A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

https://blog.lopp.net/call-to-action-stop-the-fcc-kyc-regime/

by FergusArgyll • 1 month ago

333 237 1 month ago

blog.lopp.net

cute_boi• 1 month ago

Will this KYC reduce spam and scam calls?

rockskon2• 1 month ago

No.

inigyou9• 1 month ago

It did in every other country that did it. What's different about this one? If you get a spam call in Europe from Europe, you call the police and the spammer gets located and punished.

stackskipton• 1 month ago

In theory, it could help. In practice, for KYC to reduce spam and scam calls, FCC would have to be willing to drop hammer big time on people and telcos who allow it to happen. With current political climate in the US, I don't see that happening since companies would scream "Poor pitiful us" and fines would be the cost of doing business.

reddalo4• 1 month ago

Italy had forced KYC for all mobile numbers at least since the early 2000's and no, it doesn't fix the spam/scam calls problem at all.

singpolyma311• 1 month ago

br0ceph• 1 month ago

Im USA based use prepaid service because I dont want to provide information for a credit check to obtain postpay service. Theres absolutely no reason for a US based telephony provider to retain the most sensitive PII on their customers. Every large provider has a history of breaches and selling customer data. The telephone companies are already tracking, storing, selling; so many data points on their customers. They cant be trusted with any information.

jameshart6• 1 month ago

Counterpoint: for my part I would like it to be the case that any phone line that can dial or message my phone can be traced back to a known human being who can be held accountable for abuse of that phone line in terms of generating spam, abuse or harassment.

Seems that we can’t both get what we want.

A potential solution is that you get your anonymous phone line but my phone provider simply refuses to let you call me with it.

Of course then we need to extend the same principle to data and to IP traffic originating from your device. If you don’t want to be traceable it seems reasonable that services should have the right to refuse to handle IP traffic you generate.

Would such a half-baked level of network access suit your needs?

inigyou9• 1 month ago

It should show up as anonymous. And you should have a setting: allow anonymous calls y/n

AnimalMuppet• 1 month ago

I would like any message that is spam to be able to be traced back to the offending human.

I would like anonymous political posts to be untraceable by the government.

I can't even get all of what I want.

dataflow2• 1 month ago

Seems that we can’t both get what we want.

Why can't you? They don't want to provide info for a credit check, you want human accountability. All that requires is for them to use a debit card for whatever service (prepaid or postpaid). Law enforcement can trace that if needed. No need for credit checks or really any other information directly in the hands of the telco.

xnyan2• 1 month ago

my phone provider simply refuses to let you call me with it.

I don't think it's necessary to go this far. The provider could indicate something like "CANNOT VERIFY NUMBER". I imagine most people would block such calls.

frollogaston9• 1 month ago

I got ATT prepaid in January and still had to give my ID, but it was weirdly not upfront but later on when I was trying to actually activate the service. Not sure what the deal is.

bsimpson• 1 month ago

My primary phone number has been a Google Voice account since 2010.

It's unclear to me how I'd be impacted by these new rules, but I don't believe there's any requirement to provide PII to get a VOIP number.

techsupporter• 1 month ago

Google Voice now requires identity verification for new numbers or porting a number into an account that does not have a number assigned: https://support.google.com/voice/answer/16768664

qdotme• 1 month ago

Honestly, stop the KYC regime everywhere else.

We're making our law enforcement's job marginally easier, by making the criminals' job infinitely easier by creating millions of juicy PII honeypots.

No, you don't need my phone #, real name, captcha.. if you think you do, realign your incentives, and rethink what else can be used for your real need instead.

drnick1• 1 month ago

Absolutely. And this is why I don't give any business my real name, phone number, or other personal information. Starbucks does not need to know my name or email to make my coffee. If a company insists on an app or some kind of registration, they lose my business, plain and simple.

filup4• 1 month ago

I walked into a gas station the other day because the pump did not print the recipt. I asked the cashier for the receipt and she said I needed to download the app in order to get a receipt.

Pure insanity.

dec0dedab0de• 1 month ago

We really just need telcos to stop allowing caller id spoofing. Doesn’t even need your name, but with a real number we could actually report these scams.

