FCC allows blocking traffic from robocall-friendly provider One Owl

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-652A1.txt

by kimi • 3 years ago

285 236 3 years ago

docs.fcc.gov

irl_chad• 3 years ago

How often does the FCC allow blocking traffic?

lesuorac• 3 years ago

Apparently a few times a year starting from 2021.

https://www.fcc.gov/robocall-facilitators-must-cease-and-des...

stock_toaster• 3 years ago

Not just robocall friendly apparently, but a serial offender, with new company names but the same behavior.

ref: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-395670A1.txt

jjoonathan• 3 years ago

Years ago I heard that SHAKEN/STIR were being implemented and would allow robocall blocking. I still get tons of robocalls. I've had this explained as "SHAKEN/STIR were the crypto that will eventually allow blocking, but the blocking will happen later." Is it later? Is this the start of the actual blocking?

i_am_jl2• 3 years ago

It has started. SHAKEN/STIR are what gives the FCC the ability to trace the source of these calls backwards and hold responsible the gateways acting in bad faith.

lotsofpulp2• 3 years ago

I stopped getting spam phone calls months ago. Something definitely changed in the last year, or maybe 2 years.

It was ridiculously often in 2020/2021/sometime in 2022 maybe?

costco4• 3 years ago

The traceback rules are really what did that but I think those were in the same bill that mandated STIR/SHAKEN. STIR/SHAKEN just makes spoofing caller ID more difficult.

shrubble• 3 years ago

This method basically has not yet been used much, but it is in place.

The dangerous issue is that if a spam operator has 33% legit traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good traffic with it, or what? Kill the traffic... innocent people harmed, or leave the traffic, spam continues.

barney54• 3 years ago

Kill the traffic. The operator has to do a better job to stay in business.

robgibbons• 3 years ago

Thus describes the incentive, and the onus, for the provider to prevent spam on their network.

MiddleEndian• 3 years ago

Kill the spam operator.

Also end-users should get information from every hop, so we can block whatever we want with full information, client-side, uBlock-origin style.

cameldrv• 3 years ago

You tell the operator to cut off the spammers, and if they don't do it in a reasonable time you cut off the operator.

INGSOCIALITE• 3 years ago

If a vpn has 33% legit traffic do you ban every IP range of their service?

gorkish5• 3 years ago

The dangerous issue is that if a spam operator has 33% legit traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good traffic with it, or what?

You are implying that "you" means the telco or FCC decides on behalf of "everyone." That is not the correct viewpoint. If the telcos are the common carrier, they dont get to decide. I am the customer; I get to decide. Problem solved. No additional regulation or debate is needed. This isn't hard.

mrandish2• 3 years ago

if a spam operator has 33% legit traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good traffic with it, or what?

Yes, we should with these long-time, serial offenders. Having legit traffic is just a fig leaf cover for them anyway. Any legit reseller clueless or negligent enough to accidentally stumble into business with these guys will switch providers as soon as their customer's calls stop connecting.

Also, no real telecom providers are routing meaningful amounts of traffic through these shady operations. Any legit traffic on their networks is mostly coming from fly-by-night, bottom-feeding telecom resellers in the same countries the spam calls originate from. Any retail customers of those resellers are probably paying ripoff prices for unreliable per-day or per-call service anyway. It's not people with normal pre-paid monthly service from any legit telco you've ever heard of.

costco4• 3 years ago

The Spamhaus approach (and one that is increasingly popular in telecom) is to say "f*** it, kill the provider." A lot of people disagree with this obviously.

gorkish5• 3 years ago

SHAKEN/STIR are implemented but the providers have given no tools to the end users to actually do anything actionable with it. Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a megacorp.

The telcos might be a common carrier, but as the end user I sure as shit should be able to block calls originating from providers I see abuse from constantly. I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU, TxtNow.

tjohns• 3 years ago

Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a megacorp.

Cell phones surface the SHAKEN/STIR attestation status to the user via a checkmark in the telephone UI.

If you want to programmatically act on that data to filter calls... Android provides access to the attestation level via the android.telecom.CallScreeningService API. (I can't speak to what iOS provides.) For VoIP, many providers will also either pass along the attestation level in the SIP headers or by appending some text to the Caller ID string.

m463• 3 years ago

I get calls nowadays with caller id telemarketer or suspected spam or similar, is this what it does?

chaorace• 3 years ago

A little yes, a little no. Your phone knows when it's receiving a call from an unauthenticated number, but it would be very unreliable to use this metric alone to decide when a call is untrustworthy. My understanding is that carrier telemetry is what drives the final yes/no verdict.

supertrope4• 3 years ago

We're still very early in the process.

