Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/12/to-opt-out-just-die-3.html
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13 Likes
Every 90 minutes is too predictable. It should randomly vary between 12 and 130 minutes.
37 Likes
Every 90 minutes?
Too lax. Make it every 9.
20 Likes
Every day I sift through 20 - 30 robocall messages to find relevant phone calls, the concept of actually answering my phone just because it is ringing has long departed my mind. I hope everyone robocalls the FCC until something is done about this. They’ve literally broken my phone in the sense that I honestly cannot live a halfway normal life while using the phone as a… phone.
20 Likes
Better: start at 90 mins, then halve it till it calls every minute. Run that for 5 cycles, then back to 90. Rinse. Repeat. Insanity ensues
13 Likes
ugh, same here. A number in my area code called me 3 times in a row, instantly after I swiped “ignore” each time. I’ve taken toobsessively trying to discern whether a voicemail might be a human based on the length of the message. This has caused me to miss important calls in the past from the YMCA, schools for my daughter, and financial institutions. IP addresses are bad enough. Phone numbers simply must be consistent.
8 Likes
Exactly. I’ve been having to push every number I don’t immediately know to voicemail as well and it makes me miss important calls. I’ve even pushed people I know to text me before a call just so I have a sort of two-factor authentication.
6 Likes
Thank you John Oliver, yet again.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/10/voice-phishing-scams-are-getting-more-clever/
Why stop with merely spoofing a phone number?
With a few particular digital tools (Lyrebird, Deep Voice, etc.), any criminal could easily take advantage of the feeble-minded, the technologically unsophisticated and the like, by simply having a few audio samples of a specific person’s voice.
Maybe the criminal has purchased voicemail messages in bulk on the Dark Web, along with entire cell phone contacts lists.
Maybe the criminal then uses AI to do some sorting, mixing and prepped a very short script that will harvest other [financial] data. At that point, it would be a simple matter to clone the AI and set up a bot net.
You would not even know who you were talking to, several generations in on the voice-spoofing technology. You’d have to develop new info sec countermeasures to validate any caller you speak with.
ETA: added software names
9 Likes
In theory, randomized call intervals could be a lot more annoying that any discernible pattern.
In theory, calls should emanate from randomized numbers, because: call-blocking.
And then, there’s this other level of weird:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/When_a_Stranger_Calls_(2006_film)
5 Likes
I’m curious about this ‘prior consent’ for robo-calls to mobile phones prohibition. Because I’m sure as shit I havn’t given consent for the robo-calls being made to my cell phone. It seems like calling agencies have some sort of plausible deniability that they ‘don’t know’ it’s a mobile number prior to calling?
Edit: Oh wait ‘political’ … so fuck off it’s commercial in nature huh?
6 Likes
Scammers and other scofflaws don’t care about the prior consent rules.
The only real solution to this is strict enforcement of systems that ensure caller id shows the real actual number that a call originated from.
9 Likes
Disappointed that he didn’t give out those numbers. One touch blocks his number and ends that silliness. 100,000 different numbers is a bit harder to deal with.
I get a lot of my robocalls tha spoof my 3-digit exchange, which I know is home to about 11 people. And guess what? If I travel, the scammers use my location tracking to spoof whatever area code I move to. Not creepy at all!
4 Likes
I have one of the oldest cell exchanges, and have only ever met one other person with the same exchange. Yet, I magically get at least one call per day from this exchange. I never answer, but the spoofed calls just keep on keepin’ on.
I’m slightly disappointed that the IRS scammers haven’t left me any voicemails lately. It’s hilarious to me that they’re using the GLADOS voice, and the threats escalate with every round, which is kinda creative.
4 Likes
Commercial robocalls calls are legal unless you’ve been on the national do-not-call registry for at least a month. Under the current administration enforcement of the registry has stopped almost completely.
*I just got a robocall while typing this!
9 Likes
Not if they are spoofing new numbers all the time. Which is probably what they are doing.
I love the fact that we now live in a world where scam artists have a voice in DC…
5 Likes
Pai won’t care. You have to have a soul to care, and he sold his.
3 Likes
John Oliver is a freaking national treasure.
11 Likes
ahem. Happy mutant: 1, Cory: 0. 
4 Likes
Unfortunately…robo/spam SMS is also a thing. Worse yet you cannot block those and replying STOP is useless as it may not be the trigger keyword to stop them from messaging you.
They can set it up with the actual keyword being FUNKYWINKLESTEIN for their platform to move your number to a do not contact. And that is perfectly legal so long as they are using a non shared short code.
2 Likes
I think this has gone far enough that any kind of marketing call ought to be outlawed. I’m not going to buy anything on a cold-call, and those stupid enough to do so should be protected.
6 Likes
