[HN Gopher] 2400 phone providers may be shut down by the FCC for...
___________________________________________________________________
2400 phone providers may be shut down by the FCC for failing to
stop robocalls
Author : impish9208
Score : 476 points
Date : 2024-12-11 18:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (docs.fcc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (docs.fcc.gov)
| gs17 wrote:
| The full title of "Over 2,400 Voice Service Providers Face
| Removal for Failing to Comply with the Robocall Mitigation
| Database Filing Requirements" is a lot more clear.
|
| > Removal from the database means other providers will be
| prohibited from accepting call traffic from these providers.
| dang wrote:
| Unfortunately that doesn't fit HN's 80 char limit. I've taken a
| crack at it, but if anyone can suggest a better title, we can
| change it again.
|
| (Submitted title was "FCC Could Block Over 2,400 Providers from
| Robocall Mitigation Database".)
| zimpenfish wrote:
| "2k4 VSPs face removal re: compliance fail re: robocall
| mitigation DB filing reqs" is 80 but I'd say it was probably
| a bit on the cheating side.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > 2k4 VSPs
|
| As an English speaker, I'd interpret 2k4 as 2004, not 2400.
|
| In Chinese that structure would mean 2400, though I don't
| know how widely understood the K would be.
|
| Where are you from?
| gs17 wrote:
| Yeah, it should be 2.4k in English. Can probably trade
| the 's' in "reqs" for the decimal point.
| whatsupdog wrote:
| 2.4k has the exact same number of characters as 2400.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| On the other hand, "2.4k" is inherently imprecise,
| whereas you'd need "2400+" to be similarly imprecise.
|
| You also save on the comma in "2,400".
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Can probably trade the 's' in "reqs" for the decimal
| point.
|
| I was iffy about dropping the 's' from 'reqs' to get it
| to 79 (makes it sound like they've only violated one
| requirement, not multiple) but then I suppose the whole
| thing is that truncated/abbreviated by that point, it
| doesn't matter...
| mlyle wrote:
| Lots of users of engineering notation do this.. 1M5 =
| 1,500,000, 22k1 = 22,100, etc. The unit takes the place
| of the decimal point. A missing dot doesn't change the
| meaning.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Exactly, putting (meaningful) characters instead of dots
| got really going when copy machines made some dots
| disappear after more than one "copy of a copy" was made.
|
| Then when fax machines came along sometimes dots would
| disappear or be unclear on a single transmission.
|
| Either way, occasionally sometimes the page would also be
| scattered with random dots too because of degraded
| photosensitive operation, or audio-frequency noise on the
| telephone line at the time.
|
| And it got even more uncertain when text that is not
| fixed-width got within mainstream reach :\
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > As an English speaker, I'd interpret 2k4 as 2004, not
| 2400.
|
| Whereas as an English speaker, I'd interpret 2k4 as 2400
| because, well, that's just how it's always been in my
| orbits (cf resistor labelling, for example.)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Compare
| https://unreal.fandom.com/wiki/Unreal_Tournament_2004
|
| > Unreal Tournament 2004, also known as UT2K4 and UT2004
|
| or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_2K#Games
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Both, I would contend, come under the "American English"
| banner and thus can be rightly shunned as abhorrent
| misuses.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Occurs to me that I could have done ">2k VSPs" and avoided
| the "2k4" controversy but I expect it'd just cause more
| arguments about whether ">2k" is valid for ">2400"...
| jandrese wrote:
| 2,400 telephone providers fail to stop robocalls, may be shut
| down by the FCC.
|
| I'm not sure if being removed from the Robocall Mitigation
| Database is tantamount to being shut down, but it sounds like
| it to me.
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! I've used that, reordered just a bit.
| ksp-atlas wrote:
| Yeah this headline smells of crash blossoms, I read "face
| removal" as in the act of removing a face and I got confused
| water-data-dude wrote:
| Yeah, I had to read the HN title a few times before the meaning
| clicked
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| But will other providers be able to send text messages to those
| 2400 providers? My life depends on it.
| tyingq wrote:
| I have seen a significant decrease in the amount of spam
| telephone calls over the last couple of years.
|
| Is that what everybody else is seeing? That maybe Stir/Shaken is
| actually starting to work?
|
| I guess it could just be that generational social change... where
| more people just don't take phone calls. So the ROI for spam
| calls has reduced...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It comes in waves; pretty much nothing for months and then 5+ a
| day for the past few days.
| tyingq wrote:
| If it is that the ROI is just real unattractive for spam
| calls now... I wonder if the waves are just new people trying
| to spam for the first time. And taking a little bit of time
| to figure out that it's not profitable.
|
| If so that's not great. Because there's probably an infinite
| supply of people ready to waste their money trying get-rich-
| quick crap.
| imiric wrote:
| Whether it's profitable is relative. For relatively little
| effort anyone with a bit of tech know-how can setup a
| spam/scam operation. If they also happen to live in a low-
| income region and target high-income regions, they only
| need to scam a handful of people a month to get a decent
| ROI. The amount of vulnerable people is unfortunately high,
| especially among the elderly.
|
| Jim Browning on YouTube does great work exposing this scum.
| There are huge call center operations in India and
| Pakistan, and the local authorities are useless if not
| complicit.
|
| This will only get more popular and profitable once AI
| tools get more accessible. There's no need to have a
| physical location and hire humans if they can just launch a
| army of bots that have perfect accents and can follow a
| conversation without deviating from the script. The next
| generation of robocalls is just starting.
| karlshea wrote:
| Spam calls have decreased, spam texts increased.
| op00to wrote:
| Especially spam iMessage, which you'd think Apple would have
| a good handle on. Always iMessage from a foreign number.
| neom wrote:
| surprised to read this, never had imessage spam once,
| didn't know it was even a thing.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I have had the opposite. I think it really just depends on
| which lists your number is on.
| kmoser wrote:
| I tend to agree about the lists. I get a couple of spam
| calls and texts a week, which seems to be much, much less
| than what most of my friends get.
|
| My father gets multiple spam calls every day. He lets them
| all go to voice mail, so nothing about his behavior
| encourages them to keep calling. Yet they keep coming.
|
| I've had my cell number for about 15 years, and for another
| 10 years prior it was a land line, so 25 years in total. My
| father's cell number is only about 10 years old. So despite
| having a much older phone number, I get way less spam calls
| and texts than he does.
|
| Part of that may be what lists we're on. Another reason may
| be that for the past 20 years, when ordering things online,
| 99% of the time I give a fake phone number. Companies claim
| they want it in case there is a problem delivering your
| order, but even before I started doing this, I never had a
| company call about an order they couldn't deliver. Once or
| twice they emailed me about an order they couldn't fulfill
| (out of stock, etc.), but I do give them a legit email. The
| 1% of the time I give a real phone number is when I'm
| dealing with a serious transaction, e.g. a bank or
| insurance or medical company.
| sitkack wrote:
| That is really good, also because your tracking cookies
| get bound to your phone number and then market
| segmentation companies then use your phone number to
| direct ads to your tracking IDs. To them, your phone
| number is like your SSN.
| toast0 wrote:
| > He lets them all go to voice mail, so nothing about his
| behavior encourages them to keep calling. Yet they keep
| coming.
|
| I mean, he lets them go to voice mail. Pick up and set
| the phone down might use more time on their calls and get
| the line marked as worse target. But I still get several
| calls a week, so it's not perfect.
| fibonachos wrote:
| > He lets them all go to voice mail, so nothing about his
| behavior encourages them to keep calling. Yet they keep
| coming
|
| My pet theory is that scammers are harvesting voice
| samples from voicemail greeting for the purpose of
| training a voice impersonation AI.
|
| I now use the default greeting.
| loeg wrote:
| I still get regular spam calls and spam texts. Maybe half the
| texts are obvious scams (make $1000s a day from home reshipping
| stolen goods) and the other texts are conversation starters
| that shady telcos can explain away as plausibly harmless (but
| are likely to be the first step in deliberate pig butchering
| scams).
| kisonecat wrote:
| I don't feel like I've gotten fewer spam calls.
|
| My favorite spam call was someone wanting to make a cash offer
| on the Ohio State University building that my office is in.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| "I tell you what, let's talk numbers. By the way, do you
| happen to have an interest in bridges?"
| ethbr1 wrote:
| My favorite time waster story was an old guy who took a
| scrap junk car from me (his retirement career).
|
| Said some slick guy in a suit showed up on his farm
| property unannounced and made him an offer on it.
|
| Owner was so annoyed that he smiled and told the guy to
| come back tomorrow and they'd talk it over.
|
| Guy shows up the next (sunny) day with a colleague... both
| in suits... in summer... in the southeast US.
|
| Owner proceeds to walk them 6km+ around the perimeter of
| the property while dangling the possibility he'd be willing
| to sell.
|
| Then finally ends things with "But you know what it comes
| down to? My dog was born on this property, and she's pretty
| old now. I don't think it'd be kind to move her. So I
| appreciate your time, but don't think I'm interested in
| selling."
|
| Was impressed at how much time and ingenuity retired folks
| have to fuck with people, just because they can.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I may be atypical because I started a company and unfortunately
| used my personal cell is several places which got into sales
| databases. And made a political donation.
|
| For me, it got so bad (multiple calls per day) I've stopped
| answering anything that isn't in my contacts already.
| monkpit wrote:
| > I've stopped answering anything that isn't in my contacts
| already.
|
| Isn't that what everyone does? Or is it just a millennial
| thing...
| hydrolox wrote:
| I think it's mainly a millennial and gen z thing-- older
| generations still answer all calls, at least those that
| aren't into tech. I think it's just easier to realize that
| anyone not in your contacts will either leave a voicemail
| or text you if it's that important.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| We ignore it too. But I can tell the ones who do answer.
| They get extremely irate if you do not pick up when they
| call. As if it is their personal line to you and you
| should drop everything for them. I dump them into
| voicemail too.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I'm mid Gen X, and I can't imagine wasting my time
| answering all calls. I have my phone set to silence any
| unknown numbers. I'm not going to answer any call that
| isn't in my contact list. Voicemail a coherent message
| and I'll call you back and add you to my contacts.
