\"intelligent\" telephone answering machine...

[Robert Baer]

dcaster@krl.org wrote:

On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 12:25:04 AM UTC-4, Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 9:37:05 PM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if
call is from a town/city.

Wait 7 rings before pickup.

Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency 3-4KC
for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand 14Hz
is least pleasing frequency difference).

Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state included)
and use look-up table for verification.

Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one
\"word\" excluding state if any.

Anyone willing to take on such a project?

Thanks,
R. Baer

look up \" NOROBO \"

Dan

Not sure this will work. They seem to key off the calling number and block known numbers. That\'s a small percentage of spam calls. Adding a number that won\'t be used again is of no value.

The only electronic way of blocking them is to have a voice prompt asking the caller to punch a button or two. Like, what is 2 + 11? But how long before the spammers get voice recognition software to defeat that?

A dime a call enforce across the phone network is the only way and even that won\'t stop all calls. Some spammers likely call 1000 people to find one that they can con, but then would hook them for $10,000 for $9,900 profit. Well, maybe only $1,000 for $900 profit.

It\'s funny sometimes when you waste their time they get really pissed off and give you a bunch of shit for it. lol You gotta love the irony. One guy actually wouldn\'t get off the phone so he could keep insulting me and my long dead mother. He was so pissed it had me rolling on the floor laughing.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

To use NOROBO you have to be able to set up remote ringing. And I do not have that. But I think it works. Surely someone here uses it or at least has tried it.

Dan

It sort-of works,sometimes.
Other times it is so ineffective that one can easily call it a scam
and be truthful.

 

[Robert Baer]

Bill Martin wrote:

On 10/23/20 6:05 AM, dcaster@krl.org wrote:
On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 12:25:04 AM UTC-4, Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 9:37:05 PM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if
call is from a town/city.

    Wait 7 rings before pickup.

    Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency
3-4KC
for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
    Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand
14Hz
is least pleasing frequency difference).

    Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state
included)
and use look-up table for verification.

    Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one
\"word\" excluding state if any.

    Anyone willing to take on such a project?

     Thanks,
R. Baer

look up  \"  NOROBO    \"

                    Dan

Not sure this will work.  They seem to key off the calling number and
block known numbers.  That\'s a small percentage of spam calls.
Adding a number that won\'t be used again is of no value.

The only electronic way of blocking them is to have a voice prompt
asking the caller to punch a button or two.  Like, what is 2 + 11?
But how long before the spammers get voice recognition software to
defeat that?

A dime a call enforce across the phone network is the only way and
even that won\'t stop all calls.  Some spammers likely call 1000
people to find one that they can con, but then would hook them for
$10,000 for $9,900 profit.  Well, maybe only $1,000 for $900 profit.

It\'s funny sometimes when you waste their time they get really pissed
off and give you a bunch of shit for it.  lol  You gotta love the
irony.  One guy actually wouldn\'t get off the phone so he could keep
insulting me and my long dead mother.  He was so pissed it had me
rolling on the floor laughing.

--

   Rick C.

   +- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
   +- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

To use NOROBO you have to be able to set up remote ringing.  And I do
not have that. But I think it works.  Surely someone here uses it or
at least has tried it.

                                      Dan

It\'s \"NOMOROBO\" and it comes with Cox Cable phone service. It IS really
helpful, but not perfect.

Barely works.
See my other comments.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 3:16:31 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

On 10/22/2020 12:22 PM, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if call
is from a town/city.

Caller can claim to be from anywhere they want -- including YOUR home!

Wait 7 rings before pickup.

Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency 3-4KC for
greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand 14Hz is
least pleasing frequency difference).

Most autodialers are either machines that have synthesized-voice message
delivery agents (who don\'t really \"hear\" anything that you might say -- other
than if you happen to \"press <whatever>\"); or, are autodialing and then
waiting for (and detecting) a live voice -- not an answering machine -- before
connecting you to the next available \"telemarketer\" (even minimum wage jobs
have a cost associated with them so don\'t tie up a telemarketer until you
KNOW there is a \"live party\" on the other end of the line)

Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state designation
(seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state included) and use look-up
table for verification.

Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one \"word\"
excluding state if any.

Anyone willing to take on such a project?

A smarter scheme is to whitelist the numbers from which you are willing to
accept calls (think about how you\'ll deal with BLOCKED CIDs!). Route all
others to answering machine. Most spam calls will simply abort the call
when they realize a machine has answered. Disable YOUR ringer so you aren\'t
bothered by all of those aborted calls.

[This is how we used to \"screen\" calls; it was highly effective as the
legitimate callers who left messages weren\'t bothered by having to do so.
It\'s also a testament of our unwillingness to let other folks decide when
we should \"drop everything\" to talk to them!]

My new \"voice attendant\" actually interacts (vocally) with the callers
and recognizes voices. So, you can call from some \"foreign\" phone
number and still get through! (and, because it can listen in on EVERY call,
it can continuously improve its voice models for each caller!)

The calls I get fall into a very few categories. I get a few calls from people who are usually Indian and offering to sell me any sort of drug I wish to buy. They barely speak English and often can\'t make themselves understood. Much more often I get robo calls that are a prelude to talking to someone from India, most often offering to lower my credit card interest rate. The Robocall are often not of a good quality, but at least don\'t have an accent.

Then there are the calls that are from an AI robot with the ability to recognize some of my speech. I\'m currently exploring the domain of words and phrases it understands. In general it is sophisticated that it\'s hard to tell from an actual human, only really being detectable by the delays between my speech ending and his starting and the limited types of responses I can get. These are typically trying to sell me a home alarm system, monthly connection contract rather than buying the system.

Finally there are the calls that start with a robo dialer who then passes you on to a human from India who screens you for the basic qualifications and then passes you on to a native English speaker who I think is likely in the US since they are a licensed auto insurance salesman. They must be licensed by the state. I try to tell them what I must to reach the third level.. I then try to keep them on the line as long as I can. It\'s kinda like playing Doom in some ways. I get to play the same level over and over trying to end with more ammo and health so I\'m ready for getting off the elevator on the next level.

I think I mentioned that once I got a caller of the first category to read me the first four digits of his credit card so I could give him a lower interest rate like a caller from the second category. It\'s actually fun sometimes. I especially like it when they get ticked at me. It\'s like finding the last secret door on the level and getting all the health and ammo you can take.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 9:05:31 AM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:

On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 12:25:04 AM UTC-4, Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 9:37:05 PM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if
call is from a town/city.

Wait 7 rings before pickup.

Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency 3-4KC
for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand 14Hz
is least pleasing frequency difference).

Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state included)
and use look-up table for verification.

Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one
\"word\" excluding state if any.

Anyone willing to take on such a project?

Thanks,
R. Baer

look up \" NOROBO \"

Dan

Not sure this will work. They seem to key off the calling number and block known numbers. That\'s a small percentage of spam calls. Adding a number that won\'t be used again is of no value.

The only electronic way of blocking them is to have a voice prompt asking the caller to punch a button or two. Like, what is 2 + 11? But how long before the spammers get voice recognition software to defeat that?

A dime a call enforce across the phone network is the only way and even that won\'t stop all calls. Some spammers likely call 1000 people to find one that they can con, but then would hook them for $10,000 for $9,900 profit. Well, maybe only $1,000 for $900 profit.

