FTC Awards $50k In Prizes To Cut Off Exasperating Robocalls

coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today said it picked two winners out of nearly 800 entries for its $50,000 Robocall Challenge which dared technologists to come up with an innovative way of blocking the mostly illegal but abundant calls. According to the FTC, Serdar Danis and Aaron Foss will each receive $25,000 for their proposals, which both use software to intercept and filter out illegal prerecorded calls using technology to 'blacklist' robocaller phone numbers and 'whitelist' numbers associated with acceptable incoming calls." Can't wait until Symantec, Kaspersky, etc. sell competing anti-spammer packages for phones.

Comments

I know ...

[gstoddart]

Offer $1k for the heads of anybody who runs one of these organizations. ;-)

It's gotten to the point where pretty much any unknown caller either gets hung up on immediately, or told to PFO since I can't believe they are who they claim to be.

If I actually have any business interest with you, send it to me in snail mail, because I no longer trust incoming calls -- between the fake tech support, notification I've won a cruise, or someone offering to lower my credit card interest but who has no idea of who I am, the vast majority of calls I receive are clearly fraudulent and coming from another country.

Re:I know ...

[sl4shd0rk]

Dear gstoddart,
Thank our lucky stars we've found you on Slashdot! We have tried to contact you by cell and land phoneline both work, and at home and each time without successful. We have only one chance left to you respond or forever your loss. Please text OKYAGOOD to #3832 to claim free cruise or to #2231 to lower your credit rating!

PS: We have noticed your email is full of virus and we can help you clean that out. Text STOPSPAM to #2002 for reply.

Sincerely,
Hazel from Rhodesia

Re:Where's that checklist when I need it

[Anon, Not Coward D]

Your proposed solution will not stop robocalls because you are not using a host file

FTFY

Pfffff 50k?

[dmomo]

I just got a call from this lady who said I could make at LEAST that much EVERY WEEK all at home using my computer. I even get to go on a cruise for a small deposit.

Re:Where's that checklist when I need it

[mbkennel]

(x) it doesn't make the return from doing illegal activities negative
(x) it doesn't make the people who deserve to go to prison go to prison

Good old fashioned police work.

[Hatta]

Hire some investigators to wait by the phone for a robocall. When they get one, play along. While they play along, collect evidence. When you have enough evidence, arrest the perp and send him to prison.

Is this a trick question?

Re:Good old fashioned police work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because robocallers are not the people selling goods and services. Robocallers are "lead generators" meaning they sell leads.

Say you get a robocall for burial insurance. You press 1 when prompted, and "play along." A few days later, you get a salesman from ABC burial insurance calling you to sell you a policy. Sue the shit out of ABC, and you find out that ABC never even heard of robocalls, and doesn't know anything. ABC bought "leads" -- names and phone numbers of people who were interested in burial insurance. ABC buys leads like that from several different sources. Some come from door-to-door salesmen, some from live telemarketing, some from web sites visitors who complete a form, etc. They have no idea which lead generator they got your name and address from. (BTW, warm burial insurance leads sell for $5 to $20 a pop).

So ABC didn't make the calls, and isn't liable. Even if they can tell you the lead generator that they got your name and number from, that is a long-gone empty shell, operating a VOIP phone bank from Indonesia, or a block of prepaid SIMs using untraceable wireless numbers.

Re:Good old fashioned police work.

[Obfuscant]

So ABC didn't make the calls, and isn't liable.

The second that ABC called my number they were in violation of the DNC legislation. That makes them liable.

Prosecute enough of these innocent "lead buyers" who are paying people who create phone spam and people will stop paying phone spammers. Phone spammers don't work for free, so they'll eventually stop when nobody buys their services.

The same policy can work for email spammers. If nobody paid Constant Contact to spam potential or current customers, Constant Contact wouldn't spam anyone.

Worthless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Worthless. 99% of all illegal robocalls currently spoof their CallerID. I get robocalls that appear to be coming from my neighbors (robocallers frequently spoof a number that is in the same areacode and prefix as the number they are calling). When I subpoena phone records, the calls actually came from across the country from some podunk reseller in California. All that will happen is that robocallers will start spoofing the whitelisted phone numbers.