1) Deploy caller ID signing. <--We are here.

2) Deploy policies to make inter-telco tracebacks easier and increase liability for carrying too much spam.

3) Drop unsigned traffic and shutdown spam friendly portions of the PSTN (analogous to open email relays).

4) Use the tracebacks and KYC to deter robocalling operations from getting onboarded and ban current customers who are robocalling. And keep them banned when they open new sockpuppet accounts. It'll never be completely eliminated.

5) See 4.

Two-thirds of PSTN traffic is unsigned. https://transnexus.com/blog/2023/shaken-statistics-july/

costco4• 3 years ago

You can get local phone numbers for a trivial amount of money - no caller ID spoofing required! Robocall operators have realized this which is why a substantial amount of robocalls are attested: https://commsrisk.com/calls-with-stir-shaken-c-attestation-n...

Even if there is thorough, mandatory KYC for VOIP services, we will just have robocalls being routed through simboxes filled with prepaid SIM cards. The whack-a-mole game will move there and the carriers will lose just like they do in Africa and the Middle East where people use them on a giant scale to arbitrage termination rates.

pkaye• 3 years ago

Personally I've seen very few robocalls these day.

I think all the IP based providers in the US have implemented SHAKEN/STIR. There is still a small amount of non IP based systems which FCC is looking for solutions. And international calls will take some time as other countries look into implementing similar methods.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 3 years ago

In response to the FCC’s enforcement action against Illum in October 2021, the CEO and Director of Illum, Prince Anand (Anand), who sometimes uses the alias “Frank Murphy,” Prince Anand Skype Chat, June 10, 2021 at 8:18:53 AM (“Frank Murphy” introduces himself as Prince Anand) (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (Anand Skype Chat). created One Eye. Id. at October 24, 2021 at 8:16:14 AM and 8:16:21 AM (Anand telling Great Choice Telecom to expect a new sign up under the name “One Eye” that day).
To deflect the FCC’s scrutiny, Anand intended to keep his name off One Eye’s corporate documents. Id. at 7:40:25 AM, 8:11:13 AM, 8:13:20 AM, 8:14:48 AM, 8:14:55 AM, 8:15:04 AM, 8:16:14 AM, 8:55:50 AM, 9:01:49 AM, 9:02:21 AM, and 9:02:26 AM (Anand explains that due to the Commission’s cease-and-desist letter he will “not be included in any companies” but will work “on the backend [sic]”).
Kaushal Bhavsar, a director of Illum, became One Eye’s CEO. One Eye LLC Listing, Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n, Robocall Mitigation Database (Oct. 26, 2021), https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table... (showing Bhavsar as CEO of One Eye); Illum Telecommunication, https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last visited July 14, 2023).
Aashay Khandelwal, the Human Resource Representative for Illum, subsequently formed One Owl and became the CEO. See Illum Telecommunication, https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last visited July 14, 2023); see also One Owl Telecom Inc. Listing, Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n, Robocall Mitigation Database (Apr. 25, 2022), https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table... (showing Khandelwal as the CEO of One Owl).
Julya Barros, a seemingly close acquaintance of Anand, Compare @illum_telecom, Twitter, https://twitter.com/illum_telecom?lang=hi (as archived by Google and last visited May 16, 2023) (screenshots on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805), with Julya Barros (@julyabarross), Instagram, http://www.instagram.com/julyabarross (last visited July 14, 2023).became Vice President of Sales and Marketing at One Owl. See Julya Barros, LinkedIn, https://ae.linkedin.com/in/julya-barros-928008245 (last visited July 14, 2023) (screenshots on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805).
One Owl and One Eye used the same IP address to conduct their business. March ITG Subpoena Response, supra note 4.
One Owl and One Eye communicated under the same email domain, @oneeyetelecom.com. Compare Incorp Services Interrogatories Response at para. 15 (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (Incorp Services Interrog.) (showing One Eye used the @oneeyetelecom.com domain), with id. at para. 3 and Ex. A (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (showing One Owl used the @oneeyetelecom.com domain).
The personnel connections between One Owl, One Eye, and Illum are summarized in the table below.

The FCC is just playing whack-a-mole as soon as it begins enforcement on a company, the people involved just get together with their buddies and form a new company.

This will never work to curb robocalls.

Instead, the US Government needs to do the following

1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of these companies. If the company engages in facilitating robocalling, the bond is forfeit

2. Criminal charges and enforcement against the agents of these companies

3. Immigration action against the agents and associates of these companies including deportation and permanent visa bans.