| reaperducer wrote:
| That is only practical when you are young and life is
| simple.
|
| Get married. Start a business. Get sick. Buy a house. Have
| children. Make interesting friends. Travel extensively.
|
| Once life gets interesting, you start missing important
| calls with that strategy.
| dumbmrblah wrote:
| I have all those things. If it's truly important they
| will text or leave a voicemail if I don't pickup.
| icehawk wrote:
| The only thing I haven't done on this list has have
| children, and I haven't yet missed an important call with
| that strategy.
|
| If it's important, they can leave an relevant voicemail.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I haven 't yet missed an important call with that
| strategy._
|
| How would you know?
| dboreham wrote:
| I'm several decades not a millennial and haven't answered
| the phone since...before the millennium.
| gs17 wrote:
| I think it must vary a lot between numbers. My girlfriend gets
| a huge amount of spam calls. I get almost none, and we're on
| the same network. I do get a ton of spam texts though.
| naravara wrote:
| The robocalls are more rare for sure. But there's been a huge
| uptick in shitty recruiters calling me with lowball offers for
| shitty jobs. I've had to remove my phone number from my resumes
| and delist it from indeed and stuff but it doesn't seem to be
| helping. I don't know how they're finding me and they refuse to
| tell me.
| m3047 wrote:
| I apologize for the commercial plug, but when I switched off of
| CenturyLink and onto Ooma last year my robo / spam calls went
| way down. Part of that is that they have some filtering
| options, part of that is that I believe they provide telemetry
| to something akin to NoMoRobo.
| sooperserieous wrote:
| About 7 weeks ago I picked up a new AT&T SIM to use for data
| backup while my fiber connection was out. Never placed _any_
| calls and only 1 text to my current mobile number to capture
| the new number. I get 4-6 calls per day, most labelled "Spam
| Risk". This period included the last couple of weeks of the US
| election and the volume then was much higher from what I am
| guessing was robo-war-dialing election campaigns.
|
| Even though I'm in an older generation and prefer voice over
| text I have adopted the habit of only picking up callers that I
| know I want to speak to.
| barryrandall wrote:
| I've noticed a slight drop-off, but my phone is still useless.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I've seen a significant decrease in both calls and text in the
| past months (though I haven't quantified it)
| Animats wrote:
| I get very little phone or SMS spam. All SMS spam gets replied
| to with "STOP", which, for most of the SMS services, is a
| strike against the spammer. I've been on the Do Not Call list
| since it started.
|
| Email spam is repetitive enough that the usual Thunderbird
| filters work. If a spam email has an unsubscribe link, I click
| on that and add the sender to the block list. If it doesn't
| have an unsubscribe link, I try to find out which service sent
| it and send them a notice of a CAN-SPAM law violation. The
| usual suspects (Mailchump, SpamGrid, etc.) do terminate
| accounts for that, to prevent being blocked themselves.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| > which, for most of the SMS services, is a strike against
| the spammer.
|
| Huh, didn't know that. I assumed that it was nothing more
| than baiting a response, verifying that the phone number is a
| hit.
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| In Twilio[1] a "STOP" reply is an automatic add to
| blocklist. Their user doesn't have control over how that is
| handled. I wouldn't be surprised if other providers have
| the same controls in place behind the scenes.
|
| [1] https://help.twilio.com/articles/223134027-Twilio-
| support-fo...
| atonse wrote:
| But you still get a webhook notifying you they said stop.
|
| So as far as telling whether it's a legit number, the
| spammers still win.
| kgc wrote:
| How do you know STOP is a strike?
| accrual wrote:
| I've started to get spam via iMessage lately which I assume
| avoids most automated scrutiny that may apply to bulk SMS.
| Usually in the form of "your UPS/USPS package address needs
| to be verified" or something.
|
| My iMessage is configured to send read receipts, so I quickly
| bounce the setting before opening the message to click the
| "Report Junk" link (maybe it's pointless). It would be nice
| to mark things as spam/junk without having to open them,
| perhaps I will just delete them since iMessage has been a
| malware vector in the past.
| mikestew wrote:
| _perhaps I will just delete them since iMessage has been a
| malware vector in the past._
|
| And that's when you will discover that you've been wasting
| your time because when you delete them, you'll get a dialog
| saying "...is not in your contacts" with the option to
| "delete and report junk". You never needed to open the
| messages to begin with.
| accrual wrote:
| Nice, thanks! I'll go that route next time.
| MissTake wrote:
| > which, for most of the SMS services, is a strike against
| the spammer
|
| Citation needed.
|
| All the vendors we use have STOP functionality baked in as
| it's the correct way to ensure we can unsubscribe folk.
|
| Even the FCC[1] seems to agree.
|
| [1] - https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-24A1.pdf
| ?bcs-...
| evilDagmar wrote:
| Maybe the FCC should explain this to some of the political
| spam culprits using hefty fines, because while those folks
| claim they honor "STOP" they send every campaign with a
| different number and the "STOP" message doesn't matter
| because they're clearly all meant to be "one-and-done" spam
| campaigns.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I wish. Political ads are exempt from the national Do Not
| Call list as well. Laws written to benefit the writers.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Political ads/calls are exempt?! Seriously?! Shit! I
| didn't know that. And that explains why I get two-dozen
| calls per day prior to a major election. So annoying.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Could you share some advice on finding the service if they're
| missing an unsubscribe link? I have been reporting these
| kinds of emails to their domain registrars, but if I can do
| more I would like to.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Are you certain that STOP counts as a strike ? For example in
| a service like Broadband , Twilio, or Zipwhip ?
| jandrese wrote:
| I've not been asked about my car's extended warranty for months
| now.
|
| I think the FCC finally shutting down just one or two blatant
| bad actors made a massive difference in robocalls. It just took
| them months (years?) to do it.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I had a huuuuuuuuuuge increase the past couple months (10-20 a
| day). Almost all medicare fraud scams. They seem to be tapering
| down a bit (2-5 a day). It's interesting, because they have all
| my info (where I live, my full name, etc.), but somehow not my
| age? Because if they knew my real age, they shouldn't be
| calling me for medicare fraud scams... I wonder if maybe what's
| happening is that the people selling leads lists for scammers
| are willfully omitting age information, so they can charge more
| for a larger list which is not obviously 50%+ garbage scam
| leads for medicare fraud.
|
| I also had an uptick in text spam (used to be very rare until
| maybe 9 months ago, then it became about 1-2 a day, now it's
| back down to just a few a week).
| TylerE wrote:
| That's going to be naturally periodic as medicare enrollment
| happens in the late Fall (typically Novemberish).
| RajT88 wrote:
| First year it's been this bad, to be honest.
| behringer wrote:
| These calls having nothing to do with Medicare and
| everything to do with stealing bank information.
|
| These calls occur year round.
| eleveriven wrote:
| It's wild how these scammers seem to have a patchwork of your
| info
| snailmailman wrote:
| I still get multiple a day. Have had multiple a day for months
| (maybe years? My call log doesn't go back far enough to know
| for sure).
|
| I can't block them because they are different numbers every
| time, so I have _all_ unknown incoming calls set to go straight
| to voicemail.
|
| I don't even know what they are calling for. If I ever try to
| answer there is only silence on the line. But I haven't even
| done that in months- hoping the calls would eventually stop.
| (They haven't)
|
| One infuriating thing is that there is some sort of "verified"
| checkmark in my call log for some numbers? Or maybe not
| verified, but "valid number?" Why are they even allowing non-
| verified calls through? It wouldn't _stop_ the problem, as 1 /4
| of my spam calls have the icon anyway. But it would help,
| surely.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I don't wish android didn't offer to block the numbers as
| they are all spoofed.
| delichon wrote:
| I thought my girlfriend had abandoned me. My most frequent
| phone call by far was from a nice sounding recorded lady
| informing me that the extended warranty I never bought on a car
| that I never owned was in danger of expiring and this was my
| last chance to renew it. Ever. She would sometimes call me
| three times per day with that message but I haven't heard from
| her in months. I was afraid that my last chance had come and
| gone, or that she is no longer that into me. But it's just the
| FCC coming between us.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Hate to tell you but I'm fairly sure she's dating the
| previous owner of our condo now; we keep getting their love
| letters in the mail.
| delichon wrote:
| That's OK, life goes on. Love finds a way. I met another
| nice lady on X. She cares deeply about the diversification
| of my crypto portfolio. I don't know why I keep attracting
| women who want to take care of me, I just do. It may be my
| gravitas. But the three letter agencies are watching so
| this time I'll have to move fast.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Those "SECOND NOTICE" scam letters that aren't from my bank
| but have my bank's name on them make me mad. I report them
| to the USPS as mail fraud, an act which I find therapeutic.
| eleveriven wrote:
| But can they ever silence the memory of her persistent
| devotion?