You need 1) some indication that the callerID has been falsified (i.e. does not match the exchange of the originating ANI) and 2) have carriers impose restrictions on their clients ability to spoof CallerID, such as requiring them to register the numbers they want to spoof in advance, and prove they have a right to use those numbers in outbound calls (such as a call center making calls for a client, where they legitimately need to put the client's inbound 800 number in the outgoing callerID).

One step further...

[swb]

...follow the money trail and file a RICO suit against EVERYONE involved in the money trail, especially managers and executives or anyone else who would have "created a climate accepting of working with illegal businesses".

Perp walk those fuckers on national news, naming names and home towns.

If we ratchet up the fear factor high enough, nobody will work with these assholes anymore, and if you can't collect money what's the point? Sure, some politically minded assholes will still robocall ("Stop Obama!", "Legalize Gay Marriage", etc), but if it doesn't make any money, nobody will do it.

There's a big chunk of the "legitimate" economy at work here to keep these guys going -- if we take away their 2% take and make sure some of them do 20 in Lewisberg while desperately holding the soap then this will dampen the urge to dabble at the fringes of the economy.

Re:Like the pirate VS the DRM wars..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So shall the dialer VS the anti-dialer war continue.

My company makes an auto-dialer product used by a lot of these contact centers. We will just outsmart whatever technology sits between us and the callee. That said, some tech-savvy people may be able to beat us, but the general population won't.

Your candor is impressive. Most people who attract the loathing of virtually everybody for a living are a trifle more reticient about it.

anti-spam for phones

[kwerle]

Can't wait until Symantec, Kaspersky, etc. sell competing anti-spammer packages for phones.

My google voice number discards spam calls all the time. Including political calls.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235637/google_voice_spam_filter_blocks_unwanted_calls.html

Best thing ever.

Re:Like the pirate VS the DRM wars..

[Farmer Tim]

That said, some tech-savvy people may be able to beat us, but the general population won't.

You mean tech-savvy enough to look up your Facebook account and administer said beating? That's not a particularly high bar...

Re:Where's that checklist when I need it

[SJHillman]

And yet those are the least interesting, most annoying calls I get. Actually, those are the only robocalls I get. I can't think of a single person that I know that has a neutral or non-negative stance towards political robocalls.

Crude ACL

[PhraudulentOne]

I run a telephone network in Canada, and I have somewhat of a Crude "ACL" for a system-wide blocklist. I have been using it for years, and it's pretty effective though not very efficient to manage.

I monitor incoming trunks and alarm on spikes. When I get a spike from a robodialer, I look up the number online to see if it's listed as a scam or generic robo call. If it is, I simply add it to my "ACL," and all further calls coming into my system are rejected with a short message. The message states that if they would like to phone anyone on our system they need to first call our main business office (the only number they are allowed to dial) and explain who they are.

I have a large list of obviously fake numbers that I reject (all zeros, 01234567890, 1111111111, etc )

Occasionally I will have a collection agency that phones in and complains that they are a valid business, and that they should be let through (using a number such as 1-000-000-0000. I explain that there is no valid reason why they would need to spoof their number, and that they should dial as PRIVATE or BLOCKED if they want to proceed. I simply do not allow them to phone in.

I'm not totally sure on the legalities of this, but customers love it, and I enjoy the satisfaction of blocking a tonne of calls. I have no way of dealing with companies that spoof local numbers, but I can at least block all of my exchanges as they would never be coming back in over the same trunk group as these robo dialers anyway.

This is one of those projects that I have slowly tweaked over time, but I am considering writing scripts that will go out and crawl those common telephone complain sites to build a list on the fly every week and add those numbers to my 'ACL.' It would be nice if there was an up-to-date 'spamhaus' equivalent for phone numbers.

Re:Where's that checklist when I need it

[somarilnos]

With that in mind... Rasmussen still gets enough people to respond to actually publish polls, and they strictly make automated calls to gather this information. That means that their intended purpose (spamming a large enough population with a low percentage chance play) is still a successful business model. All it is is spam for phones, and it wouldn't happen if it didn't work. No matter what peoples' attitudes are towards it.