It\'s funny sometimes when you waste their time they get really pissed off and give you a bunch of shit for it. lol You gotta love the irony. One guy actually wouldn\'t get off the phone so he could keep insulting me and my long dead mother. He was so pissed it had me rolling on the floor laughing.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

To use NOROBO you have to be able to set up remote ringing. And I do not have that. But I think it works. Surely someone here uses it or at least has tried it.

I looked at it and tried several different phone companies my service is with and it said none of them were working with them. That included Google, ATT and Verizon land line. I gave up at that point. If they don\'t even work with Verizon land lines how many phones can they support?

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 9:36:57 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:

Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 6:13:33 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if
call is from a town/city.

Wait 7 rings before pickup.

Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency 3-4KC
for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand 14Hz
is least pleasing frequency difference).

Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state included)
and use look-up table for verification.

Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one
\"word\" excluding state if any.

Anyone willing to take on such a project?

Thanks,
R. Baer

Not sure what you are talking about. Seems a very complicated way to force a dialing robot to listen to robot music. Actually, most of the robocalls I get are from out of state only because my phone number is from out of state. They even pick an exchange local to where my phone number was originally from. So how would this detect a spammer?
* NOT music; never music, machine would emit grating NOISE.
Read what i wrote; all undesired calls are from a town/city and most
disclose state (WA, TX, etc).

Yes, and these calls are pretty much all from India. What\'s your point???
* Maybe, and maybe not. Do not care if they come from Mars.
How about that machine?

Are you actually rational? Can you form a coherent thought???

The calls are nearly all robo calls with no human to hear your noise. When you press the right button they connect you to someone from India. They use random phone numbers local to you and pay for nothing other than being connected to a phone line somewhere in the world, very possibly over the Internet before it reaches a phone network.

Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Don Y]

On 10/23/2020 8:21 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
> Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

Caller ID is useful for whitelisting calls as it\'s unlikely that
a spammer will know the phone number of your MD, dentist, friend(s),
etc. Less useful for things like the local police department (but,
how often do THEY call you???) which could be faked.

Caller ID can tell you the caller is someone you WANT to talk to
but can\'t tell you the caller is someone you DON\'T want to talk to!

So, *blocking* based on CID (unless you\'re really pissed off at a
friend/neighbor) is useless.

Note that you can also add heuristics to further bias your
assessment of an incoming call; e.g., if \"around dinner time\" it
is likely a spammer/pollster/etc. We only allow calls through
\"after hours\" if they are from folks who deserve \"special access\"
to us (e.g., calling to ask for a ride home from a club or a
ride to the hospital, etc.). I certainly don\'t expect to hear
from my MD *much* after dinner time (though a 6PM call is possible
if he\'s returning MY call).

 

[Don Y]

On 10/23/2020 8:14 PM, Ricketty C wrote:

On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 3:16:31 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

My new \"voice attendant\" actually interacts (vocally) with the callers
and recognizes voices. So, you can call from some \"foreign\" phone
number and still get through! (and, because it can listen in on EVERY call,
it can continuously improve its voice models for each caller!)

The calls I get fall into a very few categories.

What you meant to say was \"the UNWANTED calls I get...\". Instead of focusing
on the calls that you want to *block*, think about the calls that you want to
*receive*. Then, think about how you could facilitate their reception to
the exclusion of those that aren\'t desired.

E.g., our callers are willing to interact with my \"voice attendant\"; it\'s
no worse than calling someone \"at the office\" and having to deal with their
\"switchboard\".

Think about it; friends/family would likely have no problem. Your \"providers\"
(doctor/lawyer/dentist/etc.) are already used to talking to answering machines
so there\'s little difference in their experience. And, autodialers that you
WANT to hear from can easily be accommodated (e.g., when the public library\'s
dialer calls to tell us some item we\'ve borrowed is \"overdue\").

OTOH, callers that are undesirable aren\'t patient enough to sort out
how to deal with the attendant. And, even if they did, they\'d not be
\"gated through\" (whitelisted) to the actual ringer. So, the phone doesn\'t
even chirp for \"failed\" calls!

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 24/10/20 02:38, Robert Baer wrote:

Sylvia Else wrote:
On 23-Oct-20 6:22 am, Robert Baer wrote:
   Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if call
is from a town/city.

   Wait 7 rings before pickup.

   Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency 3-4KC for
greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
   Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand 14Hz is
least pleasing frequency difference).

I\'d go for retching sounds myself.
*  OOooohh!
  Might be as effective, to get caller to quit...

Why?

It might only be effective if played after a /person /
is listening. What\'s the trigger that disconnects the
robot and connects the person?

 

[Martin Brown]

On 24/10/2020 03:51, Robert Baer wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
On 22/10/2020 20:22, Robert Baer wrote:
   Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine
if call is from a town/city.

   Wait 7 rings before pickup.

   Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency
3-4KC for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
   Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand
14Hz is least pleasing frequency difference).

Why on earth would you want to do this?
Robotic dialers don\'t care what noises you make at them!

   Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state
included) and use look-up table for verification.

There are plenty of existing products that will block fake calls based
on CLID or number withheld
* Please name some..

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/233615867828

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Sjouke Burry]

On 24.10.20 5:00, Robert Baer wrote:

Bill Martin wrote:
On 10/23/20 6:05 AM, dcaster@krl.org wrote:
On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 12:25:04 AM UTC-4, Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 9:37:05 PM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if
call is from a town/city.

Wait 7 rings before pickup.

Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency
3-4KC
for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand
14Hz
is least pleasing frequency difference).

Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state
included)
and use look-up table for verification.

Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one
\"word\" excluding state if any.

Anyone willing to take on such a project?

Thanks,
R. Baer

look up \" NOROBO \"

Dan

Not sure this will work. They seem to key off the calling number and
block known numbers. That\'s a small percentage of spam calls.
Adding a number that won\'t be used again is of no value.

The only electronic way of blocking them is to have a voice prompt
asking the caller to punch a button or two. Like, what is 2 + 11?
But how long before the spammers get voice recognition software to
defeat that?

A dime a call enforce across the phone network is the only way and
even that won\'t stop all calls. Some spammers likely call 1000
people to find one that they can con, but then would hook them for
$10,000 for $9,900 profit. Well, maybe only $1,000 for $900 profit.

It\'s funny sometimes when you waste their time they get really pissed
off and give you a bunch of shit for it. lol You gotta love the
irony. One guy actually wouldn\'t get off the phone so he could keep
insulting me and my long dead mother. He was so pissed it had me
rolling on the floor laughing.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

To use NOROBO you have to be able to set up remote ringing. And I do
not have that. But I think it works. Surely someone here uses it or
at least has tried it.

Dan

It\'s \"NOMOROBO\" and it comes with Cox Cable phone service. It IS really
helpful, but not perfect.

Barely works.
See my other comments.

Would a sharp, loud click ,and waiting for the round-trip
delay echo reveal a connection to India?
Must be guite different from a local call.

 

[Bob Engelhardt]

NOMOROBO and any blocker based on CID is USELESS. Pretty much every
spammer call uses a spoofed CID.

Our system recognizes that there are 3 types of callers: those we want
to talk to (white), those we do not want to talk to (black), and those
we don\'t know about (gray).

White calls are put through & ring the phones. Black calls are blocked.
Gray calls are put through to a separate answering machine without
ringing. Spammers are generally gray, but occasionally black.
Importantly, some gray callers are not spammers, but white callers with
a new number (e.g., an MD using his cell phone).