Only then can the US government begin to combat this. Otherwise, doing more of the same is going to be completely ineffective and a waste of time and resources.

reaperducer• 3 years ago

1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of these companies. If the company engages in facilitating robocalling, the bond is forfeit

This is how you get people on HN to start howling "regulatory capture!"

mschuster915• 3 years ago

That used to be the case of the HN hivemind maybe three, four years ago (just noticed, my account is over ten years old, WTF).

IMO, I think the general vibe here started to shift back with the Jan 6th putsch attempt, and completely turned during the Russian war: undeniable signs showing how far a situation can escalate when malicious actors are left to roam free, and that a truly free market requires at least some sort of regulation as guardrails.

jjtheblunt2• 3 years ago

Why would outlaws obey the law and partake in the $10million 5 year bond?

jimmaswell• 3 years ago

I assume you need some licensing to operate a telco and other telcos will not accept your traffic without one.

supertrope4• 3 years ago

No deposit no service.

codetrotter• 3 years ago

Robocalls, you say?

https://youtu.be/YVrX767IkdI

https://youtu.be/uIecyRCIFkI

kazz• 3 years ago

Now if only they'd take some sort of action against all the spam text messages I get. I swear I get a dozen texts a week from stringofnumbers@fakeemail.com telling me my amazon account has been suspended or a USPS package is on hold.

happytiger2• 3 years ago

I get 5-10 a day honestly. I have to ban every one of them or they become accumulative with repeat calls because they keep calling and calling. They frequently then just move to another number and we do it again…

It’s obviously a handful of companies behaving very badly. Let’s me share some examples…

They say the same things from the same companies:

- “Hi this is Jamie with the RTC helpdesk I'm calling to let you know that substantial business tax incentives that are still available through the employee retention tax credit _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ can provide business funding up to $26,000 for each W-2 employee you had on staff during 2020 and 2021 if you qualify we do all of the work and submit your application …

- “Hi this is James calling from coastal debt resolved we help small business owners lower the payments or restructure any merchant cash advances that they've taken out and are having a difficult time getting them back we thought it was possible you might have one or more of these I want to see if we can offer our help my direct line is 877-412-0535 please give me a call at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your current situation thanks and have a great day…”

- “888-310-9170 I'm contacting you regarding a potential refund opportunity for your business related to the year 2020 and 2021 please be aware that this refund does not involve any taxes or loans and there is no need for repayment to proceed with the refund process we simply need to verify some details regarding your businesses employee account during those years if you believe this call was not meant for you or if you wish to opt out of any future communication please press nine when calling back thank you for your time and I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to speak with you best regards Eva…”

- “Hey this is Mark reaching back out again please give me a call back at 205-460-5936 so I did receive a notification today at your business is done and Bradstreet score was recently upgraded up to a 76 now this is a big deal because I put you in the top 10% of businesses in your industry and revenue range now because it is great score we're happy to see that your business has been preapproved for a business credit line up to $500,000 and the interest rate on these lines start his lowest 4.8% so they really don't cost very much at one of the best things about this offer is how fast we can get the money over to you if you were to say yes to this credit line we can have the funds over to you within just 24 hours please remember these offers don't last forever so please call me back directly at 205-460-5936 to make sure there's no confusion that's 205-460-5936 hope you have a really good day I have a blessed day and thank you…”

- “Hey it's Tiffany with capital group I'm just touching base regarding your business plans of corner am I still have immediate funding options up to $250,000 with limited to no documentation necessary so am I can be reached at 949-4645479 I'll give you that number again it's …

The capital group hits me up many times a week from many different sources.

I don’t even bother to answer calls. I just ask people to leave a message. It’s made my phone basically unusable.

lolinder2• 3 years ago

I find that Fastmail's spam filters do a very good job of preventing these from ever reaching me. What provider are you using?

squeaky-clean3• 3 years ago

They're talking about text messages. You can send a text message from an email address. For example "8675309@txt.att.net" would send a text message to Jenny if she were an AT&T subscriber.

throw9away6• 3 years ago

Just force them to buy phone numbers like we sell ips. Each number could be $1 and you burn them when an operator gets caught

iforgotpassword• 3 years ago

And soon we will have 20-digit numbers :-)

callalex• 3 years ago

That’s almost exactly how the system currently works. The spam is still profitable despite that.

