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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She says the FCC did the same thing to the internet last year when it repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules.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.
I think it's more likely that they want to charge the originating companies extra fees for the ability to send text messages to their customers rather than charge the customers more themselves.
Ideally, it would be something you could freely opt into or out of. Carriers have the advantage that they can anonymously scan incoming messages & keep count of similar ones, escalating the "is this spam?" judgment call to a human once some threshhold is exceeded.
Blocking by origin number sounds nice, but doesn't really work because there's nothing to certify that a SMS sender actually IS who they claim to be. You can block spamming SMS numbers all day & ultimately accomplish nothing besides wasting your time because they probably weren't REALLY using that number anyway.
It's why Gmail is so good at catching spam... they see EVERYONE'S incoming messages & flag similar messages sent to lots of users for human scrutiny.
The representative who opposed the bill isn't entirely *wrong*, but at the moment there aren't many better options that can be implemented *quickly* to reduce sms spam. It comes down to, "is it worth the potential risk of telco tyranny to reduce our spam load NOW"? As long as it's done in a way you can freely opt into or out of, I'd say yeah.
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..
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.
Exactly.
I have Spectrum, but don't use their DNS. Just an hour ago, the DNS I use was blocked again for about 30 minutes. This has been happening pretty regularly lately. If I switch to another DNS or go to a VPN, I'm back up on my desktop instantly but all of the other devices in my home stay down unless I change the DNS setting on my router. Setting up a combination of two different DNS providers also seems to help.
This is a recent phenomenon that didn't exist prior to net neutrality. I am also seeing 10-fold increases in streaming bandwidth when I use my VPN.