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I haven't had a junk call since 2023 (aside from political
| polling) but I receive a fake usps text from international
| numbers pretty much daily.
|
| google's messages app is pretty good at corralling them into a
| spam folder but I do peep in there every now and then. I hope
| that whatever provider is allowing these gets disconnected.
| gpspake wrote:
| I've been getting a ton of those USPS and Amazon shipping and
| return related phishing texts. The first couple of times I
| genuinely looked at them but they always have bitly URLs and
| sometimes they have little thoughts at the end like "May the
| day ahead bring you peace and clarity, from USPS!" Which is
| so funny to me because it reveals a complete cultural
| unawareness of how American companies communicate.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I haven't had to handle any scam calls or texts since I
| switched to Android. I had no idea the feature was so
| effective. They should advertise it more.
| kmoser wrote:
| Do you think having an Android phone has something to do with
| the drop in scam calls/texts?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yes, because the calls and texts get classified into a
| "Spam & blocked" folder that I can go glance at if I feel
| bored. Some feature of either Android or the Google Pixel
| phone is doing this.
| kmoser wrote:
| Oh, so you're still _receiving_ the same number, but now
| you have a way of filtering them before reading
| /listening?
| thephyber wrote:
| My anecdote:
|
| I get no calls anymore, but I attribute it to pruning where my
| contact info is distributed and using the spam filters
| available on call/text.
|
| My father got (no hyperbole) 90 calls a day, consistently,
| until I realized why he wasn't answering his phone. He had used
| zero of the tools that the cell service provider and smartphone
| OS made available to him. Additionally, he likes talking to
| people, so he wouldn't be "mean" to tell callers/testers to
| take him off their list.
| 29834u98 wrote:
| Exponential increase over the past decade. Currently I get 5-10
| calls per day. I'll get the same robocall from the same LA
| phone number (I've never lived anywhere near LA) three times a
| day for a month advertising roof repair or some shit like that
| (I don't own a home).
| TylerE wrote:
| Why not block the number?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I briefly saw a dropoff of spoofed calls, after STIR/SHAKEN.
|
| I have a business line, and pretty much every call to it is
| spam.
|
| The spoofed calls have picked up again. It looks like
| STIR/SHAKEN means squat.
| accrual wrote:
| I almost never get spam calls yet I started to receive them
| almost daily preceding and after the election. Fortunately iOS
| is great at filtering them. I'd just like a feature to not see
| them at all, they don't deserve a single missed call
| notification or unread flag on my device.
| behringer wrote:
| That's definitely true. I answer each one that I can to get a
| Guage on their business model and then make fun of them for how
| much they spent on my lead.
|
| I think they are all different and resell to eachother because
| they keep calling no matter how horribly I've trolled them day
| after day.
|
| Most other scams never call back after my trolling.
|
| I'm wondering if the Medicare calls are the "setup your own
| turnkey business" flavor of the day.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Here's the link to the PDF;
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-408083A1.pdf
| dang wrote:
| Since there's a plain text version, we changed the url to that
| instead. (Submitted url was https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-
| could-block-over-2400-provi....)
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| PSA - use a free carrier lookup website to see where your spam
| calls and texts come from. Mine mostly come from Bandwidth
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_Inc.), Sinch
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinch_AB), and other such
| platforms with APIs. It appears these companies have very poor
| anti abuse practices. When I contacted them for help they
| basically refused to reveal how my number was obtained, what
| their practices were in establishing consent, and did no more
| than block one specific number each time from contacting me.
| Sometimes they claimed they're just a wholesale reseller and have
| no obligations to take more action. They didn't even respond to
| my repeated request to preserve data and communications relating
| to these repeated abuse cases. These companies should be shut
| down and their executives should be personally fined.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| What's an example of these free carrier lookup websites?
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Some example websites I got from a quick web search:
|
| https://freecarrierlookup.com/
|
| https://www.carrierlookup.com/
|
| https://www.ipqualityscore.com/free-carrier-lookup
|
| By looking up the carrier you can then find the right company
| to complain to via their reporting process, if they have one.
| And additionally you can file a report to the FTC and FCC
| that mentions them.
|
| EDIT: The idea is that you complain to the company whose
| platform is sending you spam, the regulatory agencies at
| https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/ and
| https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/, your own cell phone carrier by
| forwarding text spam to 7726, and that will result in actions
| that hopefully will address that one situation but also
| collectively reduce spam for everyone. Without identifying
| which platform sent you the spam, you cannot know which
| company to go complain to (they usually have a reporting tool
| on their website). And you can name them in your complaints
| to the FCC and FTC.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I'm assuming that you search for the originating phone
| number of spam callers? It was unclear to me from context
| how this would help in the manner you suggested, for
| blocking or reducing spam calls.
| bluGill wrote:
| There should be a way to submit a complaint to the FCC for each
| instance. I don't know how, but it should exist somehow.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| It does exist but you have to take the 5 minutes to fill out
| a form. You can find it at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov
| and click "Phone issues". I also suggest simultaneously
| reporting to the FTC via https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ and
| click "Report now".
|
| You can also forward spam text messages to 7726 in the US
| (goes to your cell phone carrier), which is very effective
| because the carriers have low tolerance for these issues and
| also train their own anti spam off this data.
| aendruk wrote:
| I do submit a complaint for each instance. I've sent over a
| thousand now. Hopefully it's useful data to someone.
|
| My intent isn't to reverse-spam the FCC though; the complaint
| form just only accepts one phone number at a time. Amusingly
| I've discovered that it's possible to receive a higher volume
| of spam than the FCC's rate limits allow reporting.
| lxgr wrote:
| Don't most spam calls/texts these days use fake caller/sender
| IDs anyway?
|
| > It appears these companies have very poor anti abuse
| practices. When I contacted them for help they basically
| refused to reveal how my number was obtained
|
| How would a service provider know how your customer obtained
| your number?
|
| But you reporting that you're receiving unwanted calls/texts
| from one of their customers should of course still trigger some
| action on their side - if indeed that's the number that
| contacted you, per the above.
| hypeatei wrote:
| > Sinch
|
| Yep, I get spam from "Onvoy, LLC" which is a Sinch company. I
| don't see either on this list and I've filed FCC complaints.
| m3047 wrote:
| Ooma isn't in there (woot! that's my VOIP to DECT provider).
| There's a Zoom Telcom, but I don't think it's the Zoom we all
| know.
| alwa wrote:
| I wonder which state abstained from "the FCC's robocall
| enforcement partnerships with leaders from 49 states, the
| District of Columbia, and Guam."
| _n_b_ wrote:
| It's Nebraska.
| alwa wrote:
| Search as I may, I can't for the life of me find the reason
| why. Does the robocalling industry have particular pull in
| Nebraska for some reason, or as far as we can tell are they
| just wanting to go their own way?
| geraldcombs wrote:
| The explanation someone gave me years ago was that
| midwesterners can speak to northerners and southerners
| without needing a translator, and the cost of labor in
| rural Nebraska and Kansas (which also had a ton of call
| centers at the time) is low.
| hollerith wrote:
| Hmm. Can I configure my smartphone to block all calls
| from Nebraska?
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| Sorry, I feel dumb for asking, but what does "voice service
| providers" mean here? Like, Verizon and TMobile etc etc? Can't be
| because there aren't 2,411 cell companies.
| woodson wrote:
| I assume any company offering VoIP services that interact with
| phone numbers (Direct inward/outward dialing, DID etc) is
| potentially included. E.g., virtual PBX, Twilio and so on.
| bluGill wrote:
| Verizon and TMobile are voice service providers, but not in the
| 2411 in question. The providers in question are small phone
| companies.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| My googling kind of indicates these are VoIP providers. But it
| still seems weird there are this many.
|
| My vague guess is that these many providers have existed
| primarily to facilitate robocalling - to force the FCC to play
| wack-a-mole to get rid of them and FCC is now acting on them en
| masse, which might be more effective. But people who know this
| stuff might pipe up on the question.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| there aren't 2,411 cell companies
|
| Verizon and T-Mobile primarily provide their voice services
| using cell towers.
|
| But voice services existed before cell phones!
|
| They were delivered over copper cables between phone exchanges
| and people's homes. Some people and especially businesses still
| have these 'landlines'.
|
| I would imagine that most customers of the companies on this
| list use neither landlines nor cell phones to access their
| voice services. Instead they likely use some sort of IP-based
| voice protocol like SIP or IAX.
| RajT88 wrote:
| "The sleeper has awakened" it feels like. The benevolent dictator
| which is the FCC is finally making some progress.
|
| I fear the FCC will start reversing this progress once the new
| guy takes the reins. Without further comment:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/18/media/brendan-carr-trump-fcc-...
| Hilift wrote:
| A voice/wireless provider can abuse a lot of things and get
| away with it now. Even if it is an obvious problem, the FCC
| doesn't do anything about specific complaints unless you hire
| an attorney to file a formal complaint. All of the wireless
| providers that sell cheap wireless can terminate your account
| and say they don't know you and there's nothing you can do.
| Actual telecoms that have skin in the game (Verizon, AT&T,
| Sprint, etc) can't do that due to there is usually a
| state/local regulator that can intervene.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > there is usually a state/local regulator that can
| intervene.
|
| I was pretty shocked that when I complained to my state
| regulator about Verizon completely ignoring an issue with my
| business lines, I quickly got a call from a VP at Verizon
| grovelling and asking me what he could do for me. I said I
| needed my issue fixed, and then made what I thought was a
| crazy unrelated request- I wanted FIOS run all the way down
| the street to my business, and I'd been told previously that
| Verizon had no plans to expand FIOS in my area. Well, they
| fixed my issue within an hour, and within two weeks, they
| rolled trucks, ran the fiber down the street, and we had FIOS
| service up and running. They were obviously good and afraid
| of the state regulator.
| sitkack wrote:
| I think I need whatever problem you had. Would it be easy
| to repro?
| gosub100 wrote:
| If this leader is the good guy, why did it take them 4 years to
| do anything? That's a poor measure of progress.
|
| The best thing they could do is make it impossible to spoof
| numbers or at least be able to reject them. Even then, you
| should be able to block anyone calling from a number that you
| cannot call back.
| dpifke wrote:
| Not only that, but the companies being disconnected have been
| ignoring the FCC since February. They were given a new
| deadline in April that they also ignored. Why did it take an
| additional _seven months_ to start the process of cutting
| them off?!
