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New Apps Fight Robo-Calls By Pretending To Be Humans (nola.com)
"While lawmakers debate what to do about the roboscourge, engineers have cooked up some clever ways to make bots work for us, not against us," writes the Washington Post, taking a look at apps like the $4-per-month RoboKiller -- which offers malicious "answer bots":
They're voicemail messages that try to keep robots and human telemarketers on the line, listening to nonsense. Answer bot options range from Trump impersonators and extended coughing sessions to someone doing vocal exercises. Even better, RoboKiller will send you an often-hilarious recording of the interaction. (It only uses these recordings when it's very sure it's a spam call.)
Another service, called Jolly Roger, doesn't sell itself as a robocall blocker but takes this auto-generated annoyance idea a step further by actively trying to game the spammers' systems, such as when to press 1 to speak to a human. It calls this tech "artificial stupidity." It costs $11.88 per year.
It's possible you're better off not engaging with a robocall in the hopes the dialer with decide the line is dead. And it's also not clear how much these actually cost the people placing robocalls. But any time robocallers spend with your bot might be minutes they're not calling someone else, so you can think of it as community service.
I'm also not sure this does any good -- but the Post's article also includes a run-down of other robocall-blocking services available from both wireless carriers and independent companies. It recommends starting with the free YouMail app, which collates data from 10 million registered users to determine which calls to block -- and in addition, "tries to trick known robocallers into taking you off their lists by playing them the beep-beep-beep sound of a dead line."
If you live in America, you can also add your phone number to the Federal government's official "Do not call" registry. "It won't help much," writes the Post, "but it only takes 30 seconds so why not?"
Another service, called Jolly Roger, doesn't sell itself as a robocall blocker but takes this auto-generated annoyance idea a step further by actively trying to game the spammers' systems, such as when to press 1 to speak to a human. It calls this tech "artificial stupidity." It costs $11.88 per year.
It's possible you're better off not engaging with a robocall in the hopes the dialer with decide the line is dead. And it's also not clear how much these actually cost the people placing robocalls. But any time robocallers spend with your bot might be minutes they're not calling someone else, so you can think of it as community service.
I'm also not sure this does any good -- but the Post's article also includes a run-down of other robocall-blocking services available from both wireless carriers and independent companies. It recommends starting with the free YouMail app, which collates data from 10 million registered users to determine which calls to block -- and in addition, "tries to trick known robocallers into taking you off their lists by playing them the beep-beep-beep sound of a dead line."
If you live in America, you can also add your phone number to the Federal government's official "Do not call" registry. "It won't help much," writes the Post, "but it only takes 30 seconds so why not?"
I just don't answer any calls that I don't recognize. Period.
Everything else, goes to voice mail.
Some hilarious examples :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue8l8yI-vAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aWPozeIaj4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDhegPZzbuw
press whatever number to connect me with someone and then ask to describe what their pussy or cock looks like. They usually hang up right away. My wife tends to get mad though. Hey they called me.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
... all the telephone lines will be tied up by robots talking with robots. Nobody will be able to make actual calls.
I tend to rant.
I'm three weeks into using Robokiller. The thing that is nice about it is it doesn't seem to even ring when it detects a spammer. So far, three times in a row, I just get an alert that a fun audio recording is ready for me. So in this case you aren't wasting your time - the answer bot is wasting there time, while you are blissfully unaware until after the fact. You don't have to listen to the recording, but I do and then I share it with my siblings.
The ones being malicious are the callers. This is defense and that is never "malicious".
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
(It only uses these recordings when itÃ(TM)s very sure itÃ(TM)s a spam call.)
If you're never going to fix the character encoding, fine. But for fuck's sake, "editors", preview the stories before posting. This shit is embarrassing. It's not like this isn't a known issue here.
The problem isn't that it makes you look like amateurs. The problem is it makes you look like you don't give a shit.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Remember the folks playing a ship's horn sound and selling trips? The CRTC sued the company who was paying for the ads, the advertiser failed to defend themselves in Canada, and so lost. The US honored a Canadian court order and seized their bank accounts. Poof! No more advertiser! This also worked on a different scammer in eastern europe.
davecb@spamcop.net
I started using Jolly Roger almost two years ago:
https://tomwoods.com/ep-937-ho...
They work well with SIP.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Im not a salesweasel, so i give zero fucks about talking to random callers. I like it that way.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
That nola.com page contains iframes which reference washingtonpost.com videos. Some people just see a blank white box there, some people see an error message about not being able to show on that "domain" (which I think really just means the DRM failed), and some people get to see an embedded video.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump