[lol768]

I would argue that the legality of this doesn't matter; there's a huge technical problem in that there's no authenticity guarantees at all when it comes to caller ID and the entire feature is badly designed and has always been open to abuse.

SHAKEN/STIR is the (technical) answer to this, though I'll be interested to see to what extent it's adopted.

[mschuster91]

> I would argue that the legality of this doesn't matter; there's a huge technical problem in that there's no authenticity guarantees at all when it comes to caller ID and the entire feature is badly designed and has always been open to abuse.

There is, at least for foreign calls: assuming US provider A gets an incoming call from the country B's operator C, then A has to verify if the phone number supplied by C is in the country phone number range of country B. If there's a mis-match, deny the connection.

[viraptor]

It's not that easy. You can get a call from X with a prefix from B and it's just how routing sometimes works. In the same way an internet connection from Germany to the UK may actually arrive from an interconnect in Amsterdam. But it doesn't matter. What matters is the responsibility of each party to point out who sent the call to them.

(And that's not even mentioning the issue of how you'd map providers to prefixes. It's somewhere between non-trivial and impossible in practice.)

[TheSoftwareGuy]

It should really be more like how the internet works with IP addresses.

Its easy to send an IP packet with a source address that is whatever you want, but if you do that the receiver is going to reply to someone else and you won't be able to establish two way communication.

[musicale]

Ideally the ISP does basic ingress policing and doesn't accept packets from source addresses outside its range.

Yes, I know most ISPs don't do this. But they could if they wanted to.

[paulie_a]

It seems that phone companies won't do anything about it. Nor the FCC

There's a bunch of solutions. I received 19 spam calls spoofing cell numbers. That's a felony

I suggest everyone that get an illeagl robo call to call your rep Everytime. Ask them to block India entirely. The problem would be solved very quickly. Or block all calls from Florida and Texas. The nuclear option

The basic one is just waste their time. Ask a lot of questions. And then tell them you were doing that

[linsomniac]

I started doing that once. After 2 or 3 of those time wasting calls, I got one that the person said "Thank you for playing <my phone number>, you will continue to receive calls" and they hung up.

IOW: They have so many resources available, and it is so cheap for them to make the calls, that even after they knew I was going to waste their time, they continued the calls.

This was after I had tried their options for "press 1 to be removed" and talking to someone and saying "please remove me from your list".

The thing they may not have been anticipating: I had 3 numbers forwarding to my cell phone. Up until this call I didn't know which of them was on their list. I cancelled that phone number, and the calls dropped to almost 0.

[ThinkingGuy]

and talking to someone and saying "please remove me from your list".

This could very well be an urban legend, and I know that most telemarketers are untrustworthy anyway, but I've heard somewhere that you actually have to explicitly say "put me on your do-not-call list" because the phrase "remove me from your list" allows them to interpret it a request to remove you from the do-not-call list.

Like I said, probably an urban legend.

[nulbyte]

It's one of those technical things that makes sense when it's said, but doesn't really hold any merit. Here is what the law requires.

> If a person or entity making a call for telemarketing purposes (or on whose behalf such a call is made) receives a request from a residential telephone subscriber not to receive calls from that person or entity...

This is from 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(d). If someone says "please remove me from your list," I believe any reasonable individual should understand that as a request to stop calling.

If they get a request to stop calling, a telemarketer must immediately record the number to the company's do-not-call list and comply with the subscriber's request in a reasonable period of time not exceeding 30 days, and the telemarketer must honor the request for 5 years.

If you want to get technical about it, it doesn't even say the request must be made on a phone call. Presumably, one could make a written request. Perhaps someone could even offer as a public service a way to preemptively send copies of form letters to the addresses of known telemarketers requesting no calls. Someone like the postal service.

[paulie_a]

Don't bother asking to be removed. Give them bullshit info and waste their time.

Considering they are committing a felony by simply making the phone call. It's a felony to spoof phone numbers. Everyone from the top down should be facing 20 years

[ceejayoz]

I've taken to pressing one and just shouting at max volume "LAAAAAAAAAAAAA" into the phone until they disconnect. Seems to work; they tend to taper off fairly rapidly.

No one wants the hearing damage, I suspect.

[Scoundreller]

I do the same thing for Mandarin calls.

I need a Mandarin sound board to keep them on the line since I don’t know any more than “Nihao”.

