Slashdot Mirror
John Oliver Fights Robocalls By Robocalling Ajit Pai and the FCC (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comedian John Oliver is taking aim at the Federal Communications Commission again, this time demanding action on robocalls while unleashing his own wave of robocalls against FCC commissioners. In a 17-minute segment yesterday on HBO's Last Week Tonight, Oliver described the scourge of robocalls and blamed Pai for not doing more to stop them. Oliver ended the segment by announcing that he and his staff are sending robocalls every 90 minutes to all five FCC commissioners. "Hi FCC, this is John from customer service," Oliver's recorded voice says on the call. "Congratulations, you've just won a chance to lower robocalls in America today... robocalls are incredibly annoying, and the person who can stop them is you! Talk to you again in 90 minutes -- here's some bagpipe music."
When it came to robocalling the FCC, Oliver didn't need viewers' help. "This time, unlike our past encounters [with the FCC], I don't need to ask hordes of real people to bombard [the FCC] with messages, because with the miracle of robocalling, I can now do it all by myself," Oliver said. "It turns out robocalling is so easy, it only took our tech guy literally 15 minutes to work out how to do it," Oliver also said. He noted that "phone calls are now so cheap and the technology so widely available that just about everyone has the ability to place a massive number of calls." Under U.S. law, political robocalls to landline telephones are allowed without prior consent from the recipient. Such calls to cell phones require the called party's prior express consent, but Oliver presumably directed his robocalls to the commissioners' office phones. Oliver told the FCC commissioners: "if you want to tell us that you don't consent to be robocalled, that's absolutely no problem. Just write a certified letter to the address we buried somewhere within the first chapter of Moby Dick that's currently scrolling up the screen... find the address, write us a letter, and we'll stop the calls immediately."
When it came to robocalling the FCC, Oliver didn't need viewers' help. "This time, unlike our past encounters [with the FCC], I don't need to ask hordes of real people to bombard [the FCC] with messages, because with the miracle of robocalling, I can now do it all by myself," Oliver said. "It turns out robocalling is so easy, it only took our tech guy literally 15 minutes to work out how to do it," Oliver also said. He noted that "phone calls are now so cheap and the technology so widely available that just about everyone has the ability to place a massive number of calls." Under U.S. law, political robocalls to landline telephones are allowed without prior consent from the recipient. Such calls to cell phones require the called party's prior express consent, but Oliver presumably directed his robocalls to the commissioners' office phones. Oliver told the FCC commissioners: "if you want to tell us that you don't consent to be robocalled, that's absolutely no problem. Just write a certified letter to the address we buried somewhere within the first chapter of Moby Dick that's currently scrolling up the screen... find the address, write us a letter, and we'll stop the calls immediately."
Why such a long period in between calls? It should be 90 seconds.
Of course it has a business purpose... to get press coverage, publicize his show on HBO, and get more viewers.
I know it's annoying, but it's quite likely that the person who linked to it did not know it was region locked. I know that in many cases I would have no way of knowing and no reliable way to test if it was.
If only he had some sort of position of power involving communications. He could do something about robocalls.
Oh he said he’s against them but he’s also on record as being opposed to rules that former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler put in place to fight them. Also his current solution is to “urge” the telecoms to do something about them. Perhaps if Pai was head of the FCC he could do more but he simply doesn’t have that kind of power.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It is not that hard.
The phone company know who they're billing when they complete a circuit. They know who every caller on their network is and what numbers they are assigned. The TELCO should be responsible for assigning the id to the circuit. Not the subscriber.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Here's an idea for starters: For each incoming call that has misrepresented caller ID information, you get $10 off of that month's phone bill.
"But the phone companies can't do that due to $TECHNICALITY"
This is 2019, and they can't keep track of 20 bytes of information? Give me a break. They always seem to know who to bill for a call. With this financial incentive in place, they'd figure it out right quick.
If they want to annoy the controllers of the FCC shouldn't they be robocalling Verizon CEO's?
please explain what the FCC can do?
The FCC should ban number spoofing, unless the company doing it has full legal control over both the calling number and the spoofed number.
Any spoofed call should be required to have a live human available to handle callbacks on the spoofed number, and that human should be required to provide the full name and legal domestic address of the entity that made the call.
There are legitimate reasons for spoofing. There is no legitimate reason for anonymous spoofing without accountability.
I've got news for you. Just like gun laws, there are NO laws that will stop robocalls. The scammers/spammers will ignore anything on the books. The ONLY way to stop them is to hit them in the pocketbook. It has to cost more than a few pennies to call a million people. As long as their computer can call people and their call center people only have to talk to a tiny fraction of those who are likely to fall for their scam, the rest of us will have to endure it. I for one am doing my part. EVERY time I get a robocall, I press 1 to be connected to a real person. The second that happens, the meter is running for the guy calling you. They have to pay someone real money to talk to you. About half the time, I don't even engage them. I just say "WHAT?" a couple of times to make them repeat their script. If I'm not doing anything but watching TV, I will play with them awhile. I pretend I am getting my credit card. I ask them silly questions. I pretend I am old and can't hear. Etc. etc... If everybody did this, the robocalls would stop tomorrow!!!
Congress should set broad guidelines and leave the technical details up to the regulatory agencies.
So this should be done by the FCC.
As usual, a bunch of excuses.
The ID misrepresented if the person making the call is not entitled to use the number displayed. It's as simple as that.
You people have known about this problem for decades, but have done jack squat about it so far. But I'm sure at $10 bucks a pop, smart people like you would figure out a solution in no time. After all, protocol handshakes, whitelists and the like aren't exactly rocket science anymore.
If this problem were really so hard to resolve, it would be an issue in every country. But it's not. The volume of robocalls in European countries is orders of magnitudes lower than in the US. I get maybe one every couple of months. That suggests to me the issue is much more one of political will and regulatory teeth than it is about technical challenge.
Who do I trust to have a better handle on it, John Oliver and the lawyers at HBO, or random anonymous internet guy?
And I don't even doubt you're a lawyer. It is just that your swollen head won't make your opinion as important as the opinions of the lawyers who are involved. They put a lot of work in to make his show even possible.