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Probably because the incoming administration _actually has
| credible possibility_ of firing public servants who just
| steal and waste tax dollars.
|
| For once in the modern(?) history of the Republican party,
| the incoming administration is _hellbent_ on pursuing one
| of the party 's core values: Small government. You bet
| public servants who want to keep enjoying the nectar will
| frantically try to make themselves look useful.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Listen - without fail, the folks who want to make huge
| budget cuts because of the face value of certain
| programs, _do not understand_ what those programs
| actually do and how the budgets add up. Government waste
| exists, but not in the quantities that detractors claim
| it does.
|
| Bookmark this comment, and check on how you feel about
| everything in 4 years.
|
| "Small government" is dumb for any highly developed
| country, and the people that want that are about to find
| out this harsh reality. The very wealthy and big
| corporations probably benefit - for a while - until
| things start happening like CEO's being assassinated in
| the street. Good thing stuff like that is not happening.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| As an American taxpayer: No.
|
| If I wanted to hear _" wE mUsT sPeNd MoAr TaXes aNd iSsUe
| mOaR bOnDs!one!11!1!!!"_ I could go ask literally any so-
| called "expert". Sincerely _fuck_ that. I 'm fucking sick
| of NoMen enabling Big Bureaucracy, on my (our) dime no
| less.
|
| A comment over on Slashdot[1] expressed this more
| eloquently than I can be bothered to, so I will quote it
| here:
|
| >Whenever the "do something" folks come around, the
| solution is ALWAYS "spend more". We've done that. We've
| done that for decades. We've thrown money at the problem
| and all we've gotten is a well-funded problem
| (complaining, of course, that it is not, in fact, well-
| funded).
|
| End quote.
|
| Only scientists and retards continue doing the same thing
| expecting different results, and Big Bureaucracy aren't
| scientists. _Fucking enough_ with spending _even more
| fucking money_. We don 't even have the money we are
| spending, either, in case the national debt didn't make
| that fact clear.
|
| Fucking tear the government down. No doubt there are some
| essential functions in there (and even those can/should
| be reduced), but most of it is extraneous and should be
| razed to the ground and that land salted in the name of
| fiscal and civic discipline.
|
| Will it be painful? Abso-fucking-lutely it will be bloody
| painful especially in the short term, even Musk is honest
| about that, but in the long term it will be worth the
| pain because the country will come out of it healthier.
| Trump and Musk coming in to make Small Government an
| actual reality is an insane breath of fresh air.
|
| [1]: https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23547219&c
| id=65004...
|
| >Bookmark this comment, and check on how you feel about
| everything in 4 years.
|
| I'm not holding my breath. Realistically I will likely
| end up disappointed that cuts and firings were grossly
| insufficient and Small Government once again ended up a
| pipe dream to be beaten like a drum for subsequent
| elections.
|
| But then again this is Trump and Musk, I've been
| pleasantly surprised by them before many times.
|
| >until things start happening like CEO's being
| assassinated in the street. Good thing stuff like that is
| not happening.
|
| Yeah, CEOs are getting murdered in broad daylight under
| the biggest that Big Bureaucracy has been yet. Let's
| resolve that with some drastic surgery.
| RajT88 wrote:
| You don't need to tear down the government to put an end
| to deficit spending.
|
| Thank you for demonstrating:
|
| > Listen - without fail, the folks who want to make huge
| budget cuts because of the face value of certain
| programs, do not understand what those programs actually
| do and how the budgets add up.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| _Only scientists and retards continue doing the same
| thing expecting different results,_
|
| What did you mean by this?
| astrange wrote:
| The federal government budget is not a household budget.
| There's no such thing as having money or not having
| money. It's a mixed economy and they're the command
| economy part of it.
|
| (This isn't true of state/local governments, those have
| limited budgets.)
|
| More to the point, if you shut down 100% of everything
| that looks like spending it wouldn't save anything
| important. The federal government is an insurance agency
| and all the money goes to Medicare/Social Security
| payments and military wages. You could shut down the
| miltary I guess.
| delfinom wrote:
| The joke is, the federal government isn't big due to
| employee headcount, it's big due to all the shit it
| spends money on. The headcount is only 2.87 million.
| Cutting that headcount isn't going to do a thing for
| "small government".
|
| Meanwhile, between NY State and NY City, there are a
| total of almost 1 million government employees. I can
| tell where the inefficiency lies and it's not the fed
| headcount lol.
|
| But who knows, maybe they'll finally cut social security
| and medicare that makes up 55% of the federal budget.
| We'll have rampant homelessness on every street from old
| people, just like the pre-1800s, but that's the vibe they
| are going for.
| RajT88 wrote:
| SS & Medicare is 36% btw:
|
| https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-
| guide/feder...
|
| Healthcare system reform would go a long way to reducing
| those costs, if somehow we could muster the political
| will.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Social security is self-funded from the social security
| payroll tax.
|
| If the tax collected isn't enough to fund it, maybe we
| could eliminate the cap on that tax for starters.
|
| Eliminating SS or cutting benefits is going to utterly
| screw millions of elderly.
| astrange wrote:
| No, they want to pass $3 trillion in tax breaks by
| extending TCJA.
|
| DOGE is 100% fake. If it was real Musk would be appointed
| at the real thing, OMB, which is an actual agency. He's
| just going to put up reports saying they should fire
| individual people for being too woke (or trying to
| prosecute him for his habit of harassing young women at
| SpaceX) and nobody is going to read it.
|
| But that one isn't real either because government
| spending is controlled by Congress. The executive branch
| has little power to reduce it.
| pavon wrote:
| Probably not. Combatting unsolicited calls has always had broad
| bipartisan support. The law that this action is based on was
| passed in 2019 during Trump's first term, and the regulations
| in 2020 by a Republican controlled FCC.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| "Unsolicited calls" are a free-speech issue. Restricting or
| banning them clearly infringes on the rights of all
| entrepreneurs.
| 93po wrote:
| ah yes, because nothing screams 'free speech' like
| interrupting dinner with a pitch for extended car
| warranties. truly the hill to die on for entrepreneurial
| rights. i say this jokingly but also with some truth
| dmurray wrote:
| This seems like the US catching up with the EU.
|
| The normal complaint about the EU's approach to regulation is
| that it's too vague and companies won't do business there in case
| they're found in breach of the vague laws.
|
| In practice, at least on this subject, this just isn't a problem.
| I can't link to the directive that outlaws spam phone calls (it
| predates GDPR) but the telecoms clearly get told to stop
| facilitating them and yet I've never heard of a company that
| claims they were erroneously barred from the market.
| bityard wrote:
| I _really_ wanted the headline to read "2600 phone providers"
| latexr wrote:
| A lot of people won't understand the reference. An explanation
| or a link would be useful.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking#2600_hertz
| jmhammond wrote:
| This person is putting Hacker in hacker news
| anitil wrote:
| I'm one of today's lucky 10k
|
| (ref: https://xkcd.com/1053/)
| ornornor wrote:
| 2600Hz, the frequency of the carrier tone. It's a reference
| to phreakers of yore.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| This place is claimed to be "hacker news"; an explanation of
| the significance of the number 2600 shouldn't be necessary.
| :-)
| RHSeeger wrote:
| That's how I read it, originally. And my thought was "they're a
| phone provider now? That's kind of ironic"
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I'd sign up in a second, they'd do shit right.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| I'm in Northern Europe and lately spam calls, and especially
| spoofing from random peoples numbers have become so bad i know
| multiple who stopped taking any calls, or even changed their
| phone numbers because they got too many calls, or angry people
| called them because their number was spoofed.
|
| To me the whole system is archaic - i know gen z would never ever
| take a call from someone they don't know, or even call each other
| - it's simply not something you do - it would be like reading
| your spam mails.
|
| And i'm coming to the same conclusion, answering random people is
| naive.
|
| Practically we need something new though.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah I'm old enough to almost be a boomer and I don't answer
| the phone if the caller is not in my contacts.
| analog31 wrote:
| I _am_ a boomer, and I don 't answer the phone. "If it's
| important, they'll leave a message."
| SoftTalker wrote:
| And if it's _really_ important they'll send a letter.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| And once they have done that in triplicate, I _might_
| answer the phone.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| I'm with all of you - not in contacts, not gonna pick up
| the call.
|
| But I read about a situation which would probably open
| the doors a bit...
|
| see https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/12/02/toronto-
| public-librar...
|
| A girl got lost. She wanted to call her mom, but the girl
| had left her phone at home. So she went to the library to
| phone her mom. The librarian refused to let the girl make
| a call. [N.B. Yes, the librarian got in hot water for
| that move]
|
| The girl eventually convinced a stranger to let the girl
| call her mom using the stranger's phone.
|
| The mom, who was frantically trying to locate her
| daughter, took the call even though it was from an
| unknown number.
|
| How many people would make an exception in that case of
| an unknown number calling?
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> The mom, who was frantically trying to locate her
| daughter, took the call even though it was from an
| unknown number.
|
| >> How many people would make an exception in that case
| of an unknown number calling?
|
| Duh! What a stupid question. Almost everyone in extreme
| distress due to losing their child would take anything,
| call, stranger knocking at the door, medium talking to
| the ether. Anything! :)
|
| I get this is an Idiocracy-level type of question: "If
| you have one bucket that contains 2 gallons and another
| bucket that contains 7 gallons, how many buckets do you
| have?"
| canucker2016 wrote:
| That's the point - all the people who said, "Not in
| contact list, do not pickup" (including me), did they
| think about an exception list?
|
| I know I didn't. Short-sighted reaction after getting
| inundated with mandarin-speaking spammers.
|
| I don't know what the globally correct answer is. But
| "never pickup" seems too extreme (even if the person,
| calling on the unknown number, leaves a voicemail, if you
| can't reach them with a return call, what then?)
| MichaelRo wrote:
| Well at least where I live, the obvious exception to
| "don't pickup unknown numbers" rule is shipping services.
| Some of my online orders will arrive by courier and their
| drivers will call me when they arrive near my flat so I
| go out and pick my package. Completely unknown random
| numbers although companies do have the option to
| associate phone numbers with caller ID so I can see it's
| a delivery service. But by some reason (cost,
| convenience, no idea), they don't.
|
| I can usually infer from the fact that I made an online
| order, sometimes they'll send me an SMS prior to sending
| but not always. Anyhow I did have my share of picking
| spam calls because of the necessity to ignore the "no
| unknowns" rule while expecting a package.
|
| Overall I don't get that many calls yet that I'd have to
| configure the phone to reject ALL numbers not in the
| phone book. But call spam is definitely increasing, along
| with plain scam. I almost got my card stolen by a post
| office spoofing scam. And recently my bank cancelled my
| card and had to get a new one after someone from US tried
| to buy jewelry with it (I live in Romania) - probably
| leaked from one of the many online services I pay for.
| Now I switched to single-one-time-use cards from Revolut
| for all non-recurring payments, unfortunately it's too
| much of a hassle to do so for recurring ones. And with
| increasing security vulnerabilities my only protection is
| separate bank accounts and keeping only small amounts of
| money on the account linked to the debit card. No credit,
| only debit.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| >The girl eventually convinced a stranger to let the girl
| call her mom using the stranger's phone.
|
| She could send an SMS.