You can still allow people to hide it, but then by default every non-business phone should block calls with hidden numbers.

smallmancontrov2• 1 month ago

What ever happened to SHAKEN/STIR? I thought this was supposed to happen 5 years ago. Did they just chicken out on the prospect of actually shutting down telcos sending spam volume? I still get loads of spam phone calls, so clearly something went wrong (or slow enough to be indistinguishable from wrong).

inigyou9• 1 month ago

According to a defcon talk, spammers just make sure all their spam gets routed through legacy TDM systems which discard the shaken/stir header because they're too old to support it. The other side then re-adds a "we got this from somewhere that didn't support this header" header.

criddell2• 1 month ago

I'm not certain, but I think on my phone incoming calls that fail SHAKEN/STIR show the caller id in red rather than black text. I'm on T-Mobile. It also shows "Number Verified" or something like that.

swed4203• 1 month ago

I thought this was supposed to happen 5 years ago. Did they just chicken out on the prospect of actually shutting down telcos sending spam volume?

It would certainly hurt a consumption-based economy, for starters.

xnyan2• 1 month ago

The FCC issued a report on this very subject[1]. TLDR, there have been four exceptions to the SHAKEN/STIR requirements:

- Providers that can't afford it implement it - Non-IP networks - Small voice service providers that originate calls via satellite using U.S. NANP - Providers that lack control over the network infrastructure necessary to implement

Nothing is going to change as long as those holes exist.

1: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-416732A1.pdf

singpolyma311• 1 month ago

Just because a call is a spam call doesn't mean it is spoofed. STIR/SHAKEN ends spoofing but anyone can ultimately buy a phone and make calls that are spammy.

9cb14c1ec05• 1 month ago

STIR/SHAKEN up to this point has only been a self-certification that a telecom company has the right to use a number. What the FCC is trying to do is set up a legal obligation for the STIR/SHAKEN header to match a KYC verified identity.

If the FCC implements this, I expect a lot litigation because of the burden and legal liability this would place on telecom and VOIP companies. There are other less burdensome approaches to preventing spam that the FCC has not tried.

Rendello2• 1 month ago

I love a good tortured acronym:

SHAKEN system, short for Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs [...]
The name was inspired by Ian Fleming's character James Bond, who famously prefers his martinis "shaken, not stirred". STIR having existed already, the creators of SHAKEN "tortured the English language until [they] came up with an acronym."

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

(Unrelatedly, seeing a slash used casually within the URL slug feels so wrong)

kylehotchkiss2• 1 month ago

Why do we even need to run on the 20th century system of numbers anyways? Why is there not a better call addressing system?

saxonww• 1 month ago

We don't, but the entire world currently does, and the amount of equipment deployed that depends on it is substantial.

I would be willing to bet money that any "better call addressing system" would be a design by committee where this just gets litigated there. And we'd end up with either a system that requires KYC per-call, or has compromises similar to what we're complaining about now.

9cb14c1ec05• 1 month ago

Because the concept of numbers is so heavily baked into many systems. Momentum is a beast.

HappMacDonald2• 1 month ago

I suppose you'd like to replace it with Email since that doesn't have any spam, hmm?

themafia4• 1 month ago

Said on a forum that was accessed by IP protocol.

callalex• 1 month ago

Because backwards compatibility expectations make it hard. Also telecoms are evil and greedy so unless you are actually going to stop paying for a phone they won’t lift a finger to improve anything. Countries with newer phone systems at least support Alphaneumeric Senders.

https://help.twilio.com/articles/223133767-International-sup...

hsbauauvhabzb3• 1 month ago

What valid purpose does hidden numbers have? Government departments in my country hide their caller ID.

I find that abusive on its own but let’s not forget about the fact that now you have victims of domestic violence being forced to answer hidden numbers in case it’s welfare, or the cops, or their abusive spouse.

carlosjobim2• 1 month ago

Calling in an anonymous tip to the police and such.

reactordev2• 1 month ago

and cut off a million dollar annum laundering scheme to provide such service to the scammer networks? nah... they would never.

singpolyma311• 1 month ago

This is already not allowed.

If your carrier accepts a spoofed call they're already violating FCC recommendations.

kbelder• 1 month ago

Recommendations aren't requirements; you're allowed to violate them.

saintfire• 1 month ago

And yet, I incessantly get spoofed numbers calling me from the same "central office code". Also resulting in people with the same code "returning my calls" and then getting angry that I say I didn't call them.

