Slashdot Mirror
FCC Gives Carriers the Option To Block Text Messages (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: The Federal Communications Commission said it's getting tough on text message spam by clarifying that phone companies can block unwanted texts. At its monthly meeting Wednesday, the Republican-led agency voted 3-1 to classify SMS text messages as a so-called Title I information service under the Telecom Act. The three Republicans on the FCC, which voted to adopt the classification, said this would allow phone companies to block spam text messages.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the new classification would empower wireless providers to stop unwanted text messages. "The FCC shouldn't make it easier for spammers and scammers to bombard consumers with unwanted texts," he said during the meeting. "And we shouldn't allow unwanted messages to plague wireless messaging services in the same way that unwanted robocalls flood voice services." But he said that's what would happen if the FCC were to classify text messages as a Title II telecommunications service under the law. Jessica Rosenworcel, the lone Democrat on the FCC, disagrees with the classification. "Today's decision offers consumers no new ability to prevent robotexts," she said."It simply provides that carriers can block our text messages and censor the very content of those messages themselves."
She says the FCC did the same thing to the internet last year when it repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules. "That means on the one-year anniversary of the FCC's misguided net neutrality decision -- which gave your broadband provider the power to block websites and censor online content -- this agency is celebrating by expanding those powers to also include your text messages," she added.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the new classification would empower wireless providers to stop unwanted text messages. "The FCC shouldn't make it easier for spammers and scammers to bombard consumers with unwanted texts," he said during the meeting. "And we shouldn't allow unwanted messages to plague wireless messaging services in the same way that unwanted robocalls flood voice services." But he said that's what would happen if the FCC were to classify text messages as a Title II telecommunications service under the law. Jessica Rosenworcel, the lone Democrat on the FCC, disagrees with the classification. "Today's decision offers consumers no new ability to prevent robotexts," she said."It simply provides that carriers can block our text messages and censor the very content of those messages themselves."
She says the FCC did the same thing to the internet last year when it repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules. "That means on the one-year anniversary of the FCC's misguided net neutrality decision -- which gave your broadband provider the power to block websites and censor online content -- this agency is celebrating by expanding those powers to also include your text messages," she added.
if political candidates can still spam text me.
Pai man bad, Net Googtrality good.
Who is defining "unwanted"? Could your phone provider block all messages or certain messages as "unwanted" unless you agree to pay for a tiered or premium service?
That sounds kind of silly. Who would continue to use a carrier that did that? The whole point of having a phone is to be able to communicate; if the carrier starts working against you on that you had better be looking for a new company.
Seriously I can see this coming.
Lobbying by business was the worst thing you guys allowed to happen.
(I'm not american, thankfully!)
What should be blocked or what should not. Emergency medical SMS from my grandmother gets blocked because my ISP saw some keyword they didn't like. Great! Oh well, don't really like SMS anyway.
There's a war going on re: The Control and Flow of Information. This is a small part of it.
I am getting sick of all the stupid advertising text messages I get all the time. Now if they can stop the spam robo calls I get all day long. One in particular that keeps wanting me to change my power supplier is particularity annoying.
How about giving users of the phone the ability to do the blocking?
How would they know what to block? I just text my friends and acquaintances. How would they even know who to block or why or have the right to do so just because some law said in theory it was allowed? Wouldnâ(TM)t I personally need to request that a number be blocked? Maybe they think they are clever and will use some kind of lame sentiment analysis softwares NN or latent vector something or other to do this. If I say âoehey love the shirt!â Would they know not to block that? If I say âoewow I hate that color on youâ, referring to a color I dislike visually, would they call that hate speech and automatically block? Who oversees this?
Not bad! Would mod up if I could!
The last spate of SPAM texts I had was from the Republican PArty about voting. They refused to stop.
Does this permit the carrier to block those too?
Nice service you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it. We think everyone should have it.
How would they know what to block?
You've never managed a spam filter have you? The first few spams (texts) get through.. But when the system detects that a huge number of texts are identical (or nearly identical) and are originating from a single location.. You block them.. Heck, the texts could be filled with nearly random text, but they'll have to have a common element.. Someone to call or a URL to visit.. Something that tells people where to go for "more information".
One could deploy honeypots as well.. Non-published numbers.. If they get a text, you mark it (in the telco system) as "potential spam". If a whole bunch of honeypots are hit, you know you are dealing with spam... Sender blacklisted..
I don't think this would be a particularly large problem to solve.. If the spammers don't send the texts fast enough to be detected they aren't going to hit a lot of people.. If they do send them fast enough, it becomes fairly trivial to detect them.. Win-Win..
Does the classification really have to be changed for this?
What would be wrong with the carrier making such a filter available as an opt-in option without the classification change? (free or payed, regardless)
That seems a common sense solution.
It is delectable.
Go after the spammers and hang a few in the town square. Thatâ(TM)s how you fix that.
I have a question about this since you sound like you might know. Whichever technology the carrier will use to block spam, can it be made small enough so that it can be done on the client's device, maybe giving the user more granular control over what gets through and what doesn't?
I like having spam filtered out (doesn't everyone?) but I'm not fully comfortable letting the carrier make these decisions for me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I like the use of consonants to clarify the nice clean edges
So Carriers can also start blocking encrypted SMS messages.... If I encrypt a message with GPG before I send it, the SMS looks like a long string of random characters.... Well I guess now ISPs can start blocking that as a 'garbage' message?
What a load of crap this is.