Rygian• 3 years ago

Then the price is not right. Make it expensive from the start, and then gradually give back most of the price when the user has had a good standing for long enough.

kabdib• 3 years ago

They'll just buy numbers with more stolen money.

supertrope4• 3 years ago

https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

jcrawfordor2• 3 years ago

These people aren't "using" numbers that they own. The phone system largely does not track or care about the actual source of a phone call, and the caller ID value is only voluntary metadata that is not expected to correspond to the source of the call (it often doesn't in legitimate situations). The telephone system simply doesn't have a sense of "from" in the way that even protocols like email do; most telephone equipment neither knows or cares who the call is from. You don't need control of a single telephone number to introduce calls into the system.

STIR/SHAKEN was created essentially to address this problem by introducing a strict sense of the origin of a call for the first time. STIR/SHAKEN is still early in its process but it does already make it easier for the industry tracing group to determine the actual source of these calls. STIR/SHAKEN compliance is also relatively expensive so it has sort of created a pay-to-play situation, both raising prices a bit and introducing a sort of KYC to the telecom industry where getting VoIP termination service now often involves sending the provider a passport, business registration documents, etc.

And for what it's worth, getting a phone number for inbound calls already involves a fee and $1/month is actually pretty close on for an average. It goes as low as around $0.20 a month from low-cost bulk providers and as high as $8/mo from some more consumer-oriented services (that nonetheless offer DIDs). It's just that control of a phone number (prior to STIR/SHAKEN) only matters for inbound, not outbound.

JohnFen12• 3 years ago

The phone system largely does not track or care about the actual source of a phone call

Sure they do. When I worked for a small telecom, the provenance of every call was meticulously tracked for billing purposes. Figuring out who to bill for what on each link of the chain is tricky and requires excellent recordkeeping.

That system is entirely unrelated to Caller ID, though.

duskwuff• 3 years ago

Unlike IP addresses, phone numbers don't need to be "routable" to originate a call. Most spam robocalls are made from spoofed numbers, often from a randomly chosen number in the same exchange as the recipient.

RajT88• 3 years ago

Awesome.

Now go after the timeshare companies.

jjtheblunt2• 3 years ago

Wow: the FCC publicly shames the perpetrator including LinkedIn URL of the person. That's new behavior and might actually be a decent deterrent.

( https://www.linkedin.com/in/aashay-khandelwal-ab6179238 )

WirelessGigabit• 3 years ago

As they should. Companies are run by people. People should be accountable. The CEO is accountable.

mrandish2• 3 years ago

I've looked into the history of some of these perps before and I'm always shocked at how many chances they've been given to stop being shady-as-fuck scammers and it's almost like they're addicted to it. So yeah, they deserve whatever the FCC, FTC or whoever is dishing out (and probably much more).

Looking through this docket, these assholes have playing stalling games for years and they STILL aren't blocked yet. They get at least 14 days to respond, then the FCC has to decide they're still doing it, then it'll take another 30 days for the block to be mandatory.

One Owl will have at least 14 days to respond to the Initial Determination Order. Id. § 64.1200(n)(5)(ii)-(iii). If One Owl’s response to that order is insufficient or One Owl continues to allow substantially similar traffic onto the U.S. network, then the Bureau will publish a Final Determination Order in EB Docket No. 22-174 finding that One Owl is not in compliance with section 64.1200(n)(5). Id. § 64.1200(n)(5)(iii). In the event that the Bureau issues a Final Determination Order in this matter, pursuant to section 64.1200(n)(6) of the Commission’s Rules, all U.S.-based voice service providers shall be required to block One Owl’s traffic. Id. § 64.1200(n)(6). Providers must monitor EB Docket No. 22-174 and initiate blocking beginning 30 days from the release date of the Final Determination Order.

dmvdoug• 3 years ago

They had the Instagram for one of his accomplices. Awkward.

Nifty3929• 3 years ago

There could be an unfortunate consequence of this: picking and choosing who's traffic to accept. Telcos generally operate as common carriers, meaning they have to accept traffic from anybody. Obviously, that doesn't seem right when we don't like that traffic. But imagine if telcos could start deciding on their own which businesses they were willing to work with or deliver calls to. What if they could just cut off your business because they don't like what you're selling.