| nkrisc wrote:
| All the important stuff comes by either certified mail or
| a legal process server.
| Fade_Dance wrote:
| I only accept and send Horde Mail.
|
| A personalized Viking Raider takes your package on a saga
| to your chosen destination, looting and pillaging on the
| way while yelling battlecries and occasionally throwing
| an axe.
|
| Extra charge if longboat is required.
| nmeagent wrote:
| Yeah, but I bet they just pass any resulting weregild
| right back on to the customer...
| jfengel wrote:
| "When you hear the beep, please hang up and send me a
| freaking text."
| charles_f wrote:
| Though I deactivated my voicemail cause I was tired of
| getting spam on it.
| analog31 wrote:
| Admittedly, I have to let some things through because I'm
| a freelance musician and if I don't take a call, the
| client will move on to the next person on their list. But
| at least leaving a voice mail means the caller doesn't
| know if they've reached a live line or not.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _And i 'm coming to the same conclusion, answering random
| people is naive._
|
| Which is why people who pick up are _great_ targets for
| whatever garbage is being peddled.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| I get at least 10 calls a day lol. They are all from India.
| Insurance scams, life insurance scams, you name it. I had to
| switch to only accept calls from known numbers. The rest are
| just sent to voicemail. I will probably miss on something
| important, but I have had it.
| ajorgensen wrote:
| I recently did the same thing, as 95% of my incoming call
| volume in a week was spam calls. It's been great. The
| friction I feel is when interacting with ephemeral contacts
| like contractors, etc. I've had to try to be diligent about
| adding them as contacts if I expect a call back, or hoping
| they leave a voicemail.
|
| It's sad there really isn't much you can do about it. I tried
| do-not-call lists, answering and telling them to stop calling
| me, reporting them - all was apparently a waste of time.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| In our modern world, every last vestige of trust is being
| abused. Government bureaucracy is an increasingly-visible
| problem, and a lot of it is insulation to protect lobbied
| interests, but some of it is a good-faith reaction to the
| way various actors abuse trust in a market. Eventually,
| there will be no trust left in society, whether due to law
| or personal technology. Apple would do well to take the
| lead on better ways to handle this on the personal side.
| blackoil wrote:
| We need better control in the phone. In your case blocking
| all calls from India will help.
| charles_f wrote:
| They show up as a local number though
| stuckkeys wrote:
| Yeah. All local numbers haha. Spoofed the hell out.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is why you have a cell phone whose area code has
| nothing to do with the one you live in.
|
| And then block all calls from the same area code as your
| cell phone.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This is the way. But get a secondary GV number with your
| area code for handing out as a burner number.
| spacecadet wrote:
| I pick them up on purpose, bate them, waste their time, call
| them back, waste more time. It can be fun sometimes, had one
| hanging on me the other day, I was laughing so hard. "Stop
| calling us!", "Stop calling you?! Bro stop calling and
| scamming people!" lol... Im also always looking out for AI
| phone systems as well. It's real fun messing with those,
| specially when you can get them off the rails.
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| yup, anyone who knows me knows to email if they want a reply,
| and that I only take calls by appointment. Leave a message
| and I might call back, otherwise my phone's not on me,
| doesn't ring if the caller isn't in my contacts and doesn't
| even have cell reception most of the time.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| I've wondered more than once if our contact information should
| be more like Apple's hidden emails - generated for the specific
| person or business we want to be able to contact us, and
| revocable - with a public fallback which is _expected_ to go to
| a voicemail of some sort.
| rungeen__panda wrote:
| My personal data has been part of 2 major leaks so I'd
| definitely pay for this feature. I already use a service
| which generates random emails and forwards it to my primary
| email address so having such a service for phone numbers
| would be a great idea.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I use Firefox Relay, it's great. (Unique email address for
| each website)
|
| Unfortunately some businesses have started marking them as
| spam because they don't like not having the direct personal
| email of each user
| musicale wrote:
| It is an immutable law of commerce that any effort (be it
| legal, technical or otherwise) to protect people from
| obnoxious and/or harmful behavior by businesses will be
| fought tooth and nail by obnoxious and/or harmful
| businesses.
| pembrook wrote:
| That has nothing to do with it.
|
| Businesses block fake email generators because they're
| overwhelmingly used by fraudsters/spammers/etc trying to
| abuse systems.
|
| Anybody who's ever run an internet service that allows open
| registration or has a free plan knows this the hard way.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Exactly. They want to only have direct personal emails so
| that if someone is a spammer they can easily be
| blocked/banned. And so that there are consequences for
| spamming. This is sort of the same principle as KYC.
| tarboreus wrote:
| I read my spam mails. Google dumps 90% of non-Google or MS
| domains in there.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| What a weird generalization. I've had no issues receiving
| email from plenty of other domains.
|
| On the flip side, it only took me a few days to fix my
| friend's business domain so they could send emails to Gmail
| users.
| irjustin wrote:
| > And i'm coming to the same conclusion, answering random
| people is naive.
|
| In Singapore, they've enacted SMS identifiers and you've got to
| register your company to send SMSes via shorthand.
|
| Looks like we'll want to do the same to general phone numbers.
| If I knew my bank or a government office was calling me I'd
| happily answer.
|
| But 99% of the time it's robo callers claiming to be the bank
| hahaha sigh.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| GenX here and I'm the same - I always hang up on an unknown
| caller, and consider calling someone without texting first to
| be rude.
|
| I don't think it's a generation thing, I think it's that what
| we generally consider normal has changed, but that some people
| got left behind in the old normal.
| dcow wrote:
| It's definitely not rude to call someone without asking
| first. If you don't want to answer the call then don't and if
| it's important I'll text or leave a voicemail.
| aydyn wrote:
| Actually, it is rude nowadays. You dont call a personal
| line if that person doesnt know your number. You send a
| text.
| dcow wrote:
| That's completely different.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| This will cause problems with many things.
|
| Delivery Drivers/taxis use their own phones to tell you if
| their arrival times will change.
|
| Medical calls can come from personal phones.
| tokai wrote:
| Will cause? We are a lot of people doing that right now,
| and its working fine,
| exploderate wrote:
| > I don't think it's a generation thing, I think it's that
| what we generally consider normal has changed, but that some
| people got left behind in the old normal.
|
| Isn't that the definition of a "generational thing"?
|
| Now I have to think every time, is this someone I have to
| text first? Or do they consider texting then calling
| redundant? Anyhow, I think both are important communication
| techniques, adults should be able to do remote direct verbal
| and async written.
| ghaff wrote:
| I take "generational" to mean different behavior patterns
| in different current generations. Of course, behaviors and
| norms can also change for most people over time.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I (in Germany) still wonder why I'm lucky. I'm not complaining,
| I'd like to keep it this way. But my phone number is relatively
| ancient, as it's still the same I got with my first phone
| around 22 years ago (maybe almost exactly? I think I got it for
| Christmas when I was 16 :D), and it even was included in the
| Facebook leak a while ago.
|
| After the FB leak, I got a maybe 6-8 spam calls over the next
| month, and that was it again. It's _maybe_ 1-2 per year, and
| they are easy to recognize because they call from different
| countries.
|
| I thought it was maybe Germany having stricter regulations, but
| people on Reddits /r/de _do_ complain about spam calls, so no
| idea.
| nielsole wrote:
| I think I've not had a single spam call in more than ten
| years. (Also Germany)
|
| Whenever I get a temporary number for the US I get spam SMS
| and calls.
| Izkata wrote:
| In the US, I've had my number for about as long as GP and
| get something like one spam call every couple of months.
| patrickmcnamara wrote:
| I get spam on my landline about once a year in Germany. It
| woke me up from a nap yesterday. :(
| Towaway69 wrote:
| I haven't had a landline for nah on 15 years - well not
| one connected since it remains a requirement to have one
| if you have DSL at home in Germany.
|
| Occasionally I check the caller list on my dsl box -
| probably low single figure spam calls per year.
| Sweepi wrote:
| I agree.
|
| On this front, the Bundesnetzagentur (https://www.bundesnetza
| gentur.de/DE/Vportal/TK/Aerger/start....) does its job quite
| well, for decades at this point.
| ghaff wrote:
| Experiences seem to differ a lot. In the US, I only have a
| cell phone so I have to give out the number and I only get
| junk calls once a month or so. It's certainly not in the
| disable incoming calls category. (Although I also suspect
| that different people have different tolerances and different
| perspectives on people being able to reach them from possibly
| unknown numbers.)
| Grimblewald wrote:
| Easy, call via some voip implementation or another i often have
| internet access when i dont have phone service, not rarely have
| service without internet and therefore voip is already more
| relible. Moreover, its also quite clear who is calling me, so
| spoofing isn't viable. cellular based calls are dead and belong
| buried.
| jalk wrote:
| Can you elaborate on how using a VoIP client, makes it clear
| who is calling?
| eleveriven wrote:
| Maybe the future of communication is less about traditional
| calls and more about apps or systems where verification is
| baked in...
| harrall wrote:
| Phone calls now produce JSON Web Tokens that identify users
| with cryptographic signatures. This was codified around 2018 by
| the IETF, SIP Forum, and ATIS.
|
| So the public phone system now supports it, but the problem is
| that not all providers support it yet, which fundamentally
| weakens the system. Of course, you can't just add a new
| "protocol version" to an over-100 year old phone system with
| zero time to do a migration.*
|
| But now that it's been a few years, we are reaching a point
| where, at least for the US, the FCC wants to ban any provider
| who hasn't added support.
|
| *simplification
| derekp7 wrote:
| Are the signatures available to the end user? I would love to
| set up a call screener that only accepts verified calls, as
| most spam uses spoofed numbers. I'm assuming that the major
| players implement the protocol at least .. I'm ok if the
| filter rejects things that aren't real land lines or cell
| phones.
| wolrah wrote:
| > Are the signatures available to the end user?
|
| That's up to your carrier.
|
| In general "hosted" services will hide the actual token
| from the end user, though they may offer either filtering
| features or the ability to tag calls in the Caller ID based
| on their signature.
|
| Trunking services designed to feed in to a customer-
| controlled PBX will usually offer either the same sorts of
| filtering/tagging or complete passthrough of the token.