Preventing number spoofing would help significantly with spam calling. At least the ones from local numbers.

cyanydeez• 1 month ago

unfortunately, the grift economy is hyper-meritocratic: If you can figure out a scam and it makes money, who are we, as capitalists, to stop you? You take out the lower rungs of the grift economy, then whose to say who can fleece the tax payer with a repainting of a reflecting pool on tax payer's dime. It's a slippery slope, really.

bryanlarsen2• 1 month ago

Medical offices hide their numbers for very good reasons: if you've got an abusive spouse, you often don't want the medical office in your call history. Which results in a lot of very important calls being ignored.

MichaelDickens• 1 month ago

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't seem hard to fix: just let users decide whether hidden numbers should be ignored or received.

advisedwang• 1 month ago

Stopping caller ID spoofing doesn't have to mean caller ID is always enabled. You should be able to make a call with NO caller id, but not a call with somebody else's caller id.

rib3ye2• 1 month ago

Note: By checking this box, I acknowledge that I am filing a document into an official FCC proceeding. All information submitted, including names and addresses, will be publicly available via the web.

Is there really not a way to submit an express FCC comment that avoids all my personal info being publicly published to the web? Yeesh.

riffic• 1 month ago

call your congress critter instead

adolph3• 1 month ago

what, they keep no records, or as lege branch they aren't foi-able so you won't ever know if they do or not?

jubilanti2• 1 month ago

Think of it like a petition or testifying before Congress. The whole point is that you are putting your real name behind it.

And if you think your name and address are private, then I have some bad news for you.

rib3ye2• 1 month ago

I spend a lot of time filing requests to take down my home address. Most low-hanging fruit options have been scrubbed. I am hesitant to increase the count.

sailfast• 1 month ago

Yes. You need to stand up as a citizen to have the impact (they cross check).

Publication is probably a bit much as a default and chills speech a bit, but it’s also important that the federal register can remain public with all public comment on the web. These are official comments on the record.

terminalbraid• 1 month ago

I will not be called to action by a page with a big slop image at the top.

cf100clunk• 1 month ago

KYC == ''Know Your Customer''

marstall• 1 month ago

"force phone providers to collect identity information from ordinary people before they can acquire or renew service with a phone carrier."

don't see the harm in this? isn't this already the case for 99.9% of phoneline havers already?

dghlsakjg• 1 month ago

You don’t see the harm in requiring telcos - famous for handing over data without warrants or court orders - being forced to have identifying data for every subscriber?

I can think of a half dozen ways that can get abused. Remember that in the states policing is decentralized. There is always some department somewhere willing to abuse their power. Look at how flock has been used to stalk partners, or how geofencing was used to sweep up everyone in the area of a protest, or how stingray is used to listen to all calls in an area. This is opening up avenues of abuse for almost no benefit.

mindslight• 1 month ago

famous for handing over data without warrants or court orders

More concretely, famous for supplying bulk data to the surveillance industry for a nominal fee. That is ostensibly the goals behind this development - all of these companies demanding phone numbers for "verification" and snake oil "2FA" want to reliably dox 100% of their users rather than just 80%.

lazide• 1 month ago

Almost no one has physical phone lines anymore. It also used to be a given because they had to send a physical paper bill to someone, and hence needed an address.

Neither of these are true anymore.

Also, the tone is set from the top.

Do you think the current admin cares about actually tackling fraud and abuse?

m463• 1 month ago

The big ones already force you to give SSN for service. Then they lose it in a data breach.

reddalo4• 1 month ago

The crazy thing is that a simple 9-digit number (that you must give away for many things) can ruin your life if it gets public.

The US seems so backwards at times.

Telemakhos• 1 month ago

Realistically, it is for 99.9% of people who have phones. The 0.1% have to go out of their way to buy, with cash or crypto, prepaid SIM top-ups on flip phones, and by doing so they stand out like a sore thumb.

Back in the days of rotary phones, not only did the phone providers have your name, they even listed it, your home address, and your phone number in the white pages of the phone book, and everyone in town had a copy of it. Before the rise of microcomputers which enabled data tracking and robocalls, which in turn gave rise to demand for privacy from spam, having that information out in public wasn't a problem except for edge cases like domestic abuse victims or people in a witness protection program. The 99.9%, though, are still getting tracked no matter what, and I sometimes wonder if we've sacrificed the convenience and confidence of the phone-book age for an illusion of privacy that relies on anxiety.