What we really love about it is that the phones NEVER ring unless it\'s a
white call.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:08:42 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

On 10/23/2020 8:21 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

Caller ID is useful for whitelisting calls as it\'s unlikely that
a spammer will know the phone number of your MD, dentist, friend(s),
etc. Less useful for things like the local police department (but,
how often do THEY call you???) which could be faked.

Caller ID can tell you the caller is someone you WANT to talk to
but can\'t tell you the caller is someone you DON\'T want to talk to!

So, *blocking* based on CID (unless you\'re really pissed off at a
friend/neighbor) is useless.

You either block specific numbers you recognize as spam, which is what the NOMOROBO does, or you block EVERY CALL that isn\'t white listed. Either way it is blocking based on CID and useless. My entering the number of every contact I\'ve ever had is not at all practical. I had to talk to police recently. There are many others who call me first and I don\'t always want to make them use voice mail. Then there is the issue of the robocalls leaving voice mail which I get all the time.

Caller ID is not a useful basis for blocking spam calls. My phone already has it through the phone company and it only flags a fraction of the calls.

Note that you can also add heuristics to further bias your
assessment of an incoming call; e.g., if \"around dinner time\" it
is likely a spammer/pollster/etc.

Bull. I get spam calls all day long.

We only allow calls through
\"after hours\" if they are from folks who deserve \"special access\"
to us (e.g., calling to ask for a ride home from a club or a
ride to the hospital, etc.). I certainly don\'t expect to hear
from my MD *much* after dinner time (though a 6PM call is possible
if he\'s returning MY call).

I\'m glad that you don\'t mind listening to your phone right 20 times a day from spammers. The NOMOROBO doesn\'t even work with most phone services, so it\'s really just a joke.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 8:03:19 AM UTC-4, Bob Engelhardt wrote:

NOMOROBO and any blocker based on CID is USELESS. Pretty much every
spammer call uses a spoofed CID.

Our system recognizes that there are 3 types of callers: those we want
to talk to (white), those we do not want to talk to (black), and those
we don\'t know about (gray).

White calls are put through & ring the phones. Black calls are blocked.
Gray calls are put through to a separate answering machine without
ringing. Spammers are generally gray, but occasionally black.
Importantly, some gray callers are not spammers, but white callers with
a new number (e.g., an MD using his cell phone).

What we really love about it is that the phones NEVER ring unless it\'s a
white call.

That might work IF you were on a land line. I haven\'t had a land line in years. There is one voice mail and the phone company manages that. I suppose you could set up a service that reroutes the calls to non-phone company servers and does all that you describe, but it would have to play nice with the phone companies and right now NOMOROBO hasn\'t been able to crack that nut.

The phone companies don\'t want to let this get out of their control. So companies like NOMOROBO aren\'t going to be the general solution.

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Don Y]

On 10/24/2020 9:14 AM, Ricketty C wrote:

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:08:42 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 10/23/2020 8:21 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

Caller ID is useful for whitelisting calls as it\'s unlikely that a spammer
will know the phone number of your MD, dentist, friend(s), etc. Less
useful for things like the local police department (but, how often do THEY
call you???) which could be faked.

Caller ID can tell you the caller is someone you WANT to talk to but can\'t
tell you the caller is someone you DON\'T want to talk to!

So, *blocking* based on CID (unless you\'re really pissed off at a
friend/neighbor) is useless.

You either block specific numbers you recognize as spam, which is what the
NOMOROBO does, or you block EVERY CALL that isn\'t white listed.

No, you allow whitelisted calls (to be further conditioned based on
identity, time-of-day, etc.) to be \"accepted\" (ring-through, routed to
personalized mailbox, etc.).

Non-whitelisted calls you identify with other MORE RELIABLE means.
In our case, we do that by recognizing the voice of the caller (we
don\'t \"recognize\" any spammers :> )

Either way
it is blocking based on CID and useless. My entering the number of every
contact I\'ve ever had is not at all practical. I had to talk to police
recently. There are many others who call me first and I don\'t always want
to make them use voice mail. Then there is the issue of the robocalls
leaving voice mail which I get all the time.

Each call I make is logged (phone number) along with the voice of the party
that answers. So, the system already knows who my likely contacts will be
before they call.

Spammers don\'t get routed to the \"answering machine\" -- why would I want to
hear what they have to say?

The answering machine is used to allow DESIRABLE contacts to leave messages
at times when I\'m not willing to speak with them: \"Sorry, Bob, but he\'s
not available, presently. Would you like to leave a message? Or, should I
just tell him that you called (at 3:12PM on Thursday the 14th)?\"

It also lets us leave outgoing messages for specific callers: \"Hey, Bob,
I put the package in the mail this afternoon. I\'ll give you a call back
tomorrow, around 9:00?\"

Think about how your secretary would handle a variety of incoming calls
(from strangers, folks you might not want to deal with *now*, folks you\'d
be willing to DROP EVERYTHING to speak with, etc.)

For a semi-cold call (i.e., someone I want to be able to call me but whom
I\'ve not yet \"registered\"), I tell them what to say to the \"attendant\"
in order to have their call recognized as \"not spam\". Just like a caller
interacting with a secretary needs a way to convince the sec\'y of their
genuine need for access (because they know some \"secret\" that wouldn\'t
be known to a casual caller)

Caller ID is not a useful basis for blocking spam calls. My phone already
has it through the phone company and it only flags a fraction of the calls.

As I said, you use CID to ACCEPT calls, not block.

Note that you can also add heuristics to further bias your assessment of
an incoming call; e.g., if \"around dinner time\" it is likely a
spammer/pollster/etc.

Bull. I get spam calls all day long.

As do we. But we don\'t \"get notified\" of ANY of them! The system answers
the phone (WITHOUT an audible \"ring\"), determines the identity of the caller
and then decides whether we want to know that the party is calling us, \"now\".
If it decides to \"bother us\", then the ringer sounds. Otherwise, the
call is processed as in the above examples.

Spammers technically prevent our phone from receiving legitimate calls
while they have the line tied up. But, that\'s a tiny fraction of the
time so doesn\'t affect our accessibility. They spend THEIR time on the
call, not ours.

We only allow calls through \"after hours\" if they are from folks who
deserve \"special access\" to us (e.g., calling to ask for a ride home from
a club or a ride to the hospital, etc.). I certainly don\'t expect to
hear from my MD *much* after dinner time (though a 6PM call is possible if
he\'s returning MY call).

I\'m glad that you don\'t mind listening to your phone right 20 times a day
from spammers. The NOMOROBO doesn\'t even work with most phone services, so
it\'s really just a joke.

Our phone only rings when:
- it KNOWS the caller is someone we want to talk to
- we want to talk to that person AT THIS TIME (of day)

How it rings varies based on the nature of the caller. E.g., if a \"close
friend\" calls at 3AM, we probably *want* to be awakened as said friend
wouldn\'t call at that time unless there was a genuine *need*, on their
part (abuse the privilege and you lose it!). If a client calls \"after
five\", just send him to voice mail tagged as such. If *I* call and
indicate \"it\'s urgent\", go to great lengths to chase down my other half,
including alerting via the outdoor and garage \"ringers\".

We REALLY don\'t like being disturbed by the phone. *REALLY*! So, even callers
that we want to (eventually) talk to are usually told that we\'ll return
their call later. The phone, unfortunately, exists for the convenience of the
CALLER. Our approach turns that on its head and forces the phone to comply
with OUR usage constraints.