What they should have done is require telecoms to verify number ownership. Most of these calls and texts are coming from unknown sources using fake CIDs. If an incoming connection comes from source that is different from the one that 'owns' the number, then you know it's fake.
ie: If 555-1234-5678 is owned by Bell, but you get a connection from a voip provider in India, it's a pretty safe bet that it's not a legit call.
But this would need to be legislated because there's no way any telecom will bother to co-operate with this unless they are forced to.
Of users generated content.
Thats your words a big brand and big gov wants to look at and then remove.
What next? Voice? Say the "unwanted" words in real time and get "talking" on the phone blocked?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
can it be made small enough so that it can be done on the client's device, maybe giving the user more granular control over what gets through and what doesn't?
The problem is that the system itself can get clogged with spam if the carrier doesn't block it. As much as I hate to admit it, they have a point, but I too, would still rather do my own filtering. Maybe we should go back to beepers.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When some completely new idea comes along, it makes sense to ask all kinds of "what if?" questions.
Spam is not new. Well over 90% of emails sent are spam. The reason you receive only a small fraction of the spam os because the provider blocks it. Nothing new about this, we know how this works, how this turns out.
Does Comcast, or any ISP on the entire planet, block all of your email as "unwanted" unless you pay more for a premium service?
Would YOU sign up with a wireless carrier that charged extra for receiving text messages? Would anyone?
Seriously, carriers have been blocking spam messages since at least 1992. We pretty much know how this turns out. The only thing that's new is that we've replaced the carrier's cord with radio waves.
I suppose.. Maybe the phone would download a "block list" every day. The carriers would still have to generate the list, but you could choose to implement or not implement it in whole or in part.
I mean, technically the phone could do it.. But a lot of spam, especially the shit that uses random blocks of text, is hard to detect on one-offs.. I.e. It's hard for our systems to determine a spam is a spam from a single instance.. That's what you'd be asking your phone to do.. Like, at least one spam from each sending is probably going to get in unless you are overly strict.. Having large sample sizes is better.. You could even add a "democracy score". You get a spam, you report it.. and if enough people report a text as a spam, then it's given a larger point value.. At some point the sender is blocked and nobody else gets that spam..
But some are always going to get through unless you're willing to risk blocking legit texts..
Just out of curiosity, how many spam texts do you people get in a given month? I get maybe.... 1.. At most.. I got a google voice # and forward that to my cell phone. Google doesn't spam me (I know, they're evil.. etc.. but at least for the moment they aren't spamming me). Maybe Google is spam filtering for me, I don't know.. I just know I don't get any (statistically) spams.. Robocalls yeah, but not SMS messages..
I don't get any. I'm just offering up an explanation of why it could be advantageous to block the spam as far upstream as possible, so regular traffic can flow. I also have doubts that spam is the real issue, especially when looking at the exceptions to the rules.
The best, simplest solution by far is to demand verifiable caller ID, the ability to block calls/text locally on the phone, and that all these companies be categorized as common carriers. The voters passed by their chance this year, see what happens in '20...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Because of common carrier, the telcos MUST deliver every message, intact. Unfiltered.
Have gnu, will travel.
Changing the laws to do what you want makes something legal, dumbass.
Congress says different laws for information services vs telecommunications services. So the FCC can just take a telecommunication service and relabel it as an information service (or vice versa) to get whatever they want, without bothering to get Congress' permission, or Congress having to change the telecom act.
If this shit is legal, then I know how Trump can get his wall after all, without Congress authorizing a cent. Just redefine the wall as Medicare or preschool services or something like that, and then he can spend any money Congress allocates to those things, on the wall instead. And he can even "make Mexico pay for it" by simply redefining USA as Mexico.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Pai works for China.
I know that I have signed up for a few texts from organizations that do mass texting to our group. I would like to receive those and a few thousand in the group would also like to get them, but how much effort would it take to whitelist them? I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who complain and call it spam though. Maybe they are opposed to the group and want the communications to be blocked...
I have a Verizon phone.
The majority of spam texts that I get are text ads from Verizon, asking me to upgrade my phone or my plan or whatever.
Now what do I do, Shkreli Pai?
Yes. As I understand, it is already there in your phone. It is the ability to block numbers. This is what I was told by service providers. They no longer control incoming calls or SMS to prevent unwanted contact, as that capability is in mobile phones. After that, there has to be the ability to stop unwanted messaging in the message (unsubscribe link in email or sms STOP to a number to unsubscribe). After that, it is covered by the telecommunications law, where telemartkers have to use Do Not Call filtered lists. Not the best solution, but it does appear to have curbed annoying sms a bit.
That's what we want, unlike the opposite of net neutrality. To be precise, we want a telephony service that can blacklist phone messages, the same as a networking service blacklisting executable files (via anti-virus applications). But Samsung and Apple aren't interested in that, for some reason. To prevent message hijacking, the service can operate inside a version-control system, so the recipient can always see the original message.
I get on average one per day. It's always the same fucking company peddling the same fucking scam product. It comes in on a different phone number every time.
Gotta say, I'm pleasantly surprised to hear that.
Why can't more female Jewish democrats be like her? America would be a lot less fucked up if that were the case.
So who chooses what SMS/MMS messages go through? If the customer has an option to subject themselves or not subject themselves to the carrier's filtering, I'm okay with that.
If the customer doesn't have a choice to enable/disable filtering, it is just a grab for censorship.
No good deed goes unpunished.
MoveOn org distributed spammed "me" every day for a month before the midterms. I say "me" because they always used someone else's name. I kept asking them to stop, but they would not. They made me vote against their interests.
This. I hope trump starts a world war. Then I can watch the repubtards blame it on Hillary.