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New Gadget Blocks 'Spam' Phone Calls
Smivs writes "The BBC report on a new gizmo that can block/filter spam phone calls. The system basically intercepts all calls. If it recognizes them as a friend or a member of the user's family — numbers on the so-called star list created by the user — it lets them through as normal.
If the caller's number is on a zap list — numbers of telemarketers or other nuisance callers — the device answers it, and all future calls from that number, with an automated message which means the phone does not ring at all.
If the system doesn't recognize the caller's number, or the caller withholds their number, it asks them who they are, puts them on hold and then rings the user's phone.
The user has the option of taking the call, having the system take a message, or they can reject the call and add the number to the 'zap' list.
Users can add callers to their 'star' list by pressing the star button on their phone at any point during a call." So wait, they can't spam me twice? If I press a button? And if they actually show their phone number on my caller ID? What about the auto insurance scammers that hit me 10x/week?
I'm pretty sure that all the above and more is possible with an asterisk setup.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
On November 1st, I will be turning off ALL the ringers on my phones. Why? Because the politicians will be bombarding me with calls about how the other guy is Satan incarnate. Some times is backfires. Like the democratic ad against Chamblis here in Georgia. I didn't know that he supported the Fair Tax. Now, I'll vote for him.
First of all, don't EVER give money to these "firefighters" and/or "police" charitable funds. Many, many scammers pose as these charitable organizations, and they only want your credit card/checking account info. Also, even if such a charity is legitimate, there's no reason to fund their administrative costs, money that doesn't go to the police or firefighters, money that pays for them to—you guessed it—make more telemarketing calls.
If you want to support your local firefighters and/or police, call them and tell them that you'd like to make a donation. I assure you that they will be more than happy to accept your kindness, and best of all, they will make use of 100% of the money you donate, not pay people to bother yet more people by making unsolicited calls.
Second of all, you're missing part of how this gadget works. If you're not on the whitelist or the blacklist, you'll be asked to say your name. It then rings your line and tells you what the name of the person is who is calling. Or, at least, what they recorded as their name. At that point, you can either answer, whitelist them, or blacklist them.
I suppose your phone might still ring, which could be considered a nuisance, but you're never actually talking to the idiot who is calling you, and there's a measure of satisfaction knowing that they're getting a message that says something like, "This person is refusing to take your call. Have a nice day!"
That's the problem I would have. Probably more than half of the calls I get that are unlisted are calls that I want. The other half are telemarketers. Even though I am on the "Do Not Call" registry, they get around it by either:
a) Pretending to get the wrong number, hanging up quickly when I call them on it.
b) Have some loose (and yes, sometimes legitimate) connection to a "Not for profit and Tax Exempt" business which, at least in Massachusetts is enough for the registry to not apply
c) Is a survey related to some business connection I have. Credit Card companies who sold my info etc.
None of these three are calls that I would pick up, but I just don't see this device weeding them out. I suppose if this device could "answer" then ask for a name, and instead of ringing, play the recorded name... otherwise hang up. That would be good.
I *am* on the "do not call list." I still get at least two or three of these calls a day. They just masquerade themselves as "surveys" or non-profits (or give me the "We are calling on behalf of your credit card company to tell you about this great offer..." line) to get around the do not call list.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...and GrandCentral. Lord knows I record or "listinIn" _every_ incoming call from an unknown number and then send the telemarketers "to spam" where I never have to worry about them again.
GrandCentral also has its own spam filter of (supposed) telemarketers, and the application allows friends and family to get right through.
The most annoying calls now are the "robo-calls." What really infuriates me about them is that I can't seem to hang up on them (if you try to hang up and pick up the phone later, the message is still playing). This pisses me off because it means that my phone company is somehow in cahoots with these bastards and is essentially letting them hijack my phone line without my permission. What if I needed to make an emergency call and had to wait for the robo-call to go through all its "great offers" before I could even dial out?
I write robo-call software and when something like that happens it is the fault of your local carrier. Many of the local carriers in the US have been getting lazy about sending the proper signals when a connection is disconnected. It is up to the carriers to send this signal. I can regularly call my boss' landline and get a difference of 30 seconds between when he hangs up and when I finally get the signal has been disconnected.
Programming: Its not just a job - its an indenture.
*sigh* The phone company is NOT in cahoots with those using the robo-callers, but I can understand how it might appear to be so. If simply hanging up does not work, you can try unplugging your telephone or you can even go to the NID and unplug your entire house from there. One of those two things should work (and you can either leave your receiver off-hook or not while attempting these things). If you're using a telephone with a curly cord, you can also try just unplugging the handset from the base, too.
I have a similar box (Caller ID Manager) from PrivacyCorps.com which intercepts the first ring and checks the caller ID. We have a Panasonic wireless setup with 4 handsets from which the base station is fed from the CID unit. Bad CID? We never even get that first ring. The call is routed to another plug on the device where we have an answering machine telling the caller we don't take calls from their number.
We've blocked all 800, 866, 888, 000, 123-456-7890, etc. The thing works beautifully.
Trolling is a art,
Cell service is still poor when compared to landlines, for one thing (I'm speaking of quality here, though availability is true during high-volume call times), and a cell phone for everyone in the family is generally more than land service. It's also expensive in many areas to get dry-loop DSL or cable internet service (for me, it's $17-40 more for internet without a land-phone, depending on speed and provider).
Also, with the DNC list, we get maybe 1 call per month which is a telemarketer. My wife got more wrong-number dials on her new cell number in the first 6 months.