TPC could implement a similar system -- without relying on verifiable CID
(there are genuine needs for \"faked\" CID). And, I suspect most cell phones
have the horsepower to do this, as well. (TPC could do so more efficiently
as it could centralize -- ick! -- the biometric database)

[I use the same mechanism -- augmented with video -- to recognize visitors
at the front door and \"announce\" them (as well as granting them conditional
access in my absence)]

 

[Bob Engelhardt]

On 10/24/2020 12:18 PM, Ricketty C wrote:

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 8:03:19 AM UTC-4, Bob Engelhardt wrote:
...
Our system recognizes that there are 3 types of callers: those we want
to talk to (white), those we do not want to talk to (black), and those
we don\'t know about (gray).

White calls are put through & ring the phones. Black calls are blocked.
Gray calls are put through to a separate answering machine without
ringing. ...

> That might work IF you were on a land line. I haven\'t had a land line in years. There is one voice mail and the phone company manages that. I suppose you could set up a service that reroutes the calls to non-phone company servers and does all that you describe, but it would have to play nice with the phone companies ...

It\'s all home based & independent (Vonage is our provider). A standard
desk-top answering machine & a PC-based system with the other answering
machine. Not voice mail.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:12:16 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

On 10/24/2020 9:14 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:08:42 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 10/23/2020 8:21 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

Caller ID is useful for whitelisting calls as it\'s unlikely that a spammer
will know the phone number of your MD, dentist, friend(s), etc. Less
useful for things like the local police department (but, how often do THEY
call you???) which could be faked.

Caller ID can tell you the caller is someone you WANT to talk to but can\'t
tell you the caller is someone you DON\'T want to talk to!

So, *blocking* based on CID (unless you\'re really pissed off at a
friend/neighbor) is useless.

You either block specific numbers you recognize as spam, which is what the
NOMOROBO does, or you block EVERY CALL that isn\'t white listed.

No, you allow whitelisted calls (to be further conditioned based on
identity, time-of-day, etc.) to be \"accepted\" (ring-through, routed to
personalized mailbox, etc.).

I didn\'t say anything different.

Non-whitelisted calls you identify with other MORE RELIABLE means.
In our case, we do that by recognizing the voice of the caller (we
don\'t \"recognize\" any spammers :> )

How does your machine recognize voices? If you mean YOU listen, I don\'t even need to do that. But I don\'t want to be bothered with the calls. No ring, no messages, no monitoring the call. That\'s what the $0.10 per call fee will do. Spammers and the services that connect them to the phone network won\'t be able to afford to make thousands of calls to bring in a few hundred dollars.

Either way
it is blocking based on CID and useless. My entering the number of every
contact I\'ve ever had is not at all practical. I had to talk to police
recently. There are many others who call me first and I don\'t always want
to make them use voice mail. Then there is the issue of the robocalls
leaving voice mail which I get all the time.

Each call I make is logged (phone number) along with the voice of the party
that answers. So, the system already knows who my likely contacts will be
before they call.

This is why no one else will want to use that system, it\'s too labor intensive and also unreliable.

Spammers don\'t get routed to the \"answering machine\" -- why would I want to
hear what they have to say?

Because they are the bank or credit card company calling about suspected fraud on your account?

The answering machine is used to allow DESIRABLE contacts to leave messages
at times when I\'m not willing to speak with them: \"Sorry, Bob, but he\'s
not available, presently. Would you like to leave a message? Or, should I
just tell him that you called (at 3:12PM on Thursday the 14th)?\"

Too bad that there\'s no automated method of distinguishing the spammers.

It also lets us leave outgoing messages for specific callers: \"Hey, Bob,
I put the package in the mail this afternoon. I\'ll give you a call back
tomorrow, around 9:00?\"

Wonderful, a feature nearly no one will use.

Think about how your secretary would handle a variety of incoming calls
(from strangers, folks you might not want to deal with *now*, folks you\'d
be willing to DROP EVERYTHING to speak with, etc.)

Too bad we can\'t afford secretaries. They could actually do the job effectively, but will probably quit since they only get paid $0.10 per call and have to deal with annoying spammers.

For a semi-cold call (i.e., someone I want to be able to call me but whom
I\'ve not yet \"registered\"), I tell them what to say to the \"attendant\"
in order to have their call recognized as \"not spam\". Just like a caller
interacting with a secretary needs a way to convince the sec\'y of their
genuine need for access (because they know some \"secret\" that wouldn\'t
be known to a casual caller)

So you implement voice recognition? Great, that alone is a useful tool. Too bad the spammers already use it and will apply that to dealing with your voice recognition.

Caller ID is not a useful basis for blocking spam calls. My phone already
has it through the phone company and it only flags a fraction of the calls.

As I said, you use CID to ACCEPT calls, not block.

You are making a false distinction. The CID is used to distinguish the calls that are accepted vs. the ones that are blocks. Stop talking nonsense.

Note that you can also add heuristics to further bias your assessment of
an incoming call; e.g., if \"around dinner time\" it is likely a
spammer/pollster/etc.

Bull. I get spam calls all day long.

As do we. But we don\'t \"get notified\" of ANY of them! The system answers
the phone (WITHOUT an audible \"ring\"), determines the identity of the caller
and then decides whether we want to know that the party is calling us, \"now\".
If it decides to \"bother us\", then the ringer sounds. Otherwise, the
call is processed as in the above examples.

So are you talking about a home brew system on a landline? How does that work on the cell phones the other 99% of us use?

Spammers technically prevent our phone from receiving legitimate calls
while they have the line tied up. But, that\'s a tiny fraction of the
time so doesn\'t affect our accessibility. They spend THEIR time on the
call, not ours.

They spend zero time on the call, it\'s a machine!

We only allow calls through \"after hours\" if they are from folks who
deserve \"special access\" to us (e.g., calling to ask for a ride home from
a club or a ride to the hospital, etc.). I certainly don\'t expect to
hear from my MD *much* after dinner time (though a 6PM call is possible if
he\'s returning MY call).

I\'m glad that you don\'t mind listening to your phone right 20 times a day
from spammers. The NOMOROBO doesn\'t even work with most phone services, so
it\'s really just a joke.

Our phone only rings when:
- it KNOWS the caller is someone we want to talk to
- we want to talk to that person AT THIS TIME (of day)

How it rings varies based on the nature of the caller. E.g., if a \"close
friend\" calls at 3AM, we probably *want* to be awakened as said friend
wouldn\'t call at that time unless there was a genuine *need*, on their
part (abuse the privilege and you lose it!). If a client calls \"after
five\", just send him to voice mail tagged as such. If *I* call and
indicate \"it\'s urgent\", go to great lengths to chase down my other half,
including alerting via the outdoor and garage \"ringers\".

We REALLY don\'t like being disturbed by the phone. *REALLY*! So, even callers
that we want to (eventually) talk to are usually told that we\'ll return
their call later. The phone, unfortunately, exists for the convenience of the
CALLER. Our approach turns that on its head and forces the phone to comply
with OUR usage constraints.

