We need to change our approach. We need to look at why these kinds of data are valuable, and then make them not valuable. Then nobody will bother with hacking to get it.
Expect every SMS and MMS sent or received to be part of a spam mitigation and profiling program where it's stored indefinitely.
Apple not encrypting RCS is likely due to similar factors, where they have seen existing spam problems on RCS that are much harder to root out when you have end-to-end encryption.
There needs to be a firm timeline -- maybe a year maybe a decade, I don't know the details but something that allows customers to transition to a system where all calls can be traced through the network with 100% guarantee.
Step zero is actually having a process/protocol where any phone is tamper evident meaning we can tell 100% that this call came from this operator and the operator knows the call came from this user.
Perhaps the first phase allows individual users to opt in. So we would ask our operators to only route us calls and texts that positively identify themselves as fully traced with whatever the new protocol is that will replace SS7/sigtran so the origin of a call or text is positively identified. If this guarantee is not available, route the call to spam inbox somehow.
Then the hard part I'm guessing is fixing all the defects?
The second phase is to say after this date, no operator in the US is allowed to relay calls that are from legacy systems. This will likely take many years as I don't know how we will handle international calls and texts. But at some point we have to put our foot down and say enough is enough.
This basically doesn't work because the mapping between phone numbers, users and operators isn't exactly 1:1:1.
Some businesses have a single number that they use as Caller ID on all their calls , despite having one corporate HQ in New York, one branch in New Orleans and one customer support callcenter in New Delhi. All of these use different carriers and are based in different countries, yet they're all legally authorized to use that number.
If you want to read more about why this is such a hard problem to solve, see https://computer.rip/2023-08-07-STIRred-AND-SHAKEN.html
Thank you for sharing it!
Now I need to lean SS7 signaling.
But why? I get that they want a unifed appearance, but as a phone subscriber I want to know if it's BigCo calling from New Delhi vs. BigCo calling from Chicago.