I'm not saying we're on the way there - this doesn't have to be a slippery slope. But it's something to keep in mind.

jimbob45• 3 years ago

It’s high time we start prosecuting cold robocalls as harassment. We don’t need to fundamentally change the rules of the system to keep around pests that don’t provide a useful or necessary service.

hn_throwaway_99• 3 years ago

How is this even relevant? This is specifically the FCC making the determination that One Owl sucks, not other telecoms.

cirrus3• 3 years ago

That's why the FCC is there isn't it? I don't see how this leads to telcos making that choice on their own

babypuncher• 3 years ago

You're right, which is why they needed the FCC to step in and explicitly allow Telcos to block this specific bad actor. The FCC exists to ensure all the Telcos play fairly, so it's up to them when actions like this are allowed to be taken.

downWidOutaFite• 3 years ago

Biden's fcc is actually doing its job compared with Trump's anti consumer Ajit Pai.

tomschlick• 3 years ago

To be fair, Trump's FCC was pushing STIR/SHAKEN hard but it takes years for the major telcos to implement and push it downstream to all of the various SIP providers that buy numbers from them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN#Implementation

Biden's FCC is able to take action because those were finally finished and now can enforce with the call source traceability they didn't have a few years ago.

happytiger2• 3 years ago

Here here. It was amazing how much of a regulatory capture case study that man was…

binkHN• 3 years ago

I hate to push products, but happiness is the Call Screen built into Pixel phones. If it feels the call might not be spam, I still have the option to screen it and watch the party converse with the Google Assistant in real time—kind of like the answering machines of old, but you can read instead of listen.

thanhhaimai• 3 years ago

This so much. I don't remember that spam calls exist anymore until I read a post someone complaining about getting spam calls. It works so well. I haven't had a false negative in the 3 years of using it. All the people who truly wanted to contact me would say something into the assistant, and the phone rang, and I'd pick it up.

onedognight• 3 years ago

Apple does this as well, but this is a Band-Aid. Think of the old people who get scammed by these calls. This is a system issue and should be fixed as such. It’s frankly embarrassing how the phone companies have effectively killed the “phone call” through their neglect.

neeleshs• 3 years ago

100%. Call Screen and the usual spam detector in Pixel has made call spam a non issue. I also don't pickup any calls that are not from my phonebook and let them go to VM/assistant, and listen to them immediately.

notatoad3• 3 years ago

For my use, 99% of the time i just leave my iPhone set to silently reject all calls from unknown numbers, and that works for me.

it's pretty rare that there's somebody not already in my contacts that i actually want to be able to call me. they can go to voicemail, and i'll deal with it later.

TylerE5• 3 years ago

I would do that, but my doctors office seems to have at least 100 phone lines, and the number that shows up on the caller is basically random after the first 4 digits.

thfuran• 3 years ago

I set up an IVR that requires (non-white listed) callers to press a number to ring through. My spam calls went from several most days to less than one a year. I suppose I also miss out on automated appointment reminders, but whatever.

capitainenemo• 3 years ago

I don't like rejecting calls. I prefer they go to voice mail/transcription, so I set my main system ringtone to a few seconds of silence, and then a custom ringtone for everyone in my contact list (plus a few additional ringtones for family and close friends).

Bonus, if I happen to notice the phone screen light up with an unknown number and I know I'm waiting for a service station to call, I can always try my luck that it is actually legit.

Trias11• 3 years ago

This.

Problem solved.

hsbauauvhabzb• 3 years ago

I live in Aus. Spam calls use unredacted numbers. Several places, including the police, do redact their number. I have no idea why they don’t use a single egress number so I know who’s calling, but here we are.

Just imagine reporting to the police that a stalker is calling you from an unknown number, only to have the police call you on an unknown number.

ars• 3 years ago

Do you have family? Because I've heard horror stories of people who did this, and then no one could contact them when a family member was seriously hurt.

crazygringo4• 3 years ago

Except for when a restaurant is calling you to let you know that your table is ready.

Or your doctor's office is calling to let you know they suddenly have an opening this afternoon.

Or your Uber driver is calling to let you know you left something valuable in their car, right after they've dropped you off at the airport.

And so forth. I've learned from hard experience that silencing all calls from non-contacts bites you in the ass. There are legitimate calls that benefit you now, where going to voicemail defeats the purpose.

kevinventullo• 3 years ago

This is the one feature I really wish iPhone had.

coder543• 3 years ago

iOS 17 won't be bringing the automatic call screening, but it will be bringing the ability to send calls to "voicemail" and screen them yourself, picking up if you feel like it's worth answering.

cdchn• 3 years ago

Pretty much the major thing preventing me from switching to iPhone at this point.

gochi• 3 years ago

Call Screen is a nice addition to global call control (or whatever it gets renamed to per carrier), that just prompts callers with a simple "press this button to continue the call".