TPC could implement a similar system -- without relying on verifiable CID
(there are genuine needs for \"faked\" CID). And, I suspect most cell phones
have the horsepower to do this, as well. (TPC could do so more efficiently
as it could centralize -- ick! -- the biometric database)

They won\'t take responsibility for the false positives and false negatives until a workable system is found. Your system is full of holes. It will only require the spammers to amp up their game. I\'ve already talked about the systems that sound so much like a human and recognize what I say so well that it is hard to know if they are human or not. Those systems will get right through your system like it wasn\'t even there. But they will only become prevalent when forced to by the phone companies mounting a stronger defense.

[I use the same mechanism -- augmented with video -- to recognize visitors
at the front door and \"announce\" them (as well as granting them conditional
access in my absence)]

Don\'t care much... I\'m at the end of a quarter mile driveway on a half mile private lane. I get no house visitors unless they are invited.

--

Rick C.

++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2020-10-24, Sjouke Burry <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnll> wrote:

On 24.10.20 5:00, Robert Baer wrote:
Bill Martin wrote:
On 10/23/20 6:05 AM, dcaster@krl.org wrote:
On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 12:25:04 AM UTC-4, Ricketty C wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 9:37:05 PM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Have need for such a beast; must recognize caller ID and determine if
call is from a town/city.

Wait 7 rings before pickup.

Emit loudest noise allowed by Ma Bell specs, primary frequency
3-4KC
for greatest effect; perhaps sawtooth for most grating.
Mixed with second tone about 14Hz above fundamental (understand
14Hz
is least pleasing frequency difference).

Simple-minded way of town/city determination: extract state
designation (seems 90 percent of these fake callers have state
included)
and use look-up table for verification.

Second \"level\" would be: verify all capitalized letters, only one
\"word\" excluding state if any.

Anyone willing to take on such a project?

Thanks,
R. Baer

look up \" NOROBO \"

Dan

Not sure this will work. They seem to key off the calling number and
block known numbers. That\'s a small percentage of spam calls.
Adding a number that won\'t be used again is of no value.

The only electronic way of blocking them is to have a voice prompt
asking the caller to punch a button or two. Like, what is 2 + 11?
But how long before the spammers get voice recognition software to
defeat that?

A dime a call enforce across the phone network is the only way and
even that won\'t stop all calls. Some spammers likely call 1000
people to find one that they can con, but then would hook them for
$10,000 for $9,900 profit. Well, maybe only $1,000 for $900 profit.

It\'s funny sometimes when you waste their time they get really pissed
off and give you a bunch of shit for it. lol You gotta love the
irony. One guy actually wouldn\'t get off the phone so he could keep
insulting me and my long dead mother. He was so pissed it had me
rolling on the floor laughing.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

To use NOROBO you have to be able to set up remote ringing. And I do
not have that. But I think it works. Surely someone here uses it or
at least has tried it.

Dan

It\'s \"NOMOROBO\" and it comes with Cox Cable phone service. It IS really
helpful, but not perfect.

Barely works.
See my other comments.

Would a sharp, loud click ,and waiting for the round-trip
delay echo reveal a connection to India?
Must be guite different from a local call.

If you\'re talking to a robot there will be no distant echo.
if you\'re connected to a call centre with digital user equipment,
it\'s probably not perceptable.

A human on a cell phone in the next room will have a delayed echo
unless they\'re using earphones.

Presumably the entry to the POTS network is available on SS7 but they
don\'t make that info available to retail customers.

Someone needs to take a class action suit against the VOIP providers
against their publishing unverified CID data. Users should have to
prove control of the number before they are allowed to use it in CID

--
Jasen.

 

[Don Y]

On 10/24/2020 1:46 PM, Ricketty C wrote:

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:12:16 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 10/24/2020 9:14 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:08:42 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 10/23/2020 8:21 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

Caller ID is useful for whitelisting calls as it\'s unlikely that a
spammer will know the phone number of your MD, dentist, friend(s),
etc. Less useful for things like the local police department (but,
how often do THEY call you???) which could be faked.

Caller ID can tell you the caller is someone you WANT to talk to but
can\'t tell you the caller is someone you DON\'T want to talk to!

So, *blocking* based on CID (unless you\'re really pissed off at a
friend/neighbor) is useless.

You either block specific numbers you recognize as spam, which is what
the NOMOROBO does, or you block EVERY CALL that isn\'t white listed.

No, you allow whitelisted calls (to be further conditioned based on
identity, time-of-day, etc.) to be \"accepted\" (ring-through, routed to
personalized mailbox, etc.).

I didn\'t say anything different.

But you assume \"non-white\" calls are black. That\'s the mistake.

Non-whitelisted calls you identify with other MORE RELIABLE means. In our
case, we do that by recognizing the voice of the caller (we don\'t
\"recognize\" any spammers :> )

How does your machine recognize voices?

How do all IVR systems \"recognize voices\" -- voice recognition!

How does your BANK *identify* you as the caller -- speaker identification!

As there is no universal \"spammer voice\", there\'s no need to try to identify
the spammer. \"Voice (identity) not recognized\"

If you mean YOU listen, I don\'t even need to do that. But I don\'t want to
be bothered with the calls. No ring, no messages, no monitoring the call.
That\'s what the $0.10 per call fee will do. Spammers and the services that
connect them to the phone network won\'t be able to afford to make thousands
of calls to bring in a few hundred dollars.

I don\'t listen, the voice attendant does. It decides who you are by analyzing
the feature-set that it derives (while listening to you) from your words.
It compares this to a database of feature-sets to form an appraisal of WHO
you are. It augments this with any supplemental authenticators (CID) -- even
if not authoritative -- as well as the CONTENT of your speech and conditions
of the call (time of day, etc.)

These factors are then used to decide how your call should be handled.
A business relation\'s call might be routed to voice mail \"after hours\"
(because I don\'t think they deserve to cut into my personal time).
A family member\'s call might prompt the attendant to contact me: \"Your
sister is on the phone. Do you want to speak with her, now?\"
A neighbor\'s call (or visit!) might warrant chasing me down -- even if
I\'m in the back yard or asleep.
And, a call from my other half (assuming she\'s not home) should go
to great pains to find me IF SHE CLAIMS IT IS URGENT.

As I\'ve repeatedly said, think of what your (good) secretary would do
in each instance. Recognizing the content of speech, identifying callers,
retraining models, diarization, etc. are pretty much solved problems.
The only real effort is designing the AI to make use of all of that
information in a way that models the behavior of a \"secretary\" (of
the type you choose).

Either way it is blocking based on CID and useless. My entering the
number of every contact I\'ve ever had is not at all practical. I had to
talk to police recently. There are many others who call me first and I
don\'t always want to make them use voice mail. Then there is the issue
of the robocalls leaving voice mail which I get all the time.

Each call I make is logged (phone number) along with the voice of the
party that answers. So, the system already knows who my likely contacts
will be before they call.

This is why no one else will want to use that system, it\'s too labor
intensive and also unreliable.

There\'s no labor involved. I pick up my phone and I dial a number.
The system logs the number. The other party answers. I speak. We engage
in a conversation. The system has been recording all of the audio so
that it can post-process it to retrain models that it can then associate
with that callee -- in anticipation of him/her calling *me* at a later
date.

The \"cost\" to me is to announce to the system that \"this is John Doe\"
that I\'m calling -- so it can associate \"John Doe\" with that number which
will free me from having to remember the number going forward: \"Call
John Doe\" or \"John Doe is calling\".

Spammers don\'t get routed to the \"answering machine\" -- why would I want
to hear what they have to say?