| nsporillo wrote:
| This is only possible if the call transits through all IP
| networks. If the call at any point goes over TDM, and out of
| band shaken is not implemented, then the signature is lost.
|
| End to end authenticated calls is the ideal state, but I
| don't think we're fully there yet.
| harrall wrote:
| Definitely not even close to fully there yet but getting
| the VoIP providers to do it is an important step.
|
| Rolling this out is like when the world first rolled out
| DKIM/SPF for email. You need to reach a critical mass of
| adoption before the data is useful.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Which country? I am in Finland and have had the same number for
| over 20 years. It is publicly listed. I receive maybe 1-2
| marketing calls a month and less than one SMS scam per year. I
| am somewhat restrcitive filling in my contact details when I
| don't expect any real business. I only use deposable email
| addresses, but that should be completely unrelated.
|
| The last "Microsoft" support call was years ago.
| sandos wrote:
| Sweden here, and I get less than one spamm call per year I
| would say, likely from abroad since in Sweden you can easily
| opt-out of marketing calls, except from companies where you
| are already a customer, which can be annoying enough.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Similar in Denmark.
|
| My work mobile number is listed on the company website. I
| need to answer unknown calls from anywhere in the world,
| although I only get them every two months or so.
|
| I can easily look through my whole call history. This year
| I seem to have had about six spam calls, and for the first
| time I bothered to work out how to block a number on
| Android -- three of the calls were from the same number
| within a few days of each other.
|
| I'm curious how this works in the USA for people that need
| to answer work calls -- does the receptionist at a large
| company find 9 out of 10 calls coming in are spam? In some
| countries there are specific ranges for different types of
| numbers (all UK mobile phone numbers begin with 7, all
| numbers beginning with 3 are businesses/etc) which allows
| the spammer some basic filtering, but that's not the case
| in the USA.
| Shinchy wrote:
| Here is the UK it is very common, I must get 4-5 a week and I
| am also very cautious about who I give my number to.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Which country? I am in Finland
|
| That's your answer right there. Finland is a small country
| with a _very_ niche language of just about 5M people - it 's
| too expensive to teach people Finnish good enough to
| convincingly scam off the elderly, not enough marks to return
| that investment, and you need a sizable population of poor
| and desperate/dumb people to act unknowingly as money mules.
|
| In contrast, for English language scams, you got 340 million
| Americans, 68 million Brits and dozens if not hundreds of
| millions of people speaking primarily English in former
| colonies (India, Australia) that are potential marks. And to
| make it better for Indian scammers, people there are already
| used to Indian call center accents so their alarm bells don't
| go off immediately.
|
| For German language scams, it's 84M in Germany, 9M in Austria
| and 4.4 million German speakers in Switzerland. For us, it's
| mostly scams based in Turkey, because there are a lot of
| Turks who learn German because they have relatives here or
| their parents had a stint in the 60s-90s.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| We've also had a couple generations of folks trained to
| treat 'foreign' sounding speakers as authoritative, due to
| most call center and support work being shuffled to non-US-
| based places. Calling a 'local' cable company and getting
| someone in Phillipines or India giving support is the norm,
| and many folks are now accustomed to giving details and
| account authorization for things to people who sometimes
| can't form coherent or natural-flowing sentences.
| eitland wrote:
| Norwegian here.
|
| Just read [1] that our local telecom authorities (NKOM)
| report good progress when it comes to preventing people from
| abusing Norwegian telephone numbers to spam/scam Norwegians.
|
| [1]: https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/jQgEl0/nytt-digitalt-
| skjo...
| alex_duf wrote:
| In France since the first of October you can't spoof a French
| phone number anymore. (Edit: at least with the existing ways of
| spoofing. I'm sure it's a matter of time before someone hacks
| an operator and signs their calls through them.) Anecdotally, I
| haven't had any spam call.
|
| French link: https://www.fftelecoms.org/nos-travaux-et-champs-
| dactions/ca...
| ghaff wrote:
| >To me the whole system is archaic - i know gen z would never
| ever take a call from someone they don't know, or even call
| each other
|
| I suspect folks in Gen Z are also less concerned with calls
| from medical/emergency/etc. services. That said, habits have
| certainly shifted. With very few exceptions, I'm not going to
| make a personal call out of the blue at this point.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| I get up to ten a day or something like that. It used to be a
| smaller number of actual people. I'd answer it to listen to
| them, counsel/encourage them, and tell them about Jesus Christ.
| Even the scammers might in rare cases change their lives.
|
| They're almost all AI calls now. The AI's force a specific
| progression, are rude, and will argue with you. Some are
| programmed to claim to be human. It's usually the same AI's
| selling the same products connecting me to the same
| telemarketers. Some know my voice.
|
| I can't stand robocalls because nothing good comes from it
| either way. I don't get to encourage new people. Their sales
| hurt by contacting the same people for stuff they've already
| been disqualified for. If I heard new offerings, I might buy or
| donate. For example, one was St. Jude's reminder which I
| responded to on their web site.
|
| Others are taking action. There's regulatory penalties for
| repeated calls, calls outside a certain time, etc. You need to
| be on the do not call list to be sure. You can send the
| companies a cease and desist or a lawsuit in small claims under
| the TCPA. There's law firms semi-automating that, too. If in
| the U.S., use that if they keep harassing you.
| rtkwe wrote:
| One day years ago back when our desks still had phones on them
| someone called back and they had spoofed my desk number as
| their call back. Took a bit to get down to that because I had
| no idea if it was someone in the company or not trying to reach
| me. (We checked into to desks at the time I think so the number
| could have been forwarded or listed as mine for the day at the
| time I think)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The problem is _not_ that the phone system is old or
| "archaic", or that it uses old technologies - rather, the
| system is as bad as it is, because it's been ravaged by a
| cancer - a cancer on modern society known as _advertising_ [0].
|
| All of this has happened before, and it will happen again.
|
| Any new media, any form of communications we invent, develops
| this cancer as it grows into mainstream awareness. The more
| people a new tool can reach, the more rewarding it becomes to
| marketers and salesmen, who all flock to it - and as they do,
| they accelerate the growth of the medium while also displacing
| and degrading the intended/legitimate usages of it. Soon
| enough, the medium turns into barren wasteland full of threats
| to users' sanity and wallets. Only once it goes so bad that
| people stop using the medium, and/or find a better alternative,
| do things get better - the cancer dies off as its nourishment
| supply, i.e. the audience, goes elsewhere. But the disease
| follows them there. And, if didn't inflict terminal damage to
| the old medium, chances are that old medium will experience a
| second spring[1], albeit in a much more diminished shape,
| becoming a niche hobby or internal technical tool[1].
|
| Advertising is what destroyed AM/FM radio (remains a niche).
| It's what destroyed outdoor information displays (now existing
| only to show ads). It's what denies us beautiful vistas (all
| obstructed by billboards). It's what killed OTA TV, then cable
| TV[2]. It's what killed e-mail[3]. It's what killed the phone
| system, and it's what will kill any new thing we move to.
|
| This problem will not go away until we start treating the
| actual disease - advertising. And by treating I mean the
| equivalent of radiation therapy[4]; anything else, anything
| narrowly targeted, leaves space for the disease to come back
| with extra force - the line between "outright scam" and
| "legitimate communication" is fuzzy, and salesmen and marketers
| are _very creative_ at blurring it further.
|
| And no, adding crypto (the legitimate kind) to the mix -
| authentication protocols, encrypted handshakes, whatnot - will
| not help, for the same reason your immune system isn't of much
| help against real cancer either. Sure, it'll get harder for a
| random Joe the Scammer to do their fly-by-night salesmanship,
| but advertisers in general can afford to implement all the
| schemes marking them as AAA tier 1 legitimate communication.
|
| After all, if you look at the web, who's actually pushing most
| of the security stuff? Unsurprisingly, _biggest players in
| adtech_. Improving the medium 's immune system is in their
| interest - they're still invisible to it, and getting rid of
| the most obnoxious scams secures their own ability to feed on
| all of us.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Well, kinda. It also includes bits of activities
| classified under "sales" and "marketing". I think the closest
| term encompassing them all might be "marketing communications",
| but "advertising" as understood by regular people covers most
| of it.
|
| [1] - In rare cases, it may turn into a kind of "zombie mode",
| a blob of glowing radioactive mutated cancer, able to live out
| of background cosmic radiation, or such. I mean, how else can
| you describe the Fax system? You plug it in, wait a moment or
| three, and suddenly it starts spitting out ads!
|
| [2] - The prime example why paying doesn't protect you from the
| disease. Once medium contracts advertising, the option to "pay
| instead of seeing ads" quickly turns into "pay and see ads
| anyway", and then "fuck you, pay more and see _even more ads_
| ".
|
| [3] - No, spam filter only catches the worst of it.
| "Legitimate" advertising still fills most of everyone's
| inboxes, which is a big reason why people flock to closed,
| gate-kept alternatives.
|
| [4] - Or nuking it from orbit. Pick your own favorite
| exaggerated metaphor; it's the only way to be sure.
| demaga wrote:
| This is the change I'd like to see in the world! Way to go USA
| colechristensen wrote:
| I got three spam phone calls in the span of 5 minutes today. Two
| of them with the exact same recorded message.
|
| Anybody know if there is some program where I can get compensated
| for this harassment? (I vaguely remember of hearing about some
| program)
| wbsun wrote:
| I've decided to only receive calls/msgs from my contacts. On
| iPhone, you can do it by "Silence Unknown Callers". Instead of
| pretending I can ignore the spam calls, I'd rather take the risk
| when something super important are coming from an unknown
| number...