Went from every day at least a dozen calls mostly from spoofed numbers, to only getting the important ones. Call Screen winds up being just a nice cherry on top.

cozzyd• 3 years ago

It's helpful to have a cell phone number from an area code across the country, then it's usually easy to tell likely spam calls (in my case usually 775 or 702) from legit calls (which for me usually are 312 or 773). There are also spam calls from random area codes but I usually don't answer those...

IG_Semmelweiss• 3 years ago

This should be required reading for any founder.

And getting a 2nd burner google voice number that you never pick up (but you use for 2FA calls)

NovaDudely• 3 years ago

My solution is a little more analog. If the number isn't in my phone, I don't answer it. If you don't leave a message, I will never follow it up.

rrauenza2• 3 years ago

I really like it when someone in the middle has changed the caller id to say "FRAUDULENT".

Someone I know believes strongly that the telco's don't care to police and would rather push people onto cheaper to maintain mobile technology. (We get orders of magnitude more scammer calls on our landline than our mobiles.) But there's a lot of assumptions in that belief...

Is there any truth to those economics? Is there a bad incentive here for the telcos?

AdrianEGraphene2• 3 years ago

The product isn't necessarily true (mobile -> landline push), but the profit-seeking is certainly expected, as it is for all businesses. While the amount of minutes & attentions that are generated from spam calls helps the telcos, because they get paid either way... that doesn't mean they're negligent. They just don't have the right tools to police this since they're common carriers. Things are changing little by little and with upcoming changes in telco infrastructure, I expect Q4 this year to show a strong signal of what the future holds.

rrauenza2• 3 years ago

Can they not just monitor the statistics from an incoming <insert phone system collective noun here> and notice that they're randomly calling millions of numbers per small unit of time and swapping their caller id for every one of them... and then just block them?

Is there a legal reason they can't? Is it a liability reason?

What's really getting my goat the last year is the scam center pretending to be Comcast / XFinity / AT&T / Spectrum offering to lower my bills. They constantly rotate through the four companies and often also have my name, stolen from one of those provider's databases.

I've stopped calling them scammers on the phone and call them thieves, or "chor" in Hindi. Often they hangup immediately, but 1 in 10 or so get sheepish and embarrassed.

mikeyouse• 3 years ago

We've become so desensitized to spam and robocalls due to the scale of the problem - but these should absolutely be treated as attempted theft. If there were a gang going door to door trying to con elderly or otherwise gullible people into giving them thousands of dollars, there would be task forces formed and police patrols on every block. Instead, since it happens over the internet and on the phone, we give it benign names and treat it like a minor hassle and let everyone fend for themselves.

How did we become "okay" with having most of the communication that reaches people be malicious? What is Federal law enforcement doing? Why the hell hasn't the FCC nuked these companies' ability to operate? Who is lobbying for this shit?

Nextgrid2• 3 years ago

Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to solicit votes, so why would they fight against themselves?

A politician's job is to stay in power and work towards their reelection, not make your life better. In some cases those goals happen to align but that's merely coincidence and should not be taken for granted.

In this case, effective anti-robocall legislation would also work against their own interests.

dragontamer• 3 years ago

Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to solicit votes, so why would they fight against themselves?

Say what you will, the 27th Amendment passed. (IE: makes it constitutionally illegal for Representatives to give themselves payraises immediately. They have to give pay-raises for the _next_ congress, which means it may give a pay-raise to the opponent if they lose the election).

Politicians do, and have, been forced by the people to make bad choices for themselves for the good of the country. And its not like its an easy thing to pass a Constitutional Amendment like the 27th.

---------------

We also used to have very strong laws with regards to campaign finance. It was actually our judges who took those laws away in the Citizen's United case.

But our politicians actually put those laws into place to allow the people to trust them more during campaign finance season.

Etc. etc. Plenty of examples. All we need is to convince enough people that a particular law is a good idea, and then that law will happen.

themitigating• 3 years ago

In some cases those goals happen to align but that's merely coincidence and should not be taken for granted.

Explain the Martha Wright-Reed Just Reasonable Communications Act of 2022 Consent.

It passed the house with unanimous consent, had bi-partisan support in the senate, and Biden signed it.

The main feature is that it caps prison phone call costs.

This helps inmates and hurts companies. So explain to me how this slots into your view

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/01/1146370950/prison-phone-call-...

creato• 3 years ago

I think this is overly cynical. The playing field would be level with or without these companies existing.