Hizonner5• 1 month ago

I grew up in the phone book age. We had one phone with a really long cable, but it wasn't long enough to take it with me everywhere I went. And, as you point out, nobody had robots to call it, either.

josefritzishere• 1 month ago

Leave it to the Trump administration to implement mass surveillance as the solution to spam.

theturtletalks• 1 month ago

KYC and AML are the most blatant attempts at subverting due process I’ve ever seen.

Instead of the government actually trying to catch money laundering, they just make 3rd parties like banks and payment processors judge, jury, executioner. Effectively giving them the power to decide who can do business. And if they decide you can’t, you have no recourse. If the government didn’t give this power to private companies, they would have to prove in court that you are doing something unsavory. And to people saying KYC/AML works, sure. HSBC was laundering billions and these guys know how to get around KYC. You’re just screwing over common people at this point and giving banks and financial institutions power to skirt due process.

elevation• 1 month ago

the most blatant attempts at subverting due process

This seems so clear to me; KYC is an end run around the constitution.

But how do we stop it? If we legislate "no KYC" then what is my recourse when an imposter empties my accounts? You'd want it to be at least allowed.

But if we allow industry to require KYC "we will only deposit your pay to a verified bank account" then you may end up with de facto KYC if not de jure. But if you tell businesses they may not require it, it enables other kinds of fraud.

Legislation does not constrain people who will to do evil.

logicchains2• 1 month ago

But how do we stop it?

Use Monero as much as possible. If enough people adopted it, there's absolutely nothing they could do to stop it short of turning off the internet entirely. Even China, with the strictest internet controls in the world, hasn't managed to stop people paying for banned goods and services in crypto there.

dredmorbius4• 1 month ago

KYC is an end run around the constitution

What's your argument here, if you don't mind?

frollogaston9• 1 month ago

"Effectively giving them the power to decide who can do business." well it's giving the government the power to decide who can do business. The banks and merchants already had that power, but now they have additional legal risk of doing business with whoever the govt doesn't like.

Ever since 2020, I've seen more stores that won't take cash, and refuse to go there on principle even if I was going to pay with card anyway.

phyzome2• 1 month ago

It's even worse: Since cell phones broadcast your location at all times, this means telling hundreds of companies (and a number of governments) your location at basically all times.

That's already an issue with most cell phones. Making this apply to prepaid phones is even worse.

agloe_dreams• 1 month ago

One thing I wonder is if this is just one step removed from 'Now we know the identity of every user so we can now have both probable cause and verified identity to arrest over statements containing speech we do not like.' "

Like that is Carr's FCC in a nutshell - he wants to control speech by controlling the airwaves. That is a raw fact in his behavior. But when the news stations say the thing they want them to say, what happens next other than slightly extending the definitions of public good to the internet and then restricting speech?

gwerbin2• 1 month ago

If you have to wonder, you don't need to wonder. So now not only can "antifa"-related speech qualify you as a terrorist (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...), now your phone is legally required to track you and report your location at all times. The legal infrastructure is in place to track and bring a wide range of consequences down on just about any and all political enemy, whether that be ruining their life by dragging them through years of criminal charges or simply black-bagging them and whisking them off to a prison for "enemy combatants" without any oversight from a court. All of this is being done in full view of Congress and the Supreme Court, therefore one can only conclude that they are comfortable with and complicit in what is going on.

lenerdenator• 1 month ago

It's important to remember that Carr is but a bureaucrat doing what he needs to do to make his boss (or, rather, his boss's boss) happy.

We have a real problem with people in government buying into the idea that it's basically a private company set up for the benefit of one man in particular.

cucumber3732842• 1 month ago

They won't do that because that'll cause an uproar.

What they'll do, what they always do, what you can see them actively doing (albeit on other policy axis) even at the local government level, is simply scrutinize these people for other laws they've broken or rules they've run afoul of and then enforce the shit out of those.

themafia4• 1 month ago

That's rather public. Most likely is monitoring a journalist so you can more easily discover their sources or engaging in "parallel construction" to deal with "undesirables" of any stripe.

reactordev2• 1 month ago

"Downstream collection" would have a field day with this data.

tencentshill• 1 month ago

Apple has implemented a mitigation for this in their new modems, but unfortunately its a carrier opt-in, so only actually useful in Europe.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-expands-this-location-focus...

ofalkaed2• 1 month ago

Cellphones broadcast their location, not ours. We can leave our phones at home.

