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Homemade Cell Phone Call Blocker?
G)-(ostly asks: "Recently, I've been plagued by a number of calls that were mis-dialed to my cell phone. They're particularly annoying because, being on a cell phone, the wrong number calls follow me everywhere as opposed to just being ignored in an empty house during the day. Verizon, of course, has scripted their drones to claim they can't do anything about it except change the number (or we can turn off the phone), which of course probably wouldn't change anything since we'd just get different mis-dials. However, since it's in my possession, would it be possible to build a software package that could be used to 'screen' unwanted numbers right on the phone? If so, how would one even begin to find APIs for phones, or load the software, once built, onto it?" How long do you figure it will take phone makers to recognize the need for this feature?
A cheap and dirty way to do this would be to add the numbers you wish to block to your phone's contact list and give them a silent ring. However, you then waste the phones memory with a phone-book entry (which can be hundreds of bytes), when all you really need is a list consisting of 10-12 digit numbers (depending on locality). The other drawback to this method is that you might need to use those contact slots, so it isn't a solution for everyone. Still, this sounds like a useful feature, but there is still the issue of how much control the cell phone's OS will give you over its basic operations (blocking messages sent from a specific number, for example). Has anyone tried doing this on their phone? What kind of luck did you have?
They'll never try to voluntarily assist their customers in limiting the number of air minutes used by their customers.
My phone has caller ID, so I can see who the number is and if it matches a number in my phone book. I think every cell phone made in the past five years has this. What more do you want?
My old as crap sony ericsson t237 from cingular has a call management feature that lets me select groups to accept calls from. I can select to accept calls from the list, from all, or from none. Why cant you just put all the people you are most commonly expecting calls from in the "whitelist" and select to accept calls only from the list? Any other calls are directed to voicemail, where you can choose to ignore or reply at your leisure. Another benefit of this is that your voicemail message will convey who you are to the caller, and simple misdials will realize and most likely hangup. I do not see what the big deal is? What am I missing?
I'm a little tea pot.
555-filk.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
If wrong numbers are troubling you so much, consider investing in a O2-type smartphone which comes with features to screen/block numbers.
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"A cheap and dirty way to do this would be to add the numbers you wish to block to your phone's contact list and give them a silent ring. However, you then waste the phones memory with a phone-book entry (which can be hundreds of bytes),..."
Hundreds of bytes? Spare me the drama. If you're the type of person with the wherewithal to even think about developing a number-blocking app for your phone, then you probably have the type of phone where hundreds of bytes isn't going to matter. What you call a "cheap and dirty" solution I'd call "cheap and simple." My "cheap" referring to less use of my time thinking about the problem.
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I used to have someone doing this all the time and so added them to my phone book as 'wrong number #1' and just not answering it. Do you really have more than the 250 or so numbers that your sim card can hold ( or more if you're using phone memory? ) An alternative would be to have caller groups and only having it ring if it was a known number, but then you have to know everyone who calls you. If they're calling from a Private Number then you're really screwed.
I once had a cell phone where I would get at least four wrong numbers per day. I'd never had that much trouble before, and never again after I changed numbers. Everyone calling was asking for a different person, so it wasn't because I had a number similar to a popular business (though that happened to me once before too).
Eventually I figured out the reason for the many wrong numbers: my exchange matched a nearby area code, and the first three digits of the rest of my number were an exchange within that area code. So, for example, let's say my number was 555 1234, there were a thousand valid numbers in the format 1 (555) 123 4###. What that meant was that anytime someone in my area code forgot to dial 1 when dialing one of those 1000 numbers, it resulted in a wrong number to me.
Once I figured that out, I got my number changed and things got much better. Don't know if that's what's happening to you, but I thought I'd mention it. If you think it is something like this, be sure to change exchanges too, not just the last four digits. Make sure the exchange does not match a nearby area code.
Cheers.
But you don't pay to receive calls
I certainly pay to receive calls. I get a certain number of 'minutes' every month. These minutes are spent by sending or receiving calls.
What you really need is a "magic number" (a simple password, basically) that callers have to enter to get access to your line, after they've reached you. This would block out everyone except the people you want to talk to (who you've told your magic number). A little unfriendly maybe, but not much different than having an extension that people need to remember.
