FTC robocall $50k contest

[Joe Kerman]

http://robocall.challenge.gov/

"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is challenging innovators to
create solutions that will block illegal robocalls. These solutions
should block robocalls on landlines and mobile phones and can operate
on a proprietary or non-proprietary device or platform. Entries can be
proposed technical solutions or functional solutions and proofs of
concept."

"Judging Criteria

Does it work? (50%)
Is it easy to use? (25%)
Can it be rolled out? (25%)"

[Anthony Gartner]

I would be happy if apple simply allowed me to do anything i choose to
a number automatically

Example unknown automatically go to voice mail
or if i choose a number to auto hang up and now allow to be called.

This month some of the most offense calls are actually on the allowed
list. at least 10 calls per day attempting to find out how i would
vote. These calls according the law are legal and allowed... reality
they are highly intrusive but they are legal

Why is it that the FTC can't shut down the Idiot RACHAL From Card
Holder Services. (i have over a 100 numbers that i have blocked so
they never call back on just my cell phone)

Anthony Gartner

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[Monty Schmidt]

I would like to see that combined with what ATT privacy manager used to
have for anonymous calls to land lines where it would first put up a
message saying "Hey you are calling from a blocked number. Please say
your name" It would then ring through to the house and play that
recording. You could then just dump the call if you didn't recognize
the person. You put that all together on the iphone or the android with
a local black/white list and a crowd sourced public one it could pull
from and you'd have a pretty good system.


Monty Schmidt
wuntusk.com
sonic...@gmail.com

[Anthony Gartner]

I agree. I would like to have one other feature added Reverse look
up. we do this on computers all the time if the info doesn't match the
browser tells you

I get hundreds of calls a year that the phone number is not a valid
number, because someone spoofed it. WHY cant the id say number does
not match the displayed number and allow me to reject it. That would
save a TON of calls

Anthony Gartner

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[Monty Schmidt]

Someone write this shit up and we can get $50k for some more gear for
sector.

Monty Schmidt
wuntusk.com
sonic...@gmail.com

[Brian Baker]

If you use an Android cell, you should check out Google voice - a lot of what's mentioned here is possible on that. With the way it works, your actual cell number could still be out in the wild, but I've found that over a few years of only giving out my Google voice number, over 99% of my incoming stuff goes through it and not my actual cell number.

Not a perfect solution, but I've gotten tons of use out of it :)

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[SonicMonty]

So we just write down "google voice" and win?

Sent from my iPhone

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[Peter Novotnak]

Simple threshold rules / heuristics -> turing test? Really doesn't
seem that hard, unless I'm missing something...



-Peter

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[Joe Kerman]

MY $0.02 is that part of the problem is at the telco level. Caller ID
is about as meaningful as the "From" address in an email. its
completely arbitrary, and for some reason impossible to detect what
was sent to a customer.

It would seem like adding logging of what telephone company customers,
broadcast what caller ID information, would be 99% of the solution!

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[Dougal]

My suggestion is to set up a number or short code you call after receiving an unwanted call that blacklists the previously calling number and if enough people note the number as abusive, the telco system blocks it.

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[Anthony Gartner]

Why not have it as simple crowd source. Right now on my apple device I can look at recent calls tap the arrow to the right and see the history of that number I can call i can FaceTime i can send a message. Why not have something as simple as report number with 8 or 10 sub cats that I can choose why it it should be blocked in the future.  This can then be sent to phone companies to source as data on blocked calls. The other option is to enable an auto call forward to the ftc number then the number can be checked after we have chosen to block the number

The underlying problem is that telcos make money by enabling phone numbers to call. They make money when the call is placed and airtime when received. They have zero incentive to resolve this problem 

Sent from my iPad

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[Andrew Seidl]

One problem I see with simply crowd sourcing it is the potential for abuse: there needs to be some way to validate that the phones submitting problematic numbers truly received calls/texts from those numbers. Otherwise I can imagine "services" popping up that will submit your enemies' numbers to the list from a bunch of random phones. We're essentially back in the days of email before dkim and all those other technologies that make it such a pain to run your own server without someone immediately flagging you as spam.

You could have the telcos track usage of phone numbers (or preferably something that's harder to easily change) and see how well that coincides with spam flags. If a number/circuit/IP address/other distinct identifier makes a large number of calls which have a noticeably higher percentage of spam flags, it very well could be spam. 

For me, Google Voice is perfect. Unknown callers can be screened, known bad numbers get sent straight to voice mail (optionally with their own custom greeting explaining as such), and really bad numbers get completely blocked by Google if you opt in. These really bad numbers are partially the result of people marking calls/texts from those numbers as spam inside the Voice app or online, which is essentially the system that we're currently discussing.

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[Anthony Gartner]

I think we all call forward enough calls to out senator and congress persons cell phones then it would resolve itself as it would then carry fines and jail time when they are done 

Or call forward to the Verizon and AT&T CEOs 

Sent from my iPhone

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