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Not really an option for me - my child's care providers may
| call me from an unexpected phone number, plus the occasional
| doctor phone call from a number that's not the same one I call
| to schedule appointments, etc.
| ses1984 wrote:
| Can't they leave voicemail? Spam basically never leaves
| voicemail.
| ars wrote:
| That only works if you have no family. Because you risk an
| emergency provider being unable to reach you if something
| happens, or even something as simple as your kid/spouse losing
| their phone and trying to call you from a borrowed phone.
| kussenverboten wrote:
| It can't happen too soon. When/if it does happen I will need to
| unblock the 1000 numbers that called me repeatedly. At one point,
| I wanted to block the entire 202 area code. A feature I would
| have appreciated would have been to have the ability to figure
| out which block of numbers were allocated to that provider, and
| then block all the numbers allocated to that provider
| VOIPThrowaway wrote:
| Most of us in this group failed to update our Robocall Mitigation
| information five months ago and are doing it now.
|
| Honestly, the bad actors are not in this list. Everybody in this
| list has implemented rate limits per the previous filing and are
| in compliance with other aspects of the FCC.
| LarsAlereon wrote:
| I saw a lot of companies that either recently ceased operations
| or probably should have never registered in the first place.
| Real bad actors aren't going to be silly enough to fail to file
| their paperwork.
| dpifke wrote:
| It's crazy how slowly the FCC is moving on this:
|
| _WCB notified each Company on March 29, 2024, that its
| certification was noncompliant with section 64.6305 because the
| Company had failed to submit an updated RMD certification and
| updated robocall mitigation plan by the February 26, 2024
| deadline. WCB 's notification informed each Company that it must
| submit an updated certification and updated robocall mitigation
| plan in the Robocall Mitigation Database by Monday, April 29,
| 2024. After this second deadline, the Companies still had not
| updated their RMD certifications and robocall mitigation plans
| with the required information; as a result, WCB referred each
| Company to the Bureau to initiate removal proceedings._
|
| 2,411 companies have been deficient since February. The FCC sent
| them a strongly worded letter in March, giving then a new
| deadline in April. Roughly seven months later, the FCC is finally
| starting enforcement procedures.
| Shank wrote:
| > The FCC sent them a strongly worded letter in March, giving
| then a new deadline in April. Roughly seven months later, the
| FCC is finally starting enforcement procedures.
|
| To me, they're trying to avoid any and all accusations that
| they're moving unfairly quickly or terminating access without
| appropriate consideration if people missed the notice or needed
| more time to respond.
| jfengel wrote:
| That's generally how regulations work. Which means they're
| always getting screamed at from two sides: one who thinks
| they're going too slowly, and the other who thinks they're
| abusive for doing anything at all.
| codedokode wrote:
| What I would do is I would simply open a new company every
| time the old company is shut down.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Pretty sure most Americans would support the FCC taking swift
| retributive action the very first day it was legal. These
| companies didn't just accidentally miss the notice. They have
| been active in profiting off of fraud for years and know
| exactly what they are doing.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Either that or they're small shops that are running some
| open source software, and don't have the chops to update
| their stuff.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| This is the worst excuse ever. "We're hosting, routing,
| and otherwise supporting spam/scam calls because of our
| open source ethos."
| cosmojg wrote:
| The main reason I use a Google Pixel is because of its automated
| call screening feature. I crank it up to maximum sensitivity
| (screen all unknown numbers) and answer every call that gets
| through because it's always a human, and it's never a spam call.
| I'm surprised more smartphone companies haven't already
| implemented similar features.
| tantalor wrote:
| I don't get why other phones don't do this. Is it complicated?
| I think it just plays a recorded voice greeting. It's simpler
| than a answering machine. There is no fancy AI or anything like
| that.
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| iPhones also have the ability to block unknown callers.
| MBCook wrote:
| Plus you can get apps with caller lists.
|
| I have one from Verizon since they are my carrier. For free
| it does an amazing job blocking spam calls. If I was
| willing to pay (I'm not) it would tell me what kind of spam
| call it is.
|
| Not worth the price.
|
| I still don't answer calls unless they're in my address
| book or I'm expecting one. But I get very very few calls
| anyway thanks to the app.
|
| And they are allowed to leave voicemails, which they never
| do. Real callers do if I get an unexpected genuine call.
|
| Add in the features iOS has had in the last few releases to
| be able to see transcriptions of voicemails, now live as
| they're being left, and most of the hassle is gone.
|
| The spammers trained everyone to stop answering. I
| shouldn't have to do any of this. But it's better than it
| was a few years ago.
|
| Text is the new spam hell for me.
| ornornor wrote:
| > iOS has had in the last few releases to be able to see
| transcriptions of voicemails
|
| Never saw that
| MBCook wrote:
| It's had it for a few years for messages already left.
|
| I think iOS 17 (last September) was when they added live
| transcription as it was being left in the lock screen if
| you press the icon to see it.
|
| Or maybe it was 18 this September.
| zamalek wrote:
| My Nokia 3310 could do that. This actually answers the call
| and asks the caller what they want, it then rings if the
| call seems legit.
| ornornor wrote:
| How did that work?
| zamalek wrote:
| It simply rejected calls that lacked caller ID, which is
| what I assume the GP meant by unknown callers. It wasn't
| only Nokia either, every single phone that I have ever
| owned has been able to do this. Its right there alongside
| novel features such as "sending a text" or "making a
| phone call."
|
| If you meant the Pixel feature then there are probably
| lots of videos and posts covering it.
| ornornor wrote:
| > This actually answers the call and asks the caller what
| they want, it then rings if the call seems legit.
|
| I thought you meant you could do that on your OG 3310 so
| I was curious.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| It doesn't play any kind of greeter. Seems to be an online
| database of spam numbers, I receive calls marked as Spam with
| a big red exclamation mark. it's not as simple as blocking
| any calls that aren't already contacts. I could never use
| that professionally.
| tantalor wrote:
| I'm talking about "automated call screening feature"
|
| https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9118387?hl=en
|
| > Call Assist answers the call and asks who's calling and
| why
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Doesn't it involve sending the phone number that calls you to
| an online service? I can imagine that has big privacy
| implications.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| What is a privacy implication when literal spam farms
| already know everything about you?
| hypeatei wrote:
| Telcos already keep this information and Google having it
| as well doesn't really change much. Both are going to sell
| it plus give it up to law enforcement when asked.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| The most important features of my Pixel phone are all the ways
| it prevents me from getting unwanted phone calls and text
| messages. It's pretty good at it.
|
| We've allowed the entire telephone medium to get corrupted by
| scams. It has been ruined.
| Sabinus wrote:
| Ah, so that's why I'm not experiencing the spam the other
| commenters describe.
|
| I wasn't aware Google didn't extend the service to other
| phones, I wonder why that is? It can't be a hardware specific
| feature.
| razakel wrote:
| >It can't be a hardware specific feature.
|
| It is.
| tantalor wrote:
| Yes & no.
|
| Automatic screening is exclusive to Pixel devices:
|
| https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9118387?hl=en
|
| But I doubt there is any Pixel-only hardware involved.
| coding123 wrote:
| Just shut them all down for a few weeks to give this whole thing
| some teeth.
| atonse wrote:
| To me the real evil is providers like Twilio that are happy to
| not enforce this stuff cuz it makes them tons of money.
|
| They're like the Facebook/instagram of SMS, talk a big game but
| happily let all the stuff continue to happen.
| kragen wrote:
| Is there a list? I'd like to know if my SIP provider is on it,
| ideally before it gets shut down.
|
| Aha, the list was linked from the original URL, but dang
| unfortunately changed it to the plain text news release
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-408083A1.txt which
| doesn't link to the list. The original URL was
| https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-could-block-over-2400-provi...,
| which links to
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-1235A1.pdf, which
| lists the providers that will be shut down. And I'm happy to see
| that my SIP provider _isn 't_ on it.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| And mine is on the list .. and it's the only phone number I
| have for all my banks and other accounts. Looks like I'm frakd.
| And no, I'm not a robocaller, in fact I never used this phone
| to call or text anything, just to receive texts.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| The article says "Removal from the database means other
| providers will be prohibited from accepting call traffic from
| these providers."
|
| So perhaps inbound calls and inbound texts will be fine?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Hope so very much.
| ars wrote:
| If they end up on this list they will shut down shortly
| after, and you better find out if it will be possible to
| transfer your number if that happens.
|
| I would contact the provider and ask them their
| intentions, and if you are not satisfied leave while you
| still can.
| ajb wrote:
| The US has number portability - you should be able to switch
| now and keep your number
|
| However having said that, I'm not sure it will keep working
| if the original provider goes bust. If it's the same as in
| the UK, under the hood the implementation requires the
| original owner of the number range to do forwarding. So it's
| worth checking if the owner of the range of numbers
| containing your number - often a different company - is on
| the list
|
| (Edited to add) Actually it looks like the US has a
| centralised implementation:
| https://10xpeople.com/blog/switching-carriers-and-
| retaining-...
| rob-olmos wrote:
| Thanks for linking the list! I'm seeing "Sangoma U.S., Inc." in
| it, which might apply to quite a few people & companies.
| azinman2 wrote:
| TIL there are thousands of voip/telco providers. I cannot
| believe there are so many. How do they all stay in business, or
| get their customers?
| jampekka wrote:
| Maybe with robocalls?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Robocalls. That said, they're likely "virtual" providers,
| which are in turn enabled by "Mobile Virtual Network
| Providers", companies that sell telco-provider-as-a-service,
| so that a virtual provider only needs to focus on sales,
| marketing, first call customer support, and legal liability
| but not the technical nitty gritty. I hope the FCC goes after
| these MVNOs enabling them next.
|
| (source: wikipedia and I worked in a small segment of the
| mobile network operator market for a short while)
| HPsquared wrote:
| I wonder what fraction of economic activity passes through
| these "wrapper companies".
