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Ask HN: How can we stop spam calls?

5 points by jyu ↗ HN
I have noticed an increase in "scam likely" phone calls. It's getting up to 10 calls a day now, where as 3 years ago I would get maybe 1 spam phone call a week.

This seems like a problem with misaligned incentives. The profit from scammers successfully deceiving people is higher than the operational cost of cycling through phone lines, labor costs, etc. Is there something we can collectively do to change these incentives? How about individual efforts? Or is this a technological arms race? Are there other countries that have solved this problem?

7 comments

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byoung2
I have T-Mobile and there is an option to just block Scam Likely calls instead of just labeling them. I have never had a legitimate call mislabeled.
bediger4000
I don't think we can without US government action. The FTC could require phone companies to match caller ID to the actual calling number. I'm sure there are a few technical problems with this, but really, the problem is one of the US government not responding to a problem for so long, that telephone calls are becoming passe, just like email has, and for the same reason.
MrCoffee7
Some phone providers give free services to block these calls like Nomorobo.
nobody9999
In the US, the FCC has mandated[0] implementation of STIR/SHAKEN[1] by all the major telecoms by 30 June 2021.

That should take care of most spam/scam calls, as it requires the telecoms to verify that the callerID data matches the source of the call.

This won't eliminate such calls, but it will make it much harder for spammers/scammers to run their robocalling projects effectively.

One of the issues we have in the US is that telecoms charge the recipient for these calls, not the originator. In some (many? most?) other countries that's reversed and such activities are much less prevalent.

I imagine that once STIR/SHAKEN is fully implemented, a variety of actors will step in to capitalize on the opportunity to provide blocking/tagging spam/scam calls as well.

As with most things, there isn't a simple, singular solution.

[0] https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN

ObsoleteNerd
> One of the issues we have in the US is that telecoms charge the recipient for these calls, not the originator. In some (many? most?) other countries that's reversed and such activities are much less prevalent.

Here in Australia the caller pays, and I still get daily spam calls. Nearly always from Indian call centres using VOIP services (can tell by the unique/different audio quality), or showing what I assume are spoofed CIDs (Zimbabwe, etc).

We have a “Do Not Call” register[0] run by the Government that’s (supposed to) give major fines if the company ignores it, but it doesn’t seem to bother these guys, I guess because they’re overseas anyway.

[0] https://www.donotcall.gov.au/

AdrianEGraphene
You're right on the money, economic incentives drives spam in phone calls. As IoT expands, so will spam. Collectively, we can all sit behind refundable MicroPayWalls. Contacts call free. Non-contacts are ignored unless they deposit $0.05. They get a refund if the call time is more than 25s. If the call time is less than 25s, you keep their deposit. [1]

This RoboCash app does exactly that, and it pays you for each call you block as an added bonus. [2]

STIR/SHAKEN is a partial solution that doesn't go far enough to solve the problem.

[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c1GyiVVZFDiUuxWkBCQ63qLdJgP...

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fyncom.rob...

Disclaimer: I made the app and wrote the white paper.

70122-_6
the main problem with the libremfive is that you cannot swipe the phone tab off to check what number is being in-systemeticitised, using web in gsm phones.