Coincidentally, I used to work on the email-to-phone interface for a major cell carrier. Since their numbers were assigned in blocks, the system was trivial to spam. This wasn't considered to be a problem until the executives of the company started receiving it. ;-). Anyway, I suggested a magic word solution similar to the above for that case. Instead they spent megabucks on some antispam solution. No idea if it works--I have text messaging for my phone permanently disabled...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
My favorite feature is the ability to assign any number that I don't want to answer again a permanent busy signal. That, BTW, includes *any* call with a blocked caller ID. I get a little kick out of seeing in my log some low-life telemarketing company trying unsuccessfully to reach me hundreds of times. I can also set timers to go directly to voicemail during certain hours (like when I want to sleep), and I can selectively filter important callers (like my family) to ring through anyway.
Costs about $15/month. Oh, yes, I can also use the VOIP phone as originally intended, too.
Nowadays, with local number portability, the 'captive' part is less of a problem, but the other features make keeping a VOIP service worthwhile.
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One checksum digit would eliminate *every* one-digit-wrong misdialed number. Why why why don't phone numbers have checksum digits?
Part of your problem is that phone companies, and cel providers in particular are re-assigning numbers faster than before.
In days of yore when you surrendered a phone number it would sit dormant for enough time that callers would stop using it.
These days your "new" number may have belonged to someone else only a few weeks ago. Consequently you get calls from people that they knew. Usually at 3 AM.
I had one phone that got calls every few hours from one particular phone number, but from different people. Near as I can tell it had been written on a washroom wall, right by the pay phone...
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The phone# of a friend of mine is one digit different from the one for Ticket Master.
After walking with him for a while, you'd start to think his name is "wrong number".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
there is software for symbian phones that allow you to decide, by a set of rules the behaviour of your phone asnwering status, it can even tell the caller the line is busy
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A misdial looks exactly like an intentional dial to the phone company. There is no way that you or the phone company can prevent someone from dialing your number.
Your phone already supports basic white list or blacklist functionality. If the same people keep misdialing your number, then you'll want to blacklist them using the method sugested in the editorial portion of this article.
If, however, you get misdials from different phone numbers then you'll need to add everyone to your phone book that you want to know about immediately, and set the general ring to silent. In this way you'll still get voicemail if the caller left a message (typically misdials won't leave voice mail if you set up your outgoing message well) so you won't be completely out of the loop with a real caller from an unfamiliar phone number.
I don't see how custom software will solve this any better than the phone book will. You have four different scenarios:
1) Someone who does want to talk to you dials correctly and reaches you
2) Someone who does NOT want to talk to you dials correctly and doesn't reach you
3) Someone who does want to talk to you misdials and doesn't reach you
4) Someone who does NOT want to talk to you misdials and reaches you
Only calls from #1 and #4 reach you. There are two further possibilities:
A) The person calls from a number in your phone book
B) The person calls from a number not in your phone book (or is blocked)
A person who does want to talk to you and is not in your phone book (payphone, friend's phone, etc) looks exactly like a person who does not want to talk to you and is not in your phone book. Therefore, as far as the phone company, your phone, and any possible software you could invent knows, 1B == 4B.
Therefore the problem cannot be solved any better than it is right now with the built in phone's whitelist and blacklist. Either you will only accept calls from those you've programmed, shoving everyone else to voice mail, or you will accept calls from anyone who does not match a set of frequent misdiallers.
In the old days before caller ID one could purchase an answering machine that would not allow the home phones to ring unless the caller pressed a sequence of touchtone keys. You may be able to make software do that, but generally those devices failed in the marketplace because it was too much hassle.
Of course, this doesn't answer your question. I suppose what I'm trying to accomplish here is to ask you a question:
What does your proposed software do that your phone and/or phone company cannot already do? Are you simply suggesting an easier to maintain or more explicit blacklist/whitelist, or do you have a novel method that actually does what I suggest is impossible given the information the phone is provided? If so, getting the software onto the phone is trivial once you've convinced a few key people that what you've invented actually works.
-Adam
I have a P910i with a program called Magic Profiles Pro.
It will change profiles based on what cell tower you're connected to. So when I drive to work, the 3 towers near my work are all programmed and in the phone switches to Work mode.
