How would abuse of such system be prevented? Require a minimal percentage of spam/abuse responses per number?
- Slowly increase velocity limits on new DIDs/TNs. Often, examine the outbound content before raising limits - is it something anyone would request? where/how?
- Require the recipient to have opted-in on the same carrier (ie, no importing lists)
- Don’t let the affiliate/reseller sign up customers on their own. Centralize onboarding/KYC.
- Verify the end customer’s government-issued ID.
For texts:
- Block (and flag/escalate) based on message content, like the domain name/URL they’re linking to or a pitch phrase they’ve used.
This never happens. Lots of PPP or bank fraud investigations go nowhere because the perpetrators used fake IDs all the way down. No company is actually checking the governments database of drivers licenses or state ID cards. Only recently did eCBSV come out which would allow companies to digitally check that an SSN actually exists (mostly to stop synthetic identity fraud) but that still doesn't stop identity theft.
DID: Direct Inward Dialing is a method organizations use to route incoming calls to specific private branch exchange (PBX) systems without an operator. Organizations purchase DID numbers from a telephone company or service provider and assign them to individual extensions within the organization.
TN: Telephone Number, this initialism is interchangeable with DID.
DLC: Installations using Digital Loop Carriers connect analog phone lines of individual users into a single signal sent on single lines to the central office of a phone company. The combined signal is separated into original signals at the central office.
A 10DLC A2P SMS is an SMS sent from a 10-digit number and triggered by API (or anything else automated). Maybe the SMS is your doctor’s appointment confirmation system or an online retailer telling you your order has shipped… or maybe it’s a spammer. If it comes from a 10-digit phone number instead of a 5-6 digit short code, that’s 10DLC.
In the last year or so, a registry for 10DLC A2P numbers has emerged (https://www.twilio.com/docs/sms/a2p-10dlc, https://support.bandwidth.com/hc/en-us/articles/442382643458...), but adoption is mixed, enforcement is low, and end consumers/recipients don’t see any of it.
There’s also “Person-to-Person” (P2P) 10-digit SMS, like you texting a friend. Those can also be used to spam (hook up a computer to a consumer SIM), but it’s much less common, especially in the US. Most US-originating SMS spam comes from 10DLC A2P numbers.
Ie Passport/valid driving license.
Not fool proof and comes with its own set of problems. But it’ll likely get us most of the way.