FCC proposes $10 Million fine for spoofed robocalls

Thu Dec 19 21:02:24 UTC 2019

On 12/19/19 11:27 AM, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> On Thu, 2019-12-19 at 11:02 -0800, William Herrin wrote:
>> I call your phone number.
>> Your phone company compares my number against your whitelist. Ring
>> through on match.
>> If no match, "You have reached Name. Press 2 to leave a message.
>> Press
>> 3 to enter your code. Press 0 or stay on the line for an operator."
>> Ring through on a valid code.
>> If 0, the call connects to a call center where a live operator
>> evaluates the call. Who am I? Why am I calling? Do I meet the
>> plain-English criteria you've established for calls to allow through?
>> If no, the operator offers to connect me to your voicemail. If yes,
>> the operator dials you, explains who's calling and asks your
>> permission to connect the call.
> It really doesn't (currently at least -- until robocallers start using
> voice recognition to defeat my system) need to be this complicated or
> over-engineered.  A simple audio captcha works wonders.
>
>     Hello.  If you are a telemarketer, press 1.  If you want to speak to
>     somebody at this number, press 5.
>
> Anyone pressing 1 gets their caller-id added to my blacklist and is
> asked to add our number to their do not call list.  In reality all
> telemarketers use robocallers so they don't even get that far.
>
> Anyone pressing 5 rings through (with additional processing described
> below).
>
There are robocalls that you want to get. Here in california, our 
wonderful electric company sends out robocalls when they are going to 
cut our electricity so they don't get blamed for burning down cities 
(and then still manage to anyway). I'm not sure if our earthquake alerts 
can robocall or not, but that would certainly be another one that you'd 
want to get. There are plenty more examples.

Mike