[netsharc]

Hah, Google already showed off their "book a hair appointment and have a human-sounding robot call the salon for you", what the callees need is a robot that either try to figure out if it's the real IRS calling (although, wait, the IRS sends letters) or an Indian scammer. If it's the latter, then run the "tie them up unnecessarily" script.

Until the scammers figure this out and respond with their own bot. Then, just like Twitter, it'll be bots spamming each other..

[parliament32]

Half of this exists: in Android you hit "Screen Call" and the google bot picks up for you. It says something like "this user is screening your call, please state your name and the reason you're calling" and their response gets transcribed live onto your screen. From there you can either pick up the call or hang up + spam mark it.

It's honestly pretty great, I use it all the time.

[paulie_a]

It is really great and I use it 50 percent of the time. But I fuck with them the other 50 percent. The more I waste their time the less money they make. Ive started calling my reps Everytime I get a call. I am reporting multiple crines

[cestith]

This is supposed to be a forum for civil discourse. As someone who lives in Texas but has friends and family all over the country, I don't find banning all my calls from crossing state lines to be a very civil suggestion. How about all the calls that spoof Illinois numbers that call my Illinois-numbered cell phone? How is keeping me from calling my mother going to stop that?

Fuck your ban.

[paulie_a]

Easily. It's the nuclear option. The state of Texas will make arrests for the illegal Industry they allow. It will force action. One day later you can call your mother

And please don't give me a lecture about civil discourse. I clearly stated my opinion

If I am banned. Fuck my ban as you clearly stated

[klyrs]

The reason people are reacting badly to this is that your suggestion amounts to collective punishment, which is widely recognized as a human rights concern. Your suggestion is uncivilized. We've got a right to critique it. If you feel "lectured," that's your problem.

[cestith]

You clearly stated your opinion that people in Texas should not be allowed to call people in other states. That's what you clearly stated.

[paulie_a]

Yes I did. What point we're you attempting to make.

[cestith]

My point is why are you trying to punish 25 million Texans and 18 million Floridians for a bunch of people in India using VOIP to make calls appear as if they're from all over the US? How is that effective or ethical?

Wouldn't it make more sense to punish the phone companies letting them do this? Is this just prejudicial hatred on your part against a couple of states you don't like for some reason?

[londons_explore]

The solution doesn't have to be at the phone network level either.

It would be easy enough for a regulator to simply fine any company whose products are advertised or sold through telemarketing.

Make it the companies problem that some of their marketing contractors or affiliate schemes lead to illegal calling.

[rahimnathwani]

How would that work? Specifically:

- which regulator has the power to fine a company when it didn't do anything wrong?

- how would you prevent abuse, e.g. if I want to destroy your small business, I can just spend a few thousand dollars on a robocall campaign selling your products (not even claiming to be you)

[paulie_a]

How would that work for you? You would end up in prison.

[rahimnathwani]

The solution proposed (fine the product manufacturer) is a response to the difficulty of identifying those behind robocalling/telemarketing.

That same difficulty would arise when trying to identify those abusing the process in the way I described.

[paulie_a]

There is no difficulty in detection

There is a lack of will

[rahimnathwani]

If there is no difficulty in detection, then there is no need to go after a proxy (the product manufacturers) instead of the perpetrators (the telemarketing companies).

[JumpCrisscross]

> It would be easy enough for a regulator to simply fine any company whose products are advertised or sold through telemarketing

Small fines, for the issuer of the number used to make calls reported by more than N consumers, should do the trick. Small to accommodate false positives. Fine to create an incentive to vet before issuing numbers. Number issuers because they’re less numerous and clearly in the FCC’s jurisdiction.

If one wanted larger fines, N could be lowered but only count complaints with a recording of the call and proof it came from that number (e.g. a telephone bill). Harder to make a complaint, but also harder to turn the mechanism into a home for general grievances.

[closeparen]

In business telephony, issued numbers have nothing to do with outbound transit. You just have a bundle of circuits/capacity that signal source and destination numbers on a per call basis, inbound and outbound. There’s no requirement that the caller ID you send is one of the numbers routed to your trunk by that provider. A branch office could accept calls only through an extension on the enterprise VoIP network, while still placing outbound calls on a local provider and sending the main headquarters number as caller ID.

[markovbot]

I believe this discussion referral to a theoretical world after STIR/SHAKEN has been implemented globally

[pixelbath]

How would this curb the scam calls that aren't interested in selling you a product?

[cestith]

You know those people who say they're with Microsoft and they want to use RDP to troubleshoot your Windows installation proactively? They're not actually affiliated with Microsoft, as shocking as that may sound. Neither are the 0% credit card folks who call repeatedly from "Visamastercard" affiliated with any bank or credit card company.

