---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20190501031018.GA22540@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 1 May 2019 03:10:18 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: With Regulators Increasing Focus On Spam Robocalls, Arkansas Follows Others States In Passing Anti-Spoofing Privacy Law Article by Laura E. Goldsmith Proskauer Rose LLP Unwanted robocalls reportedly totaled 26.3 billion calls in 2018, sparking more and more consumer complaints to the FCC and FTC and increased legislative and regulatory activity to combat the practice. Some automated calls are beneficial, such as school closing announcements, bank fraud warnings, and medical notifications, and some caller ID spoofing is justified, such as certain law enforcement or investigatory purposes and domestic violence shelter use. However, consumers have been inundated with spam calls - often with spoofed local area codes - that display fictitious caller ID information or circumvent caller ID technology in an effort to increase the likelihood consumers will answer or otherwise defraud consumers. To combat the rash of unwanted calls, Congress and federal regulators advanced several measures in 2019 and states have tightened their own telecommunications privacy laws in the past year. For example, within the last week, the Arkansas governor signed into law S.B. 514, which boosts criminal penalties for illegal call spoofing and creates an oversight process for telecommunications providers. http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/800064/Data+Protection+Privacy/With+Regulators+Increasing+Focus+On+Spam+Robocalls+Arkansas+Follows+Others+States+In+Passing+AntiSpoofing+Privacy+Law -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <9c85c6a0-b029-4524-9e78-f03abebe7904@googlegroups.com> Date: 2 May 2019 11:02:00 -0700 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: You Can't Stop Robocalls. You Shouldn't Have To. > Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu wrote: > A few weeks ago I discovered the setting on my cellphone to not ring > if the call is from someone not on my contact list. That's been a > blessing. It is sad that so many people today now use a 'whitelist' to control incoming calls. It can be harmful. I came upon someone in distress and lent them my cellphone to call for help (their phone was dead). But since my phone wasn't on their friend's 'whitelist', the call wasn't answered. Further, today, people don't listen to messages, so leaving a message didn't help. A cop came along and helped. This also happened to me some years ago when I used a payphone and the callee didn't answer since they didn't recognize the number. Fortunately, for me it wasn't an urgent situation. The real solution is to end robocalls, both illegal scams as well as legal things such as political calls and charities. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <558A29F1-62F0-4F5A-BF23-2335CAEBF129@roscom.com> Date: 1 May 2019 22:33:59 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: The SIM Swap Fix That the US Isn't Using AROUND A YEAR ago, Andr=C3=83=C2=A9 Tenreiro was called into a meeting betw= een the chief technology officer of the phone carrier he worked for - one of the largest in Mozambique - and an executive of the country's largest bank. The latter had seen an escalating pattern of fraud based on so-called SIM swap attacks, where hackers trick or bribe a phone company employee into switching the SIM card associated with a victim's phone number. The attackers then use that hijacked number to take over banking or other online accounts. According to Tenreiro, the bank had seen more than 17 SIM swap frauds every month. The problem was only getting worse. https://www.wired.com/story/sim-swap-fix-carriers-banks/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <892cdaedd7d53641974d51753b3a63a8.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com> Date: 2 May 2019 09:31:38 -0600 From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> Subject: Re: You Can't Stop Robocalls. You Shouldn't Have To. > Charles wrote: > Fred did not describe one option that Callcentric offers among its > call treatments. A treatment, say the one for all calls not in your > Contact list, can be set to have a voice prompt stating "Press one to > be connected." After the caller presses one, the phone rings. This > provides a second barrier to spam, after the True CNAMS screen. It > has the unfortunate side effect of blocking some automated calls that > are desired such as "Your prescription is ready." Have not had that issue. I get my automated prompt from Walgreens and it plays after I press the '1'. Regarding True CNAM blocking desired calls, the solution to that problem is to create a whitelist and add the number [the desired automated calls come from] to your whitelist. > I don't think he makes it clear whether that $16 is for four lines > or one line. Our charges are $5/month plus $0.015/minute for two > lines. So,we are paying less than Fred but we don't talk much. A > few hundred minutes a month at our rates for four lines would put > the cost at about $16/mo or $4/line. I don't remember what the maximum number of lines are except that it is a very large number. Residences aren't going to need that many. And they do not charge per line. However, you are restricted by your call usage of your plan (minutes). The number of available channels on their system can be a factor at times depending on the traffic they may be handling at any particular time. But it has not proven to be an issue for me. There is no extra charge per extension. Remember that I am describing their residential plan. They have plenty more features. Some are part of the basic plan. Some incur an extra charge. You have to pick and choose. Fred ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Fri, 03 May 2019