Because they are the bank or credit card company calling about suspected
fraud on your account?

We\'ve never been contacted by a financial institution regarding fraud.
They simply have disabled the account/cards in question. We find out
about it when we try to use the card and it is declined. (this has happened
three or four times)

If \"The Authorities\" (cops) want to contact us, we want them to send
a squad around to the house so we can verify the identity of the party.
I\'d definitely NOT speak to anyone claiming to be an authority just
based on their \"say so\".

[We\'ve had cops at the door a few times as well as DIA. \"Show me your
credentials, please\"]

The answering machine is used to allow DESIRABLE contacts to leave
messages at times when I\'m not willing to speak with them: \"Sorry, Bob,
but he\'s not available, presently. Would you like to leave a message?
Or, should I just tell him that you called (at 3:12PM on Thursday the
14th)?\"

Too bad that there\'s no automated method of distinguishing the spammers.

Spammers are not desirable. If you really want to know what they were
trying to say, route spam to a voice mail account and spend the time
to listen to their messages.

It also lets us leave outgoing messages for specific callers: \"Hey, Bob,
I put the package in the mail this afternoon. I\'ll give you a call back
tomorrow, around 9:00?\"

Wonderful, a feature nearly no one will use.

Your thinking as an individual who lives off the beaten track out in the
woods. Not as a business.

Why do folks use email when the phone SEEMS to be more convenient?
Ans: because the phone has uncontrolled costs associated with it.
The cost of the email is the time it takes to type it out. No
digressions about the weather, last night\'s ball game, the family,
speculation on the Market, etc.

I disconnected my business phone less than a year after I got it.
Too much NONBILLABLE time with clients and vendors as well as
their expectations to be able to chat with me at their convenience
(instead of my own).

Email cuts my correspondence time considerably. And, provides a
documented conversation that I can refer to, later, instead of
relying on \"you said _______\" and arguing about what the intent
of that statement might have been (instead, I can just forward
a copy of their earlier email back to them to review and refute).

Do you always get access to the individual that you are trying to
call? Do you never have to leave a message -- and await a reply?

Think about how your secretary would handle a variety of incoming calls
(from strangers, folks you might not want to deal with *now*, folks you\'d
be willing to DROP EVERYTHING to speak with, etc.)

Too bad we can\'t afford secretaries. They could actually do the job
effectively, but will probably quit since they only get paid $0.10 per call
and have to deal with annoying spammers.

You don\'t have to pay (automated) voice attendants. Why did anyone invent
the answering machine/voice mail/call forwarding/etc.?

For a semi-cold call (i.e., someone I want to be able to call me but whom
I\'ve not yet \"registered\"), I tell them what to say to the \"attendant\" in
order to have their call recognized as \"not spam\". Just like a caller
interacting with a secretary needs a way to convince the sec\'y of their
genuine need for access (because they know some \"secret\" that wouldn\'t be
known to a casual caller)

So you implement voice recognition? Great, that alone is a useful tool.
Too bad the spammers already use it and will apply that to dealing with your
voice recognition.

Voice recognition determines content. Speaker identification determines
identity. How are they going to know what *I* think is significant enough
in the message body to grant admission?

There\'s no \"code word\" like \"press 3725 to gain access\" or \"how much is
three plus five\". Instead, I give semi-cold callers a one-time password
that I associate with them. It expires in some few number of days (if you
aren\'t interested in establishing contact with me now, then there\'s no
need to do so) or when used. When used, I have their name and voice signature
(after the system listens to our conversation for a while).

Caller ID is not a useful basis for blocking spam calls. My phone
already has it through the phone company and it only flags a fraction of
the calls.

As I said, you use CID to ACCEPT calls, not block.

You are making a false distinction. The CID is used to distinguish the
calls that are accepted vs. the ones that are blocks. Stop talking
nonsense.

No. CID is only used to identify the ones that WILL be accepted.
The rest require further criteria to sort out. YOU don\'t have any
additional criteria that you can apply (other than your own grey matter)
so have to treat it as a binary decision.

I can accept a call from my MD\'s office without knowing the identity
of the caller (medical assistant, receptionist, billing department,
etc.) by their voiceprint.

Note that you can also add heuristics to further bias your assessment
of an incoming call; e.g., if \"around dinner time\" it is likely a
spammer/pollster/etc.

Bull. I get spam calls all day long.

As do we. But we don\'t \"get notified\" of ANY of them! The system
answers the phone (WITHOUT an audible \"ring\"), determines the identity of
the caller and then decides whether we want to know that the party is
calling us, \"now\". If it decides to \"bother us\", then the ringer sounds.
Otherwise, the call is processed as in the above examples.

So are you talking about a home brew system on a landline? How does that
work on the cell phones the other 99% of us use?

Cell phones have a boatload of computational power (or, you can say
the feature is only offered on certain models of cell phones). Or,
TPC (or a third-party agent) can offer it as a service. Note that
it\'s not just filtering spammers out but also offering additional
services that your scheme won\'t begin to address.

Two of my colleagues have expressed an interest in the design
(I\'m not interested in capitalizing products at this point in my life;
I prefer, instead, to have fun -- and not be bothered by unwanted
phone calls! :> ). I don\'t know the approaches they will take
as they have each, historically, been interested in different markets.
In my case, there is very little cost other than the DAA as the other
capabilities already exist, elsewhere, in my system.

[I also don\'t know how well my approach will scale. I had a request
to handle 5,000 (!) contacts -- I don\'t think I interact with that
many entities in a year! :< ]

Spammers technically prevent our phone from receiving legitimate calls
while they have the line tied up. But, that\'s a tiny fraction of the time
so doesn\'t affect our accessibility. They spend THEIR time on the call,
not ours.

They spend zero time on the call, it\'s a machine!

The line -- MY LINE (land or otherwise) -- is tied up for the duration.
And, their machine is busy interacting with my machine -- instead of a
potential \"live person\". The fact that most calls are dropped (evident
in my log files) suggests they don\'t want to invest any effort after
realizing that they are talking to a machine.

I.e., a potential solution might be to just give everyone a machine and
the discipline NOT to salivate when they hear the bell ring!

TPC could implement a similar system -- without relying on verifiable CID
(there are genuine needs for \"faked\" CID). And, I suspect most cell
phones have the horsepower to do this, as well. (TPC could do so more
efficiently as it could centralize -- ick! -- the biometric database)

They won\'t take responsibility for the false positives and false negatives
until a workable system is found. Your system is full of holes. It will
only require the spammers to amp up their game. I\'ve already talked about
the systems that sound so much like a human and recognize what I say so well
that it is hard to know if they are human or not. Those systems will get
right through your system like it wasn\'t even there. But they will only
become prevalent when forced to by the phone companies mounting a stronger
defense.

You want a spammers cost to increase to the point where it exceeds their
potential for gain. Amp up your game? I can amp up my response!
If I\'m a commercial product (i.e., my colleagues\' offerings), that means
everyone using it has suddenly become costlier to target.

Anything done in the CO has to be universally applied AND legally
allowed. Nothing that I\'m doing requires any legislation or buy-in
from competing interests (of course, the spammers want a say in any
legislation, too! just like the loopholes that allow politicians to
contact you, folks you\'ve done business with, etc.).

I could hire someone to manually answer the phone and implement the
same process -- I just choose to let a piece of electronics do it
for considerably less cost!