[LorenPechtel]

Telemarket your competition.

[msla]

It would also be easy enough for the organization to budget for fines or to have numerous front/shell organizations which get started, do the calls and take the money, and then don't exist when the regulators come around. We need jail time for the executives.

[paulie_a]

Forget fines. Everyone in the company needs to be charged with felonies under Rico

Spoofing numbers could be considered a criminal organization

Take down every single person

[yjftsjthsd-h]

That's a little excessive. The janitor was told that they were a legitimate marketing org, and it's completely unreasonable to expect them to investigate enough to find otherwise.

[paulie_a]

No I stand by that statement. You knew you were in a scammer company.

Actions need to have consequences. But they currently have none

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Presumably, you work for a company that sells stuff. How familiar are you with your sales department and everything they do? Are you willing to go to jail if you're wrong?

[paulie_a]

I'm very familiar with their sales tactics and they are legal. They don't commit felonies on every single call. If I knowingly found out they were commiting crimes and did nothing I am guilty.

[gruez]

>Take down every single person

Management/c-suite? Sure. Your typical telemarketer working at minimum wage? No.

[ceejayoz]

> Your typical telemarketer working at minimum wage?

If they're claiming to be the IRS so they can scam you out of iTunes gift cards, why not? They know what they're a part of.

[paulie_a]

Yes absolutely everyone. Everyone that is on the phone. They get 10 years. They absolutely know what they are doing is illegal. Fuck those people.

[MichaelApproved]

Stop distributibg enforcement, it creates unnecessary redundancy. Enforcement should be concentrated.

[viraptor]

It's not a real answer though. Imagine everybody adopted it (pretend everyone is using sip/VoIP). The only thing that would change is you'd get same amount of calls from the actual numbers - what are you going to do about it then?

If the callers (who LE can get to already with enough questions) are safe now, they'd be safe after the change. Sure, the hn crowd will easily set up appropriate filtering, but we were never a viable target to begin with, so that's actually helping the spam calls reach better targets quicker.

It would maybe reduce the number of scam calls though. Spam, not do much.

[MichaelApproved]

Sure, it would help. If the caller ID number was related to the true owner, phone companies would stop the scammers and citizens could log spam calls then sue the owners. The law allows you to collect cash penalties from anyone spam calling.

[BonesJustice]

Good luck suing a call center in Bangalore when you live in the U.S.

[MichaelApproved]

Suing is for spamming. Spamming is an unsolicited legitimate marketing call. Most of those calls originate in the US or are selling the products of US companies who hired them.

[viraptor]

If appropriate laws existed, you could still put pressure on them. Something like "if your international partner sends more than X spam calls, you're responsible for them". The telco would have a choice of getting fined or dropping the interconnect / filtering that source. On the other side, the telco in Bangalore doesn't want to lose the ability to handle calls to the US, so starts monitoring itself.

[MichaelApproved]

International phone companies could be required to put up a bond that citizens could sue against.

[coldpie]

If I could block all calls from Bangalore, that would be good enough for me.

[viraptor]

Telco billing records are very detailed. They can identify the call from the time it reached you and know who initiated it (their customer or some specific other telco). The fact you see the originating number is irrelevant to the telco and shouldn't matter for any applicable law.

To sue someone, the court would still need to ask the telco about the owner of the number. Right now they would need to ask for the initiator of a call to XYZ at 12:34. Seeing the number doesn't change anything.

[lemcoe9]

This is not completely true. Especially in VoIP, there are usually 1-5 layers of FCC-licensed phone companies involved in the call. The CLEC (Bandwidth, Level 3, AT&T, Comcast, et al) sell their numbers to Class 3 ITSPs like Flowroute, SIP.US, VOIP.ms, SIPSTATION, Twilio, etc, and then frequently that service is once again sold to another vendor that might have an actual end-user using the service. Just because one company's switch says "where the call came from" does not mean anything related to the actual calling party.

[viraptor]

You're completely right. I didn't mean it's going to be a single step. If the answer is: it came from another telco X, you ask them. And repeat.

[MichaelApproved]

Getting those records would likely require a lawyer and that would require a lot of spam calls. I'm talking about suing in small claims court which would be more likely for most people. Having a true caller ID would put a critical document directly in the citizens hands.

[castis]

> It would maybe reduce the number of scam calls though

Sounds great, lets do that.