EvanAnderson• 1 month ago

Assuming your movements are tracked by other methods (surveillance cameras and facial recognition, purchase records, etc) the absence of your phone when you would otherwise normally have it is a data point, too.

phyzome2• 1 month ago

You understand the distinction though, right? The current state is that you cna choose one of these:

A) Be tracked

B) Use a phone not connected to your identity

C) Go without a phone sometimes

The FCC's proposed change would remove one of those options.

gausswho• 1 month ago

It does make me wonder if we're just racing to the day we've got our kyc-blessed phone in a drawer at home at the official address that's already known to carrier. And strap on it the software needed to either forward messages and calls via voip to our real phone, or open a server on it to let us access it from wherever we are to poll for our messages.

LastTrain• 1 month ago

How about instead we do "know your company" and consumers get intel about the ones doing the calls?

rastrojero20005• 1 month ago

Any particular reason yall can't just argue in court that by creating opportunities for your PII to be stolen your governments (state or federal or both) are actively harming you economically?

Sure, not much money to be had by fighting that fight but basically any PAC should have the means to do this and by claiming money is at stake and not people's actual safety you do have a better chance at this not being dismissed because of how your justice system /is/.

3RTB2972• 1 month ago

Unless you've had fraud committed against you, that's a hard sell. What dollar figure do you use as the basis? Are you suing for years of credit monitoring? Because that's typically the solution for people who are the victims of PII leaks.

One could argue that it's a failure of law enforcement or telcos or regulators to do enough to prevent fraud and maaaaybe bring a class action or something, but that's a massive stretch.

rastrojero20005• 1 month ago

Given it's a physical impossibility to create an impregnable fortress for your data and said data both already has a dollar amount attached to it in the black market and an obligation to be cared for, the argument could be that the government is setting up companies to lose money unless they too get to sell that data themselves, which regulations -and basic decency- say they can't.

maerF0x02• 1 month ago

https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/your-money/annoyance-...

Suggest phone scams are a $26 B per year industry.

Hizonner5• 1 month ago

The government is allowed to create regulations that harm people economically. Not much money to be had by instantly losing that fight.

rastrojero20005• 1 month ago

Do those regulations often involve the creation and protection of the profit motive for foreign black markets?

joaohaas• 1 month ago

open link
AI slop art right at the start

Instant close

collabs2• 1 month ago

In my opinion, the real fix to scam, spam, and robocalls is to pass along the REAL(TM) Caller ID information not just the caller ID but the actual billed Caller ID information and allow the recipient easy ways to drop the calls when those two don't match. I don't know exactly the technical details of Stir/Shaken but someone somewhere is paying / getting paid for each call and this information should be transparently available to the call or message recipient. For "legitimate" reasons like doctors or call centers, they should already provide a separate work phone and not make them use their personal line. For leaky carriers, those should be blocked entirely. Nothing good comes from them. Basically what I am suggesting is if the full attestation level ("A-level") is not available, drop those calls and text messages by default unless the customer opts in (I have no idea why anyone would)

mullingitover• 1 month ago

I was nodding in agreement, but I realized there must be some catch here. If this was that simple it probably could've been implemented a while ago.

My guess is that there's some requirement that if it's a working number, it must be able to dial emergency services and that's the loophole that's being exploited. So the FCC's answer is if all numbers must work, push the check directly on the subscriber.

collabs2• 1 month ago

In theory, yes. I would hope all the things that are "common sense" and "simple" would have already been implemented. However, as my professor of History from college loved to say "follow the money". If something could be simple and straightforward but is implemented in a convoluted way that is clearly suboptimal, someone somewhere makes more money as a result. It could be as transparent as Google Chrome implementing auto play with a "Media Engagement Index (MEI)", Apple being forced to implement USB-C on the iPhone kicking and screaming, or carriers and large call centers dragging their feet on doing STIR/SHAKEN correctly and passing along the billing information that I will remind you they already have because they like to get paid. So, while we hope common sense previals, at the end of the day, it only does so automatically when it makes business sense.

