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Comment by jbryson3 | Hacker News Reader

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jbryson3

Largely unhelpful article.

Summary:

- yes there are more robocalls

- Don't pick up

- Put your number on do not call list

- Get an app to block them

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> - Get an app to block them

I'd soon change my number before resorting to most apps. Unless it's like uBlockOrigin where I just feed blacklists into it, I'm not really okay with giving an organization besides my service provider my call history. Read Nomorobo's TOS sometime, it's a doozy.

This is how the call blocking API on iOS works. The blocker app can only provide a static, pre-set list of numbers to block to the OS, and that's it. It has no access to call history, awareness of calls being received/made, etc. The OS handles all the blocking, referring to the blacklist the app provided earlier, and provides no feedback to the app itself about this.

Of course, this means that call blocking apps have less features than on Android. For example, apps can't dynamically look up a number when a call is revived and make an on-the-fly decision. This is in keeping with iOS' philosophy of "privacy/security over features", vs. Android's "everything is completely open to developers, for better or worse".

It also means that the ultimate call blocking mechanism I've always wanted isn't available on iOS: Only allow calls from known numbers in my address book. Frustrating, because to achieve such a concept I've had to resort to DND mode in iOS which then also blocks all push notifications.

If you could highlight some of the more onerous claims in the TOS, that'd be appreciated. I've thought about using Nomorobo.

They lay it out in English before laying out the legalese here:

http://www.nomorobo.com/pages/privacy

Some highlights from the legalese:

> 1.2 Data Privacy. You understand and agree that some of your call information (including, but not limited to, a log of all phone calls made to your subscribed phone line(s) and any requested additions to any customizable phone number blacklist or white list) may be viewable by you, the Company, and by any other person having a phone line subscribed to the Nomorobo Service through the same user account as you.

I don't know that that is actually possible on iOS, though, as iOS doesn't give the call log to the blacklist provider.

>1.3 Contact. From time to time, the Company may need to send e-mails, in-app messages, and/or push notifications to you and automated voice calls and/or text messages to all phone lines that are subscribed to or otherwise using the Nomorobo Service.

Could be innocuous now and be much more annoying later if they decide to change their business model.

>Binding Arbitration. If the parties to the Agreements do not reach a solution through the informal resolution process described in Paragraph 6.3(ii), then any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to the Agreements, shall be settled by arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (the "AAA") in accordance with its Commercial Arbitration Rules, and judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator(s) may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof or having jurisdiction over the relevant party or its assets.

Must go to arbitration if anything goes wrong and you want to sue.

Overall, not the worst I've seen. There was another one that you had to grant permission to post to your Facebook wall and/or Twitter account. I don't recall which one it was, though.

I'd say do not put your number on a do not call list. That just lets the robocallers know its a real number, and they are likely outside the jurisdicition of enforcement for these laws.

I like to pick up so I can decide for myself if it's a spam call. If it is, it gets blocked and reported (Android). Not sure if Google does anything with the report but at least it is tagged on the next call in.

> If it is, it gets blocked

The numbers are often spoofed, so you'll end up blocking some random local numbers instead.

Two stories about this -

Once in 2014, I got a spam call that spoofed my own number.

This week, I got a spam call that spoofed the number of a family member.

Don't block without being sure.

For the past few years the odd spam call I get has been my number with one digit changed. This came as a surprise when my ex-wife's phone number popped up. I didn't realize it was spam until I listened to the voicemail re: the cruise I won.

How do they go about spoofing the source numbers? That seems like a huge security risk overall for the phone system.

Because there are some good reasons for spoofing Caller ID (e.g. providing a master extension for a call made from a company) and, historically, it was hard/expensive to do. That difficulty pretty much went away with VoIP and other technology changes.

I noticed I end up with a pretty high hit-rate; maybe 1/2 of calls come in already tagged. Maybe I'm just lucky the volume is low enough to answer the calls; if they happened more often it wouldn't be practical.

Some sort of "law" probably comes into play with respect to junk phone calls. If there were a lot more, the phone system would simply become untenable. Instead, between legal, economic, and technology limitations, junk calls (including those that are actually legal) have seemed to hover in the annoying but not a lot worse than that rate for pretty much as long as I can remember.

What's the point of blocking one randomly generated number?

I would add, if you do answer the phone, don't say "Hello" or anything like that. The automated callers are looking for hints that someone is on the other side of the line and give up easily to get to the next number, where a person would usually spend a couple of seconds to check if someone answered the phone properly.

Nowadays if I pick up to a silent line I usually just hang up.

Yeah, I usually answer and put the mic on mute to see if there's anyone on the other end. Usually it's a robot waiting for audio from the other side to proceed, so it hangs up after several seconds without ever saying anything.

That's kind of a dick move to normal people that are calling you because making the caller say "hello?" first is the complete opposite of the normal flow.

I understand in Japan the culture is different: picking up the phone is your answer and the caller is expected to speak first.

I have never verified the above though...

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