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Same here.
|
| I have some questions 1) are these telcos effectively pass-
| thru operators for actual spammers ? in other words, just a
| paper entity working with 1-2 customers ?
|
| 2) Do these VOIP providers act as resellers for the big
| telcos ? If yes, how does the telco contracting/onboarding
| fail so hard at screening for bad actors as potential
| customers (is there a law like KYC for them at all ?)
|
| 3) Finally, once onboarded don't the big telcos have some
| incentive to boot bad actors from their busy networks ?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| > How do they all stay in business, or get their customers?
|
| They are created/supported by the robocallers.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| And it's been going on for years. Years ago, when I had a
| landline, I started to notice that a lot of spam calls came
| from the same area codes and prefixes. A quick trip over to
| telcodata.us showed that all of these prefixes/thousands
| blocks were assigned to the same company, which had a web
| storefront as a wireless provider but didn't really provide
| cellular service. Apparently, nothing has changed.
|
| ETA: _Whew_ , my SIP provider isn't on the list.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Many of these small voip providers the voip service is a
| small portion of their overall business. They may be a small
| ISP, reselling voip as an add on to internet services. Or
| they may be a small MSP marketing services to businesses in
| their area, and VOIP is just one small part of their overall
| package. If you are already marketing to the customer,
| providing customer service, billing, and even onsite support,
| why not add an additional service like VOIP, even if it alone
| isn't all that profitable? Even if you are only breaking
| even, having the service in house can save you time and money
| troubleshooting when a customer call you up and says they are
| having problems making phone calls and their third party VoIP
| service support is blaming the network...
| kragen wrote:
| You can become one yourself this week if you install Asterisk
| on an obsolete PC in your closet and plug one or more phone
| lines into a "telephony interface card". You don't have to
| stay in business.
| naet wrote:
| My local ISP offers VOIP.
|
| For a long time the area was serviced by AT&T, who probably
| started with phone lines and then progressed over time to
| dial up and then more modern cable / broadband. They probably
| bundled in home phone service for many years.
|
| When the local ISP built out all their gigabit fiber
| infrastructure they probably felt they had to offer some kind
| of phone service to compete, and went with VOIP since they
| weren't going to build out a whole telephone network
| infrastructure. I'd bet most people don't use it, but they
| need to offer it to be viable for certain older customers
| that don't want to give up their home phones.
|
| I briefly set up a home phone on the provided VOIP, just for
| fun and nostalgia, but it was pretty annoying with sometimes
| getting disconnected and needing a manual power cycle to
| reconnect so I stopped using it.
| ezfe wrote:
| I stopped getting junk calls about 3-6 months ago. Just election
| texts (Massachusetts) but no spam texts or calls.
|
| AT&T and Verizon (dual sim)
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Good. I hope AT&T is included in the notice - I get spam calls
| daily
| blindriver wrote:
| why is this taking so long?
|
| On another note, I want a phone that complete has no connection
| to the phone system, ie. no phone number, but has cell
| connectivity so that I can make data calls using whatsapp or
| similar. Can someone please make this?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Sure, airalo, for example. ~ $5/GB
| ac29 wrote:
| Every major US cell carrier has data only plans and I'm sure
| they exist in other countries too.
| greentea23 wrote:
| WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram require a SIM enabled non-VoIP phone
| number available to receive SMS at all times in case they
| decide to reverify you. Doesn't necessarily have to be the same
| device, but still quite annoying.
| nuker wrote:
| I think most numbers are scavenged from shipping details. Just
| delete or put an obvious fake phone number in address book of
| your online shop accounts. Valid address and email is enough for
| delivery.
| domoregood wrote:
| Would have been more poetic if it was 2600 phone providers
| instead of 2400.
| eleveriven wrote:
| This feels like a long-overdue step, but it also highlights a
| deeper issue: why were over 2,400 providers not compliant in the
| first place?
| jonathanyc wrote:
| The vast majority of the scam or spam texts I receive come from
| one provider: Bandwidth (https://www.bandwidth.com/). They
| technically allow you to report phone numbers
| (https://www.bandwidth.com/legal/report-a-phone-number/) but most
| of the time they close my requests claiming that even though the
| user is obviously running a pig butchering scam
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_butchering_scam), they haven't
| said anything that is technically illegal yet.
|
| Once I reported some obviously fake collections calls; they kept
| calling me and saying that I needed to respond to a "pending
| matter" otherwise it would be "escalated." Bandwidth claimed this
| wasn't abuse and was a legitimate collections business.
|
| To me they're just a nuisance, but the elderly and other
| vulnerable people have lost their entire retirement savings to
| these kinds of scams (https://www.propublica.org/article/whats-a-
| pig-butchering-sc...). It's not good that Bandwidth is abetting
| this.
| nixosbestos wrote:
| I only use data-only SIMs and my only number is my voip number. I
| use Zoiper on Android and it is only active when I make outbound
| calls or have a pre-arranged call. (Voicemails are copied to
| azure storage and emailed to me)
|
| I got the last of my friends and close family on SMS on WhatsApp
| and the "but why?" Immediately became "oh my god this is so much
| better, I can use it on my computer?!"
|
| Whatsapp calls are exempted from Do Not Disturb which my phone is
| permanently in. I disable notifications from the Messaging app.
|
| Literally never any spam calls or texts, ever. Life is good.
| Everything else PTSN/SIP, SMS, MMS, RCS, it's ALL lipstick on a
| really ugly pig.
|
| Oh except shitty sites that think phone numbers are a good
| verification mechanism and block VOIP numbers. Meanwhile I could
| just go get an voice+data esim for next to nothing. Just stupid.
| mikeocool wrote:
| FWIW, my previous company is on that list -- they provide
| telephony services as part of a CRM product (making robocalls via
| the product would be very difficult, and very noticeable given
| the scale).
|
| The only reason they are in the Robocall Mitigation database at
| all is because they briefly tried out a telephony provider years
| ago who required registering as part of their setup process.
|
| They now use a vendor who handles robocall mitigation and
| registration in the database for them. Anecdotal, but it's
| certainly possible that many companies on this list aren't
| actually facilitating robocalls (though obviously, given the
| number of calls I get, many are).
| sdenton4 wrote:
| That sounds.... Fine? I'm totally fine with some collateral
| damage in this space - the crm can surely contact out their
| telephony needs to someone who can actually keep up with the
| regulations.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| I think this could be some collateral damage from negotiated
| rulemaking.
|
| Seems to me that each time the FCC overhauls their (actually
| the US citizens') airwaves, there's always more people that
| want a piece than there were the previous time. Plus some of
| the same old big players want more. In a big way.
|
| The high-powered operators have the strong lobbying efforts
| but this is a strict government agency and broadcasters do
| not always get their way. So they have to go into
| negotiations with flexible business models to build on what
| they already have, or for new ventures.
|
| The only thing the FCC has to bargain with is the airwaves
| themselves.
|
| So both sides make compromises until agreement is reached.
|
| When the FCC will not budge, the business model must change.
|
| Then the licensee comes back with a revised business model,
| giving up some lucrative plans in exchange for the FCC to be
| flexible also. If the FCC settles with good will after only
| giving in a small amount to the operators' ambitions,
| everything seems about as fair as it can be and things go
| forward with only a "slight change" to accommodate the "new
| normal".
|
| All the FCC ever compromises is the airwaves themselves, even
| if it's only a little bit. It never goes the other way.
| Little by little the usefulness of the airwaves to the
| citizens is chipped away at in favor of those who are more
| empowered than ever to use the airwaves against the citizens
| instead. And that's above and beyond the financial
| implications.
|
| Not just the airwaves. When a recognized greedy operator
| (usually regulated) wants permission to blatantly rip off the
| ratepayers more than ever (very obvious in the fine print),
| any decent regulator catches it in the first draft and starts
| negotiating it away ASAP before the public finds out how bad
| it was really intended to be for them.
|
| This bold-faced greed doesn't really slip past that many
| regulators, it's just too extreme to begin with.
|
| So basically _on behalf of the operators_ , the public
| representative waters down the proposal to something they
| think might have a chance for approval, without seeming _too
| much_ like a complete public giveaway from the beginning.
|
| And even then, when the idea is to get more money out of
| everybody all the time, and more often too, everybody
| understands that, plus it's one of the most common business
| models that doesn't take any acumen at all.
|
| But that way there's always the significant fraction of the
| financially non-prosperous who could barely afford to
| participate already and would be devastated by any rate
| increase whatsoever.
|
| Well that's who the compromises will made in the name of, so
| the cost increases for the protected group (for those
| relatively few poor citizens) can be held dramatically below
| maximum levels. It sure looks good on paper and can be
| pointed to as some real compromise.
|
| As long as it is agreed that _everyone else_ can be ripped of
| like never before, that will more than make up for it.
|
| Only one side is negotiating in a way that can be taken to
| the bank no matter what.
|
| I think at one time cell carriers were negotiating to rip off
| customers worse, and they couldn't get their way without
| letting "competitors" use their networks like never before.
|
| Which gave rise to the reseller gold rush until that niche
| ended up being filled by a few major (usually decent
| legitimate) marketers getting most of the true competitive
| monthly consumer dollars. Resellers like Cricket or Metro
| without their own radio towers, giving customers a slightly
| better deal to use the same wireless networks owned by places
| like AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.
|
| Some would say better than no regulation at all, but I think
| rule migration in this direction has allowed a well-crafted
| robocaller to get operational more often than a competitive
| new cellular reseller could ever do again.
|
| And now there's hundreds if not thousands which have been
| added to the list right under everybody's nose for years.
|
| Who knew?
| Suppafly wrote:
| Good. Nothing of value will be lost.
| sylware wrote:
| Look at the bright side of things: nobody sane and not
| pathologically naive, will answer an unknown number phone call
| anymore.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| I'll believe it when I see it, because the FCC is about to loose
| all of its power.
| boohoo123 wrote:
| The real question, which is why these issues still persist, is
| why the heck are people answering AND responding to these
| robocallers. They're making money somehow or it wouldn't be
| lucrative to keep doing it.
| munk-a wrote:
| People get scammed every day - especially older folks and non-
| native speakers. There is a huge scam up here in Canada
| targeting immigrants informing them that their passports are
| being held by <local embassy> - the scam call isn't in English
| to minimize how quickly it gets reported and seems to rake in a
| fair number of folks.
|
| It's really difficult to solve these problems through education
| alone.
| boohoo123 wrote:
| from reading other comments apparently phone calls now
| generate json web tokens to be authenticated, but loses the
| jwt when switching over to tdm lines or coming from tdm. So
| why not just only allow authenticated calls from sip/voip
| lines to any destination and only allow calls from tdm to
| tdm. it would rid any unauthenticated sip/voip calls and not
| allow any spam coming from tdm lines to modern systems.
| smcleod wrote:
| How on earth do you end up with >2400 phone providers in the
| first place? There must be a lot of profit being made off people?
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