[I use the same mechanism -- augmented with video -- to recognize
visitors at the front door and \"announce\" them (as well as granting them
conditional access in my absence)]

Don\'t care much... I\'m at the end of a quarter mile driveway on a half mile
private lane. I get no house visitors unless they are invited.

Again, you\'re not thinking like a business. Imagine eliminating the
\"guard\" (paycheck) who just sits and says hello to everyone who walks
into a facility -- to ensure \"unwanteds\" don\'t gain entry.

Or, the convenience of having the door to the cath lab unlock only
for certified staff.

 

[Don Y]

On 10/24/2020 2:54 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:

Someone needs to take a class action suit against the VOIP providers
against their publishing unverified CID data. Users should have to
prove control of the number before they are allowed to use it in CID

This is not trivial.

The 6,000 telephones at the local hospital would provide meaningless
information if uniquely identified. Instead, they\'d all want to
map to \"The Local Hospital\".

Someone working from home would want to be identified as an
agent of \"Company XYZ\" -- but only while on company business.

And, you\'d want the number used for RETURNED calls to reflect
the needs of that (legitimate) caller; the home worker wouldn\'t
want to be receiving calls back from \"customers\"

 

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 6:37:01 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

On 10/24/2020 1:46 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:12:16 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 10/24/2020 9:14 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 2:08:42 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 10/23/2020 8:21 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
Caller ID tells you nothing about this callers. Nothing.

Caller ID is useful for whitelisting calls as it\'s unlikely that a
spammer will know the phone number of your MD, dentist, friend(s),
etc. Less useful for things like the local police department (but,
how often do THEY call you???) which could be faked.

Caller ID can tell you the caller is someone you WANT to talk to but
can\'t tell you the caller is someone you DON\'T want to talk to!

So, *blocking* based on CID (unless you\'re really pissed off at a
friend/neighbor) is useless.

You either block specific numbers you recognize as spam, which is what
the NOMOROBO does, or you block EVERY CALL that isn\'t white listed.

No, you allow whitelisted calls (to be further conditioned based on
identity, time-of-day, etc.) to be \"accepted\" (ring-through, routed to
personalized mailbox, etc.).

I didn\'t say anything different.

But you assume \"non-white\" calls are black. That\'s the mistake.

No, if you pay attention to what I write I am saying your system is fatally flawed regardless because you are making unfounded assumptions. You are the one trying to distinguish white/black/grey calls. This simply does not work in a useful way for anyone other than yourself because you have designed the system around your tastes and presumably are willing to live with the limitations.

Non-whitelisted calls you identify with other MORE RELIABLE means. In our
case, we do that by recognizing the voice of the caller (we don\'t
\"recognize\" any spammers :> )

How does your machine recognize voices?

How do all IVR systems \"recognize voices\" -- voice recognition!

How does your BANK *identify* you as the caller -- speaker identification!

My bank identifies me by my proving intimate details of my account. I have no idea what you are talking about now.

As there is no universal \"spammer voice\", there\'s no need to try to identify
the spammer. \"Voice (identity) not recognized\"

This seems really out in left field now.

If you mean YOU listen, I don\'t even need to do that. But I don\'t want to
be bothered with the calls. No ring, no messages, no monitoring the call.
That\'s what the $0.10 per call fee will do. Spammers and the services that
connect them to the phone network won\'t be able to afford to make thousands
of calls to bring in a few hundred dollars.

I don\'t listen, the voice attendant does. It decides who you are by analyzing
the feature-set that it derives (while listening to you) from your words.
It compares this to a database of feature-sets to form an appraisal of WHO
you are. It augments this with any supplemental authenticators (CID) -- even
if not authoritative -- as well as the CONTENT of your speech and conditions
of the call (time of day, etc.)

So you aren\'t going to explain what you are talking about??? Whatever.

These factors are then used to decide how your call should be handled.
A business relation\'s call might be routed to voice mail \"after hours\"
(because I don\'t think they deserve to cut into my personal time).
A family member\'s call might prompt the attendant to contact me: \"Your
sister is on the phone. Do you want to speak with her, now?\"
A neighbor\'s call (or visit!) might warrant chasing me down -- even if
I\'m in the back yard or asleep.
And, a call from my other half (assuming she\'s not home) should go
to great pains to find me IF SHE CLAIMS IT IS URGENT.

You keep going on about handling different calls differently without explaining how you distinguish the callers. In particular you claim you are not blocking calls based on CID but then say you do use CID along with \"feature-sets\" which you fail to explain. Looking back for the term you used so I could quote it I see your post has gotten longer and longer.

I\'m not interested in reading your book. If you want to explain simply I\'m happy to listen, but if you just want to go on and on, that makes it very clear to me that you have developed a very sophisticated non-solution to a real problem.

Technology can solve every problem. Sometimes laws and regulations are the right solution. In this case a simple $0.10 fee per call is not only easy to implement, the mechanics are ALREADY built into the system. It just has to be turned on.

When skimming I saw you mention that cell towers have large computational capacities... which is used by the cell calls, that\'s why the capacities are there, because they are needed. They didn\'t just toss a bunch of processors onto a board they don\'t need.

I\'m not interested in continuing the conversation if you can\'t get to the point.

I still say you have no useful way (by \"useful\" I mean to the rest of the world) to distinguish spammers from anyone else, because no matter what you do, the spammers will adapt. That\'s the reason why there is so much email spam. Do you really think email just needs a better filter?

--

Rick C.

+++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

As I\'ve repeatedly said, think of what your (good) secretary would do
in each instance. Recognizing the content of speech, identifying callers,
retraining models, diarization, etc. are pretty much solved problems.
The only real effort is designing the AI to make use of all of that
information in a way that models the behavior of a \"secretary\" (of
the type you choose).

Either way it is blocking based on CID and useless. My entering the
number of every contact I\'ve ever had is not at all practical. I had to
talk to police recently. There are many others who call me first and I
don\'t always want to make them use voice mail. Then there is the issue
of the robocalls leaving voice mail which I get all the time.

Each call I make is logged (phone number) along with the voice of the
party that answers. So, the system already knows who my likely contacts
will be before they call.

This is why no one else will want to use that system, it\'s too labor
intensive and also unreliable.

There\'s no labor involved. I pick up my phone and I dial a number.
The system logs the number. The other party answers. I speak. We engage
in a conversation. The system has been recording all of the audio so
that it can post-process it to retrain models that it can then associate
with that callee -- in anticipation of him/her calling *me* at a later
date.

The \"cost\" to me is to announce to the system that \"this is John Doe\"
that I\'m calling -- so it can associate \"John Doe\" with that number which
will free me from having to remember the number going forward: \"Call
John Doe\" or \"John Doe is calling\".

Spammers don\'t get routed to the \"answering machine\" -- why would I want
to hear what they have to say?

Because they are the bank or credit card company calling about suspected
fraud on your account?

We\'ve never been contacted by a financial institution regarding fraud.
They simply have disabled the account/cards in question. We find out
about it when we try to use the card and it is declined. (this has happened
three or four times)

If \"The Authorities\" (cops) want to contact us, we want them to send
a squad around to the house so we can verify the identity of the party.
I\'d definitely NOT speak to anyone claiming to be an authority just
based on their \"say so\".

