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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She says the FCC did the same thing to the internet last year when it repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules.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.
if political candidates can still spam text me.
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?
There's a war going on re: The Control and Flow of Information. This is a small part of it.
That sounds kind of silly. Who would continue to use a social media platform that did that? The whole point of being on social media is to be able to communicate; if the platform starts working against you on that you had better be looking for a new one.
Except.. there are limited options, really. Your speech in the new town square (primary social media platforms) is already limited; why wouldn't your private speech be limited now as well?
Society as a whole seems to have already tacitly agreed that the town square can be privately owned and controlled. Why would this trend stop there?
The slippery slope is only a fallacy when one is not actually sliding down an ice covered incline towards a precipice.
Check your premises.
Indeed. This isn't comparable to NN for ISPs. Many people have only a single broadband provider. But switching cellular providers is easy.
B.S. Huge chunks of rural Americans are in areas served by a single cell company. Sometimes it's due to terrain, sometimes it's due to population size. With the telcos slowly abandoning wireline service the issue is becoming more important.
If the telcos weren't granted huge taxpayer subsidies and easement rights not afforded to smaller competition, I'd not have a complaint.. But the fact is that the American taxpayers are directly funding these companies. If you're gonna take taxpayer funds you should have to listen to taxpayer concerns.
And don't pull the whole "you should move" bullshit.. Rural America produces your food. Quit shitting on them.
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..
Who blocks on keywords? That's lunacy.. You block on keywords being in thousands of texts maybe.. But you don't block a single SMS on a single keyword... SPAM filters (normally) use a score based approach... Maybe a keyword gives you a single point... And location might be another point.. And a URL might be a 3rd point... Time of day a 4th point.. (You get the idea).. If the total points add up to some predetermined amount, then you can be fairly confident you have a spam. But only a total moron would block any message based upon a single data point.
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.
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..
CALIFORNIA produces your food, FTFY
We produce a lot of it here, but not all of it.. Not even the majority.. Kansas, Iowa... states like that produce huge amounts of the staples.. Wheat, Corn... etc.
California is losing farmland at a scary pace... I've been watching it happen with my own eyes for decades.. When I was much younger one could still call San Diego County a food producer.. Not so much any more... Yes, food is still produced here, but not in the quantities of just 20 years ago.
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