This is one of many problems where the profits are concentrated among a few players highly motivated to preserve their existence, at the expense of annoyance among vast numbers of people but not to the degree that they act.

datapolitical• 3 years ago

Politicians do not use the same companies. There are very specific firms that primarily handle political communications and text messages and phone calls.

And political communications are exempt from CAN-SPAM

aweiorjtawlierj• 3 years ago

There are gangs going door to door attempting to coerce and extort elderly people. My grandmother invites them in for tea. They try to sell her funeral insurance and extended car warranties or they tell her that her grandson whose name they can't say is in jail and this is their one and only chance to ever get bailed out or would she like to donate to their political campaign.

umanwizard2• 3 years ago

Where does she live?

ShepherdKing• 3 years ago

The innovation needed here is for everyone to be able to have a premium rate phone number, and be able to set fee rates for contacts or "classes" of callers. Spam & robocalls need to become too cost-prohibitive to pursue. Everyone's time has value, so it seems mad that we can't set fees for incoming calls or texts.

LadyCailin• 3 years ago

I find it interesting that Americans are so afraid of regulation that suggestions like these get thrown out in response to calls for regulation. Just effectively regulate via government and move on. Don’t make everything a private toll thing.

rtpg2• 3 years ago

How much of a problem is this outside the US? In Japan I get maybe 1 call like this a month (always from a "weird" area code). Meanwhile everyone in the US seems to be constantly getting these calls. Surely other countries also have marks!

(I know about the scam calls to old people in Japan being a thing. Having a cell phone probably removes me as a mark)

zenkalia• 3 years ago

If you apply for a home loan, you will get about 100 calls per day for the first week and it will trickle away over the next two months. I still get 3~ per day. It's insane.

Epskampie• 3 years ago

Not a problem in the Netherlands. Unsolicited calls from companies you where never a customer of where made illegal a while back. In the last year i've had 1 robo spammer call and 1 telemarketer, so it seems to be working.

queuebert• 3 years ago

Email has been more thoroughly ruined than phones and SMS. Would be nice if the government actually stood up for the people for once.

ke88y• 3 years ago

Door-to-door missionaries and college endowment call centers are the scum of the earth that intentionally prey on old folks looking for meaning and/or legacy.

But I have yet to see dedicated police forces.

midoridensha• 3 years ago

I'd love to see SWAT teams called to deal with door-to-door missionaries.

mschuster915• 3 years ago

What is Federal law enforcement doing?

Probably negotiating with India behind closed doors to shut down the scam callcenters, but as a recent scambaiter video (I think it was Jim Browning) showed, corruption in their police is endemic and callcenter operators still get warnings before raids. The profit these centers can make is utterly insane, and so they can afford a lot of bribes.

Why the hell hasn't the FCC nuked these companies' ability to operate?

SS7 is an international system with seriously lax access controls, it's many decades old and as a result it's extremely difficult to get everyone to upgrade their systems - you don't want to cut off entire countries, particularly poor ones, from international telephony, the fallout would be catastrophic.

pirate7872• 3 years ago

Actually I do want to cut off entire countries, if those jurisdictions are waging criminal war against our citizens. Clean up if you want to participate in the global community.

tjpnz• 3 years ago

Trade is a big issue in some places. Elderly New Zealanders regularly lose their life savings to these crooks with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars leaving the country every week. The government is hesitant to do anything about it.

to11mtm2• 3 years ago

OK now do the bigger providers that allow robotexting without consent...

I received unsolicited texts from a "Buy your house cash" company last year. Of course, they did not identify the company name in the texts, not even with prompting...

I was able to trace the number to a larger provider... [0] The provider was unwilling to tell me who originally called me. Which is strange. If a company wants my business, shouldn't they be willing to say who they are? If a VOIP/TOIP provider doesn't disclose who communicates with you, isn't that a way to shield harassment?

But, as always, it's about who pays the most money to the lawmakers via lobbying...

[0] - By 'Large', I will say that they are a provider for Microsoft Teams Voice calls/texts in the US.

supertrope4• 3 years ago

The US cellular industry is cracking down on SMS spam. Lots of "legitimate" businesses that rely on SMS are complaining about 10DLC.

to11mtm2• 3 years ago

Yeah, I actually worked on the compliance side for a publicly traded company.