You can also change profiles based on time and keyworks in the calender app (such as meeting, dinner etc)
You can also screen numbers using it, blacklist, whitelist, or just reject calls that don't give you any caller ID info.
It's very handy, I think you can also get it for some Symbian based Nokia's.
Actually, in some countries, like Belgium, you don't pay to receive calls, only the caller pays to talk on the phone and you also don't pay to receive text messages...
In other countries, like the US, you pay for calling and for receiving calls, and for sending and receiving text messages...
Just FYI
Its too bad you didnt say what phone you have.
I havent used it myself but Ive heard good things about CallShield, a utility I came across when I had a Treo about two years ago. It sounds precisely what youre looking for.
Actually, in some countries, like Belgium, you don't pay to receive calls, only the caller pays to talk on the phone and you also don't pay to receive text messages...
In other countries, like the US, you pay for calling and for receiving calls, and for sending and receiving text messages...
Just FYI
In addition to not paying for incoming calls (USCellular), I also do not pay to receive text messages.
uscc.com even has a tool that lets you send text messages to their customers for free (no one pays for the text messages in this way!)
Not all US carriers do this. This, in addition to the fact that the ONLY major provider in my area is Sprint (and they only have towers near the highway) is why I have USCellular.
I guess Alltel could be considered "major", but they suck big floppy donkey ears compared to USCellular.
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You pay to answer calls, not receive them. You can let your phone ring and not pay for the incoming minutes, unless your plan sucks. That's what caller ID / contact lists are for
24/7/365
Sweet! Where are you living that has 365 weeks in a year?
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Some phones don't care how much free space you have, they still limit the number of phonebook entries. Mine for example has several megs of free space, but limits the phone book to 200 entries. Why the OP is concerned about bytes is beyond me, but I can understand wasting phone book entries when you have a limited hard-coded amount.
A java app would work better for me if I had that problem, because I have loads of free space for apps, but not for the addressbook.
What the hell? Who the hell wants to pay to recieve calls? Couldn't someone with a lot more money just call you and cost you heaps of money?
I was getting really obscene wrong number calls with people leaving messages on my machine.
They were german, and calling from overseas, via collect call, which cost me money - How did they get my answering machine to accept a collect call? Simple - they had another person on the extension (of [hreaked into the connection somehow) pose as me and say yes to accepting the call. So they would leave messages on my machine about raping and killing women, discussing where they buried the body, etc...
And it turns out they were after a certain person with these crank calls - they said his name, I looked it up and he was a nearby Lutheran minister. They had inverted a couple numbers.
Once I managed to be home and picked up the call just after I had heard my answering machine "accept" the collect call, and just before the operatior hung up I told her no, told her what had been happening - to which she repeatedly denied that it was possible... then the two Germans came on and started swearing at me, thinking I was that minister.
With the operator still listening I shouted at them to stop calling, and they loved that, started up with death threats, etc... at which point I just laughed and said "you fucking morons, you've got the WRONG FUCKING NUMBER." and said "so-and-so's at 12, not 21!"
Maybe I shouldn't have done that.... but they shut up instantly and never called back.
I wonder what that Lutheran minister did to get some german phone phreaks pissed at him?
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Remember the good ol' days when we didn't have these little boxes tied to our hip all day, when no one could get ahold of you when you weren't home or at work? Ah life was good then. Now people just get mad when I don't answer the phone because they neglected to call from a number I know, or expect like I have nothing better to do than take their call. Phones suck.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
*mouth agape*
In other countries, like the US, you pay for calling and for receiving calls, and for sending and receiving text messages...
I'm absolutely staggered. I had no idea the mobile phone situation in the States was that screwed up. So if you're on a $10/month texting plan you can find someone you don't like, send him as many messages as you can, and he racks up a huge bill? *shakes head*
I can confirm that in NZ at least you don't pay to receive any calls or messages of any type.
Still, the yanks have much better broadband service than us so I can't exactly gloat (Telecom has a stranglehold on the local loop).
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
If you're trying to weed out frequent misdialers, then add them to your phonebook, create a group "misdialers" and set the ring volume to 0 for the caller group. If you can't set a ring volume but have got a shiny phone, upload an empty.mp3 as a ringtone. Works on my old Nokia 6210 just nicely.
jh