophic.
How much of a problem is this outside the US? In Japan I get maybe 1 call like this a month (always from a "weird" area code). Meanwhile everyone in the US seems to be constantly getting these calls. Surely other countries also have marks!
(I know about the scam calls to old people in Japan being a thing. Having a cell phone probably removes me as a mark)
Door-to-door missionaries and college endowment call centers are the scum of the earth that intentionally prey on old folks looking for meaning and/or legacy.
But I have yet to see dedicated police forces.
Email has been more thoroughly ruined than phones and SMS. Would be nice if the government actually stood up for the people for once.
I hate to push products, but happiness is the Call Screen built into Pixel phones. If it feels the call might not be spam, I still have the option to screen it and watch the party converse with the Google Assistant in real time—kind of like the answering machines of old, but you can read instead of listen.
For my use, 99% of the time i just leave my iPhone set to silently reject all calls from unknown numbers, and that works for me.
it's pretty rare that there's somebody not already in my contacts that i actually want to be able to call me. they can go to voicemail, and i'll deal with it later.
It's helpful to have a cell phone number from an area code across the country, then it's usually easy to tell likely spam calls (in my case usually 775 or 702) from legit calls (which for me usually are 312 or 773). There are also spam calls from random area codes but I usually don't answer those...
This so much. I don't remember that spam calls exist anymore until I read a post someone complaining about getting spam calls. It works so well. I haven't had a false negative in the 3 years of using it. All the people who truly wanted to contact me would say something into the assistant, and the phone rang, and I'd pick it up.
100%. Call Screen and the usual spam detector in Pixel has made call spam a non issue. I also don't pickup any calls that are not from my phonebook and let them go to VM/assistant, and listen to them immediately.
This is the one feature I really wish iPhone had.
Call Screen is a nice addition to global call control (or whatever it gets renamed to per carrier), that just prompts callers with a simple "press this button to continue the call".
Went from every day at least a dozen calls mostly from spoofed numbers, to only getting the important ones. Call Screen winds up being just a nice cherry on top.
Pretty much the major thing preventing me from switching to iPhone at this point.
My solution is a little more analog. If the number isn't in my phone, I don't answer it. If you don't leave a message, I will never follow it up.
Years ago I heard that SHAKEN/STIR were being implemented and would allow robocall blocking. I still get tons of robocalls. I've had this explained as "SHAKEN/STIR were the crypto that will eventually allow blocking, but the blocking will happen later." Is it later? Is this the start of the actual blocking?
It has started. SHAKEN/STIR are what gives the FCC the ability to trace the source of these calls backwards and hold responsible the gateways acting in bad faith.
We're still very early in the process.
1) Deploy caller ID signing. <--We are here.
2) Deploy policies to make inter-telco tracebacks easier and increase liability for carrying too much spam.
3) Drop unsigned traffic and shutdown spam friendly portions of the PSTN (analogous to open email relays).
4) Use the tracebacks and KYC to deter robocalling operations from getting onboarded and ban current customers who are robocalling. And keep them banned when they open new sockpuppet accounts. It'll never be completely eliminated.
5) See 4.
Two-thirds of PSTN traffic is unsigned. https://transnexus.com/blog/2023/shaken-statistics-july/
SHAKEN/STIR are implemented but the providers have given no tools to the end users to actually do anything actionable with it. Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a megacorp.
The telcos might be a common carrier, but as the end user I sure as shit should be able to block calls originating from providers I see abuse from constantly. I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU, TxtNow.
Personally I've seen very few robocalls these day.
I think all the IP based providers in the US have implemented SHAKEN/STIR. There is still a small amount of non IP based systems which FCC is looking for solutions. And international calls will take some time as other countries look into implementing similar methods.
I get calls nowadays with caller id telemarketer or suspected spam or similar, is this what it does?
Wow: the FCC publicly shames the perpetrator including LinkedIn URL of the person. That's new behavior and might actually be a decent deterrent.
Not just robocall friendly apparently, but a serial offender, with new company names but the same behavior.
ref: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-395670A1.txt
After I moved states, I discovered a pretty effective anti-spam call heuristic. If the call is coming from the same area code as my phone number, it is most likely spam.
It seems spam callers assume most calls will likely be from a local number and so they initiate calls from the same area code as the target. However, since the area code in my local area is completely different from mine (since I moved), this tactic actually backfires and acts as a pretty good spam signal.
Now if only they'd take some sort of action against all the spam text messages I get. I swear I get a dozen texts a week from stringofnumbers@fakeemail.com telling me my amazon account has been suspended or a USPS package is on hold.
OK now do the bigger providers that allow robotexting without consent...
I received unsolicited texts from a "Buy your house cash" company last year. Of course, they did not identify the company name in the texts, not even with prompting...
I was able to trace the number to a larger provider... [0] The provider was unwilling to tell me who originally called me. Which is strange. If a company wants my business, shouldn't they be willing to say who they are? If a VOIP/TOIP provider doesn't disclose who communicates with you, isn't that a way to shield harassment?
But, as always, it's about who pays the most money to the lawmakers via lobbying...
[0] - By 'Large', I will say that they are a provider for Microsoft Teams Voice calls/texts in the US.
Looks like their web site is offline now:
https://www.oneowltelecom.com/
And the LinkedIn profile is gone:
A little bit off topic, I know, but I love how the FCC is using a plain text file here. No nonsense!
