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Comment by joshka | Hacker News Reader

I'm more inclined to say that the real solution to this is to make it expensive for the callers by having a service that answers the call every time and tries to keep the caller on the line wasting their time. There's obviously an asymmetric principal at play here.

Imagine for a sec a situation where: 1. I receive a robocaller message. 2. I press a button on phone indicating spam 3. Software Agent takes over, presses the right DTMF to proceed (ML based analysis of what works and what doesn't) 4. Agent waits for human to come on, starts playing random conversational pieces that sound right (extension, the google thing that booked a hair dresser appointment takes this even further https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D-6mxb_Mu8). 5.

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Are you sure this is a problem you want to (try to) solve technically?

- You'll make it very hard for genuine people to contact you.

- You don't solve the problem, you only make it more expensive. As long as the benefit of calling you is bigger than the cost they will jump through whatever hoop to call you.

For some context: this isn't a problem everywhere in the world. In my country there are strict laws about unsolicited phone calls (especially to people who have indicated they wan't to be called[1]). I never get a spam called (automated or otherwise).

[1]: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/wetten-en-regelingen/productbes...

Re-read the proposed solution. The recipient screens the call and pushes a button to redirect the spammer.

Not really personally. The telcos have an interest in making this not a thing, and I have strong hopes that any solution based on this concept would be put out of business by fixing it at that level.

There are laws in the US about this too, with some pretty heavy penalties that are possible to collect in Civil court. The problem is finding the perpetrator, as the phone system makes it difficult to get accurate info on who actually called. I suppose someone could start a class action against the telcos, or an aggressive AG could start a RICO case.

BTW, AT&T, if you don't fix this soon I'm moving to T-Mobile.

It's surprisingly easy to fool spam callers with a set of prerecorded messages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB0fj0vLJPE&list=PLduL71_GKz...

Several years ago, a coworker who knew about voice processing set up a device at his house that when you called his number, it would answer with whale song. This had just enough entropy to make a robocall believe that there was someone there. It would keep the robocalls going for quite some time. If you wanted to reach him, you had to dial an extension.

This exists (kind of).

https://jollyrogertelephone.com

I used that for a little bit. It was fun, but a bit clunky to get going (dial another number, join the calls).

Nomorobo does exactly this (except the robo calls are mostly auto-detected and the script read to them is pre-recorded). It records their conversation for your entertainment also! I think you can submit your own recording to harass the robo callers too I think.

link: https://www.nomorobo.com/

I've found the Google Call Screening feature to do a much better job at this than anything more malicious.

I tap a button, and the call screener takes its time to explain that I've enabled that call screening service, while I continue on my day. No spam I've ever gotten has waited for the voice to finish its 3rd word.

Google Call Screening almost solves the parent's problem. The only thing missing is a setting to have it automatically screen all calls that aren't in my contact list. Then my phone would never ring unless I know you or you waited/responded to the call screening.

Yes. I don’t even want to see the number come up or hear the phone ring unless they are on my contacts list.

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