[We\'ve had cops at the door a few times as well as DIA. \"Show me your
credentials, please\"]

The answering machine is used to allow DESIRABLE contacts to leave
messages at times when I\'m not willing to speak with them: \"Sorry, Bob,
but he\'s not available, presently. Would you like to leave a message?
Or, should I just tell him that you called (at 3:12PM on Thursday the
14th)?\"

Too bad that there\'s no automated method of distinguishing the spammers..

Spammers are not desirable. If you really want to know what they were
trying to say, route spam to a voice mail account and spend the time
to listen to their messages.

It also lets us leave outgoing messages for specific callers: \"Hey, Bob,
I put the package in the mail this afternoon. I\'ll give you a call back
tomorrow, around 9:00?\"

Wonderful, a feature nearly no one will use.

Your thinking as an individual who lives off the beaten track out in the
woods. Not as a business.

Why do folks use email when the phone SEEMS to be more convenient?
Ans: because the phone has uncontrolled costs associated with it.
The cost of the email is the time it takes to type it out. No
digressions about the weather, last night\'s ball game, the family,
speculation on the Market, etc.

I disconnected my business phone less than a year after I got it.
Too much NONBILLABLE time with clients and vendors as well as
their expectations to be able to chat with me at their convenience
(instead of my own).

Email cuts my correspondence time considerably. And, provides a
documented conversation that I can refer to, later, instead of
relying on \"you said _______\" and arguing about what the intent
of that statement might have been (instead, I can just forward
a copy of their earlier email back to them to review and refute).

Do you always get access to the individual that you are trying to
call? Do you never have to leave a message -- and await a reply?

Think about how your secretary would handle a variety of incoming calls
(from strangers, folks you might not want to deal with *now*, folks you\'d
be willing to DROP EVERYTHING to speak with, etc.)

Too bad we can\'t afford secretaries. They could actually do the job
effectively, but will probably quit since they only get paid $0.10 per call
and have to deal with annoying spammers.

You don\'t have to pay (automated) voice attendants. Why did anyone invent
the answering machine/voice mail/call forwarding/etc.?

For a semi-cold call (i.e., someone I want to be able to call me but whom
I\'ve not yet \"registered\"), I tell them what to say to the \"attendant\" in
order to have their call recognized as \"not spam\". Just like a caller
interacting with a secretary needs a way to convince the sec\'y of their
genuine need for access (because they know some \"secret\" that wouldn\'t be
known to a casual caller)

So you implement voice recognition? Great, that alone is a useful tool..
Too bad the spammers already use it and will apply that to dealing with your
voice recognition.

Voice recognition determines content. Speaker identification determines
identity. How are they going to know what *I* think is significant enough
in the message body to grant admission?

There\'s no \"code word\" like \"press 3725 to gain access\" or \"how much is
three plus five\". Instead, I give semi-cold callers a one-time password
that I associate with them. It expires in some few number of days (if you
aren\'t interested in establishing contact with me now, then there\'s no
need to do so) or when used. When used, I have their name and voice signature
(after the system listens to our conversation for a while).

Caller ID is not a useful basis for blocking spam calls. My phone
already has it through the phone company and it only flags a fraction of
the calls.

As I said, you use CID to ACCEPT calls, not block.

You are making a false distinction. The CID is used to distinguish the
calls that are accepted vs. the ones that are blocks. Stop talking
nonsense.

No. CID is only used to identify the ones that WILL be accepted.
The rest require further criteria to sort out. YOU don\'t have any
additional criteria that you can apply (other than your own grey matter)
so have to treat it as a binary decision.

I can accept a call from my MD\'s office without knowing the identity
of the caller (medical assistant, receptionist, billing department,
etc.) by their voiceprint.

Note that you can also add heuristics to further bias your assessment
of an incoming call; e.g., if \"around dinner time\" it is likely a
spammer/pollster/etc.

Bull. I get spam calls all day long.

As do we. But we don\'t \"get notified\" of ANY of them! The system
answers the phone (WITHOUT an audible \"ring\"), determines the identity of
the caller and then decides whether we want to know that the party is
calling us, \"now\". If it decides to \"bother us\", then the ringer sounds.
Otherwise, the call is processed as in the above examples.

So are you talking about a home brew system on a landline? How does that
work on the cell phones the other 99% of us use?

Cell phones have a boatload of computational power (or, you can say
the feature is only offered on certain models of cell phones). Or,
TPC (or a third-party agent) can offer it as a service. Note that
it\'s not just filtering spammers out but also offering additional
services that your scheme won\'t begin to address.

Two of my colleagues have expressed an interest in the design
(I\'m not interested in capitalizing products at this point in my life;
I prefer, instead, to have fun -- and not be bothered by unwanted
phone calls! :> ). I don\'t know the approaches they will take
as they have each, historically, been interested in different markets.
In my case, there is very little cost other than the DAA as the other
capabilities already exist, elsewhere, in my system.

[I also don\'t know how well my approach will scale. I had a request
to handle 5,000 (!) contacts -- I don\'t think I interact with that
many entities in a year! :< ]

Spammers technically prevent our phone from receiving legitimate calls
while they have the line tied up. But, that\'s a tiny fraction of the time
so doesn\'t affect our accessibility. They spend THEIR time on the call,
not ours.

They spend zero time on the call, it\'s a machine!

The line -- MY LINE (land or otherwise) -- is tied up for the duration.
And, their machine is busy interacting with my machine -- instead of a
potential \"live person\". The fact that most calls are dropped (evident
in my log files) suggests they don\'t want to invest any effort after
realizing that they are talking to a machine.

I.e., a potential solution might be to just give everyone a machine and
the discipline NOT to salivate when they hear the bell ring!

TPC could implement a similar system -- without relying on verifiable CID
(there are genuine needs for \"faked\" CID). And, I suspect most cell
phones have the horsepower to do this, as well. (TPC could do so more
efficiently as it could centralize -- ick! -- the biometric database)

They won\'t take responsibility for the false positives and false negatives
until a workable system is found. Your system is full of holes. It will
only require the spammers to amp up their game. I\'ve already talked about
the systems that sound so much like a human and recognize what I say so well
that it is hard to know if they are human or not. Those systems will get
right through your system like it wasn\'t even there. But they will only
become prevalent when forced to by the phone companies mounting a stronger
defense.

You want a spammers cost to increase to the point where it exceeds their
potential for gain. Amp up your game? I can amp up my response!
If I\'m a commercial product (i.e., my colleagues\' offerings), that means
everyone using it has suddenly become costlier to target.

Anything done in the CO has to be universally applied AND legally
allowed. Nothing that I\'m doing requires any legislation or buy-in
from competing interests (of course, the spammers want a say in any
legislation, too! just like the loopholes that allow politicians to
contact you, folks you\'ve done business with, etc.).

I could hire someone to manually answer the phone and implement the
same process -- I just choose to let a piece of electronics do it
for considerably less cost!

[I use the same mechanism -- augmented with video -- to recognize
visitors at the front door and \"announce\" them (as well as granting them
conditional access in my absence)]

Don\'t care much... I\'m at the end of a quarter mile driveway on a half mile
private lane. I get no house visitors unless they are invited.

Again, you\'re not thinking like a business. Imagine eliminating the
\"guard\" (paycheck) who just sits and says hello to everyone who walks
into a facility -- to ensure \"unwanteds\" don\'t gain entry.

Or, the convenience of having the door to the cath lab unlock only
for certified staff.