There could be an unfortunate consequence of this: picking and choosing who's traffic to accept. Telcos generally operate as common carriers, meaning they have to accept traffic from anybody. Obviously, that doesn't seem right when we don't like that traffic. But imagine if telcos could start deciding on their own which businesses they were willing to work with or deliver calls to. What if they could just cut off your business because they don't like what you're selling.
I'm not saying we're on the way there - this doesn't have to be a slippery slope. But it's something to keep in mind.
How often does the FCC allow blocking traffic?
Why is the FCC giving other companies the right to block One Owl if they fail to comply, rather than simply terminating One Owl's connection to the network?
I really like it when someone in the middle has changed the caller id to say "FRAUDULENT".
Someone I know believes strongly that the telco's don't care to police and would rather push people onto cheaper to maintain mobile technology. (We get orders of magnitude more scammer calls on our landline than our mobiles.) But there's a lot of assumptions in that belief...
Is there any truth to those economics? Is there a bad incentive here for the telcos?
Isn’t perfect but this is why I suddenly like voice mail again. I don’t answer any numbers I don’t recognize. If it’s important they will leave a voicemail.
The submitted text file is missing some formatting, making it difficult to read. Links to PDFs for this letter, as well as a related press release and a letter sent to One Owl, are available here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-notifies-carriers-repeated-...
A PDF is also available for those that have trouble reading that raw text (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-652A1.pdf)
Could we say it is becoming evident that the US government are fine with ad-blocking? (For at least some ads)
I expect this news to be heavily criticized by all highly paid engineers at ad-tech companies like Google and Meta?
This is good, albeit very late.
I already consider the telephone to be an unusable form of communication due to the amount of unwanted and unsolicited calls that I receive.
Telephony is completely and totally dead to me, now.
As long as political orgs, including the major parties, rely on robocalling of the vilest sort to raise their funds, don't expect Congress to pass any meaningful legislation.
Good high time penalties were applied to people who facilitate this non sense.
Awesome.
Now go after the timeshare companies.
Just force them to buy phone numbers like we sell ips. Each number could be $1 and you burn them when an operator gets caught
Biden's fcc is actually doing its job compared with Trump's anti consumer Ajit Pai.
>In response to the FCC’s enforcement action against Illum in October 2021, the CEO and Director of Illum, Prince Anand (Anand), who sometimes uses the alias “Frank Murphy,” Prince Anand Skype Chat, June 10, 2021 at 8:18:53 AM (“Frank Murphy” introduces himself as Prince Anand) (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (Anand Skype Chat). created One Eye. Id. at October 24, 2021 at 8:16:14 AM and 8:16:21 AM (Anand telling Great Choice Telecom to expect a new sign up under the name “One Eye” that day).
> To deflect the FCC’s scrutiny, Anand intended to keep his name off One Eye’s corporate documents. Id. at 7:40:25 AM, 8:11:13 AM, 8:13:20 AM, 8:14:48 AM, 8:14:55 AM, 8:15:04 AM, 8:16:14 AM, 8:55:50 AM, 9:01:49 AM, 9:02:21 AM, and 9:02:26 AM (Anand explains that due to the Commission’s cease-and-desist letter he will “not be included in any companies” but will work “on the backend [sic]”).
> Kaushal Bhavsar, a director of Illum, became One Eye’s CEO. One Eye LLC Listing, Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n, Robocall Mitigation Database (Oct. 26, 2021), https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table... (showing Bhavsar as CEO of One Eye); Illum Telecommunication, https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last visited July 14, 2023).
> Aashay Khandelwal, the Human Resource Representative for Illum, subsequently formed One Owl and became the CEO. See Illum Telecommunication, https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last visited July 14, 2023); see also One Owl Telecom Inc. Listing, Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n, Robocall Mitigation Database (Apr. 25, 2022), https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table... (showing Khandelwal as the CEO of One Owl).
> Julya Barros, a seemingly close acquaintance of Anand, Compare @illum_telecom, Twitter, https://twitter.com/illum_telecom?lang=hi (as archived by Google and last visited May 16, 2023) (screenshots on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805), with Julya Barros (@julyabarross), Instagram, http://www.instagram.com/julyabarross (last visited July 14, 2023).became Vice President of Sales and Marketing at One Owl. See Julya Barros, LinkedIn, https://ae.linkedin.com/in/julya-barros-928008245 (last visited July 14, 2023) (screenshots on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805).
>One Owl and One Eye used the same IP address to conduct their business. March ITG Subpoena Response, supra note 4.
> One Owl and One Eye communicated under the same email domain, @oneeyetelecom.com. Compare Incorp Services Interrogatories Response at para. 15 (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (Incorp Services Interrog.) (showing One Eye used the @oneeyetelecom.com domain), with id. at para. 3 and Ex. A (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (showing One Owl used the @oneeyetelecom.com domain).
>The personnel connections between One Owl, One Eye, and Illum are summarized in the table below.
The FCC is just playing whack-a-mole as soon as it begins enforcement on a company, the people involved just get together with their buddies and form a new company.
This will never work to curb robocalls.
Instead, the US Government needs to do the following
1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of these companies. If the company engages in facilitating robocalling, the bond is forfeit
2. Criminal charges and enforcement against the agents of these companies
3. Immigration action against the agents and associates of these companies including deportation and permanent visa bans.
Only then can the US government begin to combat this. Otherwise, doing more of the same is going to be completely ineffective and a waste of time and resources.
Robocalls, you say?