To your point about emergency services—while it's true that any unactivated phone must be allowed to dial 911, that rule only opens a one-way path to emergency dispatch. It doesn't give a device the ability to place outbound calls to everyday citizens. The real loophole isn't a public safety mandate; it's the wholesale VoIP market.

jagged-chisel• 1 month ago

They make too much money from the spammers. Who wants to cut out such a large revenue stream?

phendrenad22• 1 month ago

Let me give you an analogy: Someone keeps blaring an airhorn outside your window at 4am. It's making it difficult for you to sleep. The government, in their bountiful wisdom, decides to hold an emergency meeting, and agrees to pass a law that people need to show an ID to buy an airhorn. You're appalled. This is an invasion of privacy! You protest outside of city hall. You try to get some of your neighbors onboard, but find that they're already protesting! Their protest is demanding that the government do something about the annoying airhorns.

pona-a• 1 month ago

The funny thing is most of the world had already pioneered the airhorn ID long ago. Very few of them saw any decrease in 4 AM airhorn activity, yet some are already well-known to arrest and harass airhorn users to international human rights observers' condemnation.

phendrenad22• 1 month ago

Yes and this post is the remedy. We need to point out the privacy issue, and also point out that it won't do what people want.

adolph3• 1 month ago

For background on KYC in the banking context @patio11's podcasts and essays are worth consuming:

  Patrick: Yes, so "Know Your Customer" (KYC) and "Anti-Money Laundering" (AML) 
  are mandatory elements of the international compliance regime that have been 
  in place in the United States since the early 1980s. Over time, this regime 
  spread globally, largely fueled by the U.S. leveraging the dollar as a tool 
  of foreign policy—a point where I find myself agreeing with critiques from 
  the crypto community. Their complaints about this are largely accurate. You 
  can see this clearly in the documents as these laws were passed and as 
  supranational bodies increasingly tightened regulations on banking secrecy 
  havens.

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/true-crime-ba...

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/kyc-and-aml-beyond-th...

adolph3• 1 month ago

Reading this line in Lopp's article: "FCC even asks whether providers should consult lists of terrorists, terrorist organizations, and “criminal persons” maintained by law enforcement entities," brings to mind McKenzie's work describing the outsourced role of NGO's in vetting banking customers.

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/nonprofit-indicted-ba...

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/splc-financia...

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/defendant-cen...

AtlasBarfed• 1 month ago

Yeah if US mail is as spam compromised as it is, you can forget about phone calls ever being cleaned up.

In the era of Target specialized AI that can mimic voices, writing styles, communication is now fundamentally compromised without some sort of actual reform

maerF0x02• 1 month ago

Honestly I'm at the point where I'm like lets just kill the POTS. It makes little sense to me that it's become a sort of user ID for many things, that we have better alternatives (WebRTC, FaceTime et al) that we should push. Like where it currently says "Telephone number" i should be able to put in a URL like "webrtc://<a pseudonym for my IMEI>" (which itself could be a dropdown box for "This device" on the phone itself...)

For example, why isn't it the default that when a telemarketer calls me it's not a video call? And why can't I preview their video stream prior to answering?

I get its "impossible" to make everyone change, but i do think we should push forwards...

frollogaston9• 1 month ago

IMEI is tied to the physical phone, Facetime is Apple-specific, idk what the webrtc option would be. I'm actually glad phone won as digital ID, not cause it's the best choice but because it could've been a lot worse.

apt-apt-apt-apt• 1 month ago

Careful, you are one capital letter 'U' away from having the FBI, NSA, SWAT team at your door!

themafia4• 1 month ago

that we have better alternatives (WebRTC, FaceTime et al)

They may or may not be better. What they _aren't_ is "widely available."

Also I feel like a lot of people forget that phones still work even if the power grid is disabled. Your replacement should have the same attribute.

why isn't it the default that when a telemarketer calls me it's not a video call?

How about when I block you I block the underlying service number and not the fake caller ID number. If a company gets blocked by too many customers it is automatically disconnected from the network.

This is _our_ network. Not the spammers. All companies use it by our leave. They wanted common carrier status and that should have a price.

dredmorbius4• 1 month ago

phones still work even if the power grid is disabled

With the sunset of POTS and twisted-pair copper wire, this is absolutely not the case.

At the very least, service continuation now requires 1) cellular masts with reserve power and 2) a charged cellphone (most of which have at best ~24h battery life), or 3) a directly-wired or fibre-based Internet access and 4) battery-backed VOIP or SIP system.

A POTS service had its own power supply, independent of mains, with battery back-up, and frequently ran for days even during widespread grid outages.

sunshine-o2• 1 month ago

Phone numbers are just a liability:

- It is kind of expensive,

- You are forced to provide it to many official institutions,

- It is the default or mandatory insecure 2FA for many institutions,

- It always get leaked somewhere and is one of the most common/reliable identifier.

