FCC proposes $10 Million fine for spoofed robocalls

Thu Dec 19 20:56:56 UTC 2019

On 12/19/19 11:34 AM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 11:27 AM Brian J. Murrell <brian at interlinx.bc.ca> 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.
> Hi Brian,
>
> I don't want to start an arms race with the spam callers, I want to
> end it. That means: jump directly to something they can't easily
> defeat.

Plus if it didn't work well/too cumbersome/etc with email, it probably 
won't be any better with voice. We have lots of experience with what 
doesn't work for email.

Mike