Slashdot Mirror
AT&T, Apple, Google To Work On 'Robocall' Crackdown (reuters.com)
Last month the FCC had pressed major U.S. phone companies to take immediate steps to develop technology that blocks unwanted automated calls available to consumers at no charge. It had demanded the concerned companies to come up with a "concrete, actionable" plan within 30 days. Well, the companies have complied. On Friday, 30 major technology companies announced they are joining the U.S. government to crack down on automated, pre-recorded telephone calls that regulators have labeled as "scourge." Reuters adds: AT&T, Alphabet, Apple, Verizon Communications and Comcast are among the members of the "Robocall Strike Force," which will work with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The strike force will report to the commission by Oct. 19 on "concrete plans to accelerate the development and adoption of new tools and solutions," said AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson, who is chairing the group. The group hopes to put in place Caller ID verification standards that would help block calls from spoofed phone numbers and to consider a "Do Not Originate" list that would block spoofers from impersonating specific phone numbers from governments, banks or others.
They've been working with us to expand our robocalling since it is so profitable for them. We just added two new PRI lines and budgeted over six figures more per month for long distance calling with them. They love robocallers and are working hard to sell them services.
The group hopes to put in place Caller ID verification standards that would help block calls from spoofed phone numbers and to consider a "Do Not Originate" list that would block spoofers from impersonating specific phone numbers from governments, banks or others.
This is totally the wrong approach. It is why, for example, antivirus products tend to not work all that well. Instead, the phone company should not be able to legally allow phone number spoofing unless and until the entity that wants to spoof proves to the phone company that they or another legal entity they control is the legal owner of the number which will be displayed. I'm sure it will still be abused because people are sort of relentless in their desire to game the system, but it would be orders of magnitude better than what we have now.
You don't need to prevent spoofing, and you don't even need a community black list. Implement this at the carrier and the problem will be done: 1) have service answer call, and make sure user is real and not a robocaller by asking them to press a specific (random) number key... 2) After completion of the previous step, ask the user to state their name. 3) after the completion of the previous steps, then ring the owners phone, and when they pick up, the service will tell them the phone number of the caller, along with a playback of the person's recorded name. 4) you have the option to dump/reject the caller, or allow them to connect. Once you allow the caller through, that person goes through without authentication next time they call (unless you remove them from you whitelist). Non whitelisted number can still get through if they are legit, and numbers that are spoofed still have to go through the process before they make your phone ring. This would kill almost all robocalls and still allow screening of non-robocall sales calls. Problem solved, just needs to be implemented for all phone line types.