Land lines are convenient for several reasons, though some admittedly fall into the old-codger realm. The biggest is a phone that never moves. For those who have ever a) misplaced a cell phone or b) had an emergency in the house (i.e. 911*), there is a good use for them.
*yes, in theory they can get your location from your cell. In most of the US (by area, not population), though, the only information a 911 center is going to get inside of 10 minutes is your address which is linked in their internal database to your phone number. Even e911 isn't universal - or close to it. If you have a stroke or a heart attack, it may make the difference between recovering and being dead. Remember - Not everyone is 20-something and single.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Google's grandcentral offers this (they call it call screening), and they offer more too. Currently in Beta. Currently free.
http://www.grandcentral.com/home/features
Screen Callers
Know who's calling and screen unknown callers
ListenInTM
Hear why someone is calling before taking the call
Call Record
Record calls on the fly and access recordings online
Block Callers
Unwanted callers won't be able to reach you anymore
Notifications
Receive voicemail notifications via email or SMS
Ring Different Phones
One number that rings different phones based on who's calling
Greetings
Personalize your voicemail greetings by caller or group
RingShareTM
Go beyond the ring and choose ringback tones for your callers
WebCall Button
Let people call you from a web page without showing your number
CallSwitch
Switch phones in the middle of a call
Click2Call
Call from your addressbook and save your typing
Mobile Access
Visual voicemail for your mobile phone
Best way to avoid this is to never register to vote. Cuts way back on the political calls (mailings, too.) I've never received either.
I work from home and get tons of robo calls, and even if it's not a robot talking on the phone, marketing firms usually have some machine dialing the call and then hand it off to someone once the machine determines there's a human on the line. Ever wonder why you say hello and it takes the person on the other end a few seconds to respond? That's why. Phone captcha would eliminate these calls... at least for awhile until someone beats the captcha.
Buy a Telezapper.
http://www.telezapper.com/
When you (or your answering machine) picks up the phone, the telezapper plays a dialtone.
Humans just hear a tone, auto-dialers interpret it as "this line has been disconnected"
I got one for my parents, long before the Do Not Call list and after around a month, as your number gets taken off of auto-dialing lists, it makes a huge difference in the volume of calls that come in.
You can also do it, like I did for myself, by recording the tone onto the beginning of an answering machine message, but the telezapper works whenever you pick up the phone. So if you're fine with letting every "unknown number" go to the answering machine (my parents were not) you can implement the Telezapper's $40 functionality for free.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I write robo-call software
Of all the times not to hit the "Post Anonymous" check box.
Why? I take a great deal of pride in the work that I have done on this software. Currently with minimal resources my code can sustain about 2000 simultaneous calls all day long. We also do bulk emails, pagers, and faxes with IMs happening sometime next year.
There is a difference between taking pride in the code as written and the way it is used. However, on that second point I have no complaints either. Our customers are first responders, government entities, and businesses (of the non-telemarketer variety). We send out school closings, drug/food recalls, hospital/doctor reminder calls, pharmacy pickup reminders, school absentee notifications, amber alerts, and emergency alerts.
The only slightly yuck moment came when the CTO put forward the idea (which was shot down) to sell time slices of our system to make calls for American Idol. One the evil scale that is Dr. Horrible level at best.
I would post the name of my company, but our poor corporate server would last only seconds against Slashdot.
Programming: Its not just a job - its an indenture.
I do this on my Asterisk system by having an answering machine on my POTS line give out an 0870 (expensive to call) number that forwards to my VoIP phone number. My friends and family have the real number (so don't pay the 0870 call rate). The ringer is switched off (as is the speaker) on my answerphone so I don't hear it ring, it doesn't disturb me and the call spammers don't generally like to call 0870 numbers. It's a win-win. :)
Also, whocallsme.com is a very useful site in looking up the caller IDs of call spammers, and isn't restricted to USA or UK.
-- Soruk
My mom was targeted by scammers, and I tried the so-and-so modem for a while and I added the scam callers numbers one by one. The callers still got through because they knew she'd answer if they kept calling because callerID doesn't show up on the first ring. After my mom got taken in by scammers despite my best efforts, I built her an Asterisk machine and we added a blacklist. The analog card cost more than the box to run it on, but it's worth it. Her blacklist means the call never rings. She has had no trouble using an Aastra IP phone that I can program from my house with quickdials for family and friends. (I also built a couple of pfSense embedded systems for the IPSec tunnel between our house. I had previously built an Asterisk box at home because SIP service is $5/month with it rather than $30/month with Vonage.) The problem is that new numbers will call that you haven't added to the blacklist. So we changed her number to a new, unlisted, unpublished number. All calls are monitored and the records kept for two weeks. If it happens again, we'll have more evidence. What we need is a distributed blacklist just like we use for spam servers. It wouldn't be hard to do this for Asterisk systems, but most home phones can't do it. Building it into devices like the Linksys/Sipura PAP2T would be the "killer app" that makes SIP services popular.
Contact your telephone company and ask for "disconnect on hang-up" on your line. If they don't know what that is, ask for "the thing you need when you get a dial-on-demand burglar alarm."
Phone systems in North America traditionally require both parties to hang up to terminate the circuit. With disconnect on hang-up, you can kill the circuit from your end by hanging up for at most 10 seconds.
This is increasingly the default. But it should be available everywhere these days; I think the last mechanical switch is finally gone.