The amount of work 'legitimate' providers make you put in can sometimes be painful, especially when they don't do what they say they are gonna do. But we did our part to make sure we stayed compliant. Making sure that even our 'semi-automated' messages (i.e. the user selected from a dropdown and the template filled in blanks) were registered, making sure appropriate unsubscribe verbiage was always present, while still fitting meaningful context into 160 characters. Then making sure each of those messages was registered, reviewed, and approved with the provider. Unfortunately there were still times that the provider failed to do their part, and despite being told we were 'good to go' we would discover a large volume of our texts were blocked by our provider or a downstream network, because someone dropped the ball. [0]

I guess that's what frustrates me; our company did the right work, and even then our provider sometimes got in the way with their own mistakes... But far less scrupulous companies appear to get away with all sorts of non-compliance and their provider doesn't care for whatever reason. [1]

[0] - Worth mentioning, the texts in question were not even solicitations. They were texts related to the 'process' people had already agreed to. Without divulging the actual industry, the best analogy would be things like being told that there was a problem with your vehicle order and to call us, or that your vehicle had been delivered was ready to be picked up tomorrow. [2]

[1] - My gut says, the reason those providers don't care, is that they get to collect more money for more texts sent.

[2] - No, it wasn't automotive, I'm just trying to give a good analogy here. Less life impacting than surgery but more life impacting than a simple package delivery.

allanrbo• 3 years ago

A little bit off topic, I know, but I love how the FCC is using a plain text file here. No nonsense!

sgustard• 3 years ago

Change the file extension to pdf, there's a pdf version, same for doc.

JohnFen12• 3 years ago

Even better! Kudos to the Federal Communications Commission for knowing how to communicate!

takinola• 3 years ago

After I moved states, I discovered a pretty effective anti-spam call heuristic. If the call is coming from the same area code as my phone number, it is most likely spam.

It seems spam callers assume most calls will likely be from a local number and so they initiate calls from the same area code as the target. However, since the area code in my local area is completely different from mine (since I moved), this tactic actually backfires and acts as a pretty good spam signal.

phlakaton2• 3 years ago

Worse than that (but way more telling), sometimes it's the same area code AND prefix. C'mon, man.

Johnny555• 3 years ago

I used to think that was a dumb move on the part of the scammers, and probably would only be effective in a small town where most of the people you know have the same prefix… Then I realized that most of the successfully scammed victims probably live in those small towns.

JohnFen12• 3 years ago

I once had a series of spam calls that reported their number as being my own phone number.

Made it really easy to spot them, and was very funny.

ghaff10• 3 years ago

This probably had some logic historically with landlines—a neighbor is calling. It’s an anti-pattern for cell phones in the “wrong” area code. Used to get this a lot. Rarely today.

mplewis• 3 years ago

On iOS, ExchangeBlocker helps block these calls: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exchangeblocker/id1344628290

pdq• 3 years ago

Looks like their web site is offline now:

https://www.oneowltelecom.com/

And the LinkedIn profile is gone:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/one-owl-telecom-inc

re• 3 years ago

The submitted text file is missing some formatting, making it difficult to read. Links to PDFs for this letter, as well as a related press release and a letter sent to One Owl, are available here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-notifies-carriers-repeated-...

withinrafael• 3 years ago

A PDF is also available for those that have trouble reading that raw text (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-652A1.pdf)

washywashy• 3 years ago

Isn’t perfect but this is why I suddenly like voice mail again. I don’t answer any numbers I don’t recognize. If it’s important they will leave a voicemail.

naikrovek• 3 years ago

This is good, albeit very late.

I already consider the telephone to be an unusable form of communication due to the amount of unwanted and unsolicited calls that I receive.

Telephony is completely and totally dead to me, now.

Exoristos• 3 years ago

As long as political orgs, including the major parties, rely on robocalling of the vilest sort to raise their funds, don't expect Congress to pass any meaningful legislation.

JohnFen12• 3 years ago

I don't think that's what disincentivizes them. Congress will just do what they always do with things like this: exempt themselves from the law.

That's what they've done with all anti-spam laws so far.

seatac76• 3 years ago

Good high time penalties were applied to people who facilitate this non sense.

bla573837• 3 years ago

Could we say it is becoming evident that the US government are fine with ad-blocking? (For at least some ads)

I expect this news to be heavily criticized by all highly paid engineers at ad-tech companies like Google and Meta?

SeanLuke• 3 years ago

Why is the FCC giving other companies the right to block One Owl if they fail to comply, rather than simply terminating One Owl's connection to the network?

Tepix• 3 years ago

This is what i'm wondering as well. In Germany, robo calls are pretty much nonexistant. Same with Spam SMS.

So either the FCC is failing the american people or the laws are insufficient, or both. This problem is solvable, many countries have done it.

FCC allows blocking traffic from robocall-friendly provider One Owl

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