We still have them around governments and telcos love it and old people and scammers are its last users.

frollogaston9• 1 month ago

The cost is a feature. Kinda also the case with IPv4 addresses.

sunshine-o2• 1 month ago

Same problem with IPv4.

We've been paying for v4 and v6 for decades but somehow we cannot get rid of v4. My guess is there are a lot of interests at play.

naturalmovement• 1 month ago

"Call to Action" is a needlessly impotent threat. Like high school students walking out of their own lunch period to protest the loss of salisbury steak on the menu.

Most major telcos worldwide outside the US have strict KYC rules, this is not a battle you are going to win, because there are very few legitimate reasons in support.

logicchains2• 1 month ago

There's a very strong legitimate reason, the right for privacy online.

frollogaston9• 1 month ago

Stopped reading at the slop image

kelseyfrog3• 1 month ago

Parents need to parent. Full stop.

This means the parents of adult scammers too. Every scammer has a mother and father who are failing them. If they were doing their jobs, this wouldn't be happening.

downrightmike• 1 month ago

A LOT of this is from the chinese triad in the Golden Triangle in Cambodia who use kidnapped people and abuse them

frollogaston9• 1 month ago

They're always calling from random countries anyway. Maybe we can tell (not ask) other countries to do their job and clamp down on these scam houses.

kelseyfrog3• 1 month ago

Do they not have parents in random countries?

netfortius• 1 month ago

And how exactly are they going/hoping to do that with GV?

troyvit• 1 month ago

They would do well to make a better CTA for their call to action. Here's the link from the article:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/26/2026-10...

I think that gets you most of the way to a link that somebody on HN dropped a few days ago:

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express

It requires the docket-id to complete:

Docket No: 17-59

You can double check that Docket Number here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-seeks-comment-enhanced-know...

Scaled• 1 month ago

People should file comments at that Federal Register link as well as FCC. (The FR is the official way for citizens to comment on proposed agency rulemaking. Since it's independent, it might go farther, but it's worth doing both.)

bityard2• 1 month ago

Well, I tried to file an FCC comment using the link in the article but reCAPCHA doesn't think I'm a real person. I gave up after about completing about 20 puzzles successfully.

Our democracy in action.

filup4• 1 month ago

We just need a new phone system where 'phone numbers' are designed to be disposable.

Phone numbers were designed with the idea that they need to be easily memorizable in your head but I don't think that's really needed today.

At any moment I should be able to discard my contact and redistribute it on my own.

The idea that old numbers get recycled is completely ridiculous as well.

matheusmoreira3• 1 month ago

We need to get rid of phones straight up. No one should be able to interrupt someone else by randomly ringing them and demanding attention.

wang_li2• 1 month ago

You can trivially accomplish this under the current system. There is no need for a change that imposes your preferences on everyone.

filup4• 1 month ago

I mean I think that is ok as long as I explicitly allowed you to.

The problem is, with a phone number anyone can. Phone numbers need to operate more like a shared secret.

I was getting an oil change the other day and the guy asked me for my phone number...

I said why? Do you need to call me?

He said, no we just need it to put in the system and it won't let me proceed without one.

I said ok well here is a fake number since you don't need to contact me.

He was visibily frustrated with me, yet inputed the fake number and it allowed him to proceed.

My point with sharing this story is it seems like we have forgotten as a society what the purpose of the phone number is. Your supposed share it when you want to be able to communicate that's it.

It's turned into a required chokepoint to do anything.

scirob• 1 month ago

Yea pls protect it feels mega oppressive how most EU countries require you to have the SIM card guy in his corner store scan your passport.

lacoolj• 1 month ago

I didn't even know you could get access to phone service without basic ID info.

Maybe I haven't tried playing with enough "burner" phones :\

Also blanking on a time when you legitimately need to have a phone and not provide your name... anyone have examples?

throwaway1492• 1 month ago

It’s trivial to use a cellular connection to control a fpv drone, near real time. I’m really surprised there hasn’t been occurrences of extortion (ie protection rackets) and targeted assassinations via air droppable explosives like we see in Ukraine war. Burner phones enable this.

NoImmatureAdHom• 1 month ago

Aside from the EFF, where can I send my money? Is there somewhere / someone that's working on this specifically?

A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

Related Stories