[the-facts-machine] LONG: Die, robocalls, die: A guide to stop spammers and fight back

From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <the-facts-machine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:02:15 -0400

BlankDie, robocalls, die: A guide to stop spammers and fight back . Geoffrey A.
Fowler.

"Call me, maybe? is on the brink of becoming "Call me, never."

Robocalls, those computer-generated shysters, are making some people stop
answering
the phone altogether. The rest of us trust unknown calls about as much as truck
stop
sushi.

By several estimates, Americans got more than 5.2 billion automated calls in
March -
a record of about 16 for every man, woman and child. It's happening because the
Internet made it incredibly cheap and easy to place thousands of calls in an
instant.

But we don't have to just bury our heads in the spam and take it.

While lawmakers debate what to do about the robo-scourge, engineers have cooked
up
some clever ways to make bots work for us, not against us.

Verizon just began offering free spam-fighting tech like AT&T and T-Mobile, if
you
sign up. The right app or service on your phone can make it safer to say hello
again -- or even extract revenge. Yes, revenge.

So let's battle, bots.

I collected dozens of robocalls from my Post colleagues along with the (good
grief)
30 I got myself in March. I get lots in Chinese; one colleague gets one for a
"medical-grade brace" that he definitely doesn't need. Then I took this list of
100
naughty numbers -- and a few legitimate calls like pharmacies and schools -- to
six
tech companies that flag and block robocalls on cellphones: Hiya, Nomorobo,
RoboKiller, TNS, Truecaller and YouMail. (Landlines and VoIP phones also get
barraged, but some of the solutions are different.)

My test lasers in on one important question: Who was first at identifying the
bad
guys? I discovered no service could flag more than two-thirds of the calls on
my
list, in part because so many robocalls spoof their identities. Those are the
callers
that look conspicuously similar to your number, or copy the caller-ID of some
poor
soul who gets lots of angry return calls.

In a robocall death-match, speed matters. And one free app was, on average,
faster at
adding bad guys to its blacklist. It comes down to how much effort you want to
put
into battling robocalls, and how much personal information you're willing to
share to
make it happen.

Just adding numbers to your phone's individual block list won't get you very
far, but
there are a few simple steps everyone could benefit from. Here's my recommended
plan
of attack.

Round 1: Register on the 'Do Not Call' list

It won't help much, but it only takes 30 seconds so why not? The list, kept by
the
Federal Trade Commission, tells legitimate telemarketers not to bother you -
the
equivalent of a "no trespassing" sign on your lawn.
Bonus: It also registers with the government that you care about this issue.
It's
free to register at donotcall.gov.

Round 2: Activate your service provider's free protection

Phone companies have finally realized that stopping robocalls is an essential
part of
what we pay them for. You may have heard that recently the biggest carriers
pledged
to support new network technology with a James Bond name - STIR/SHAKEN - that
will
help identify the true origin of calls. That's a good thing to help stop all
those
spoofed calls, but there's still a lot to work out before it might make a
noticeable
difference.

Meanwhile, everyone should take advantage of tech the carriers offer to
identify and
block certain robocalls. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon offer free services that
monitor
network activity and crowdsourced reports to block suspected fraudulent calls.
The
carriers outsource these services to Hiya, First Orion and TNS, respectively.
Don't
worry: they cross-check your contacts list to make sure they don't block
someone
legitimate.

One caveat: If your employer pays for your phone service, it might have to
authorize
turning on some of these services.

AT&T :

Download an app called AT&T Call Protect. The free level of service will label
suspected spammers and gives you the option to automatically block calls that
are a
fraud risk. Unfortunately, if you also want to automatically block nuisances
like
spam, political calls and telemarketers, you have to pay $4 per month, which
also
comes with access to AT&T's mobile security service.

Verizon :

Download an app called Verizon Call Filter. As of recently, Verizon stopped
charging
for basic service, which labels suspected robocalls and gives you three options
based
on risk level for how many to block.
If you pay $3 per month, you'll also get caller ID.

T-Mobile :

Most T-Mobile customers already have the company's Scam ID and Scam Block
service
turned on, with no need to download an additional app. If you pay $4 per month,
you'll get better caller ID and the ability to send more kinds of calls
straight to
voice mail.

In my test, the carrier services were slower at adding spammers to blacklists
than
some independent apps - and paying for their premium versions won't make them
faster.
In everyday use, these services take advantage of algorithms that might have
stopped
spoof numbers my test didn't pick up.

Verizon's service provider TNS and AT&T's provider Hiya identified nearly the
same
number of robocalls, though Hiya did so, on average, a bit faster. (T-Mobile's
provider First Orion declined to participate.) Just as important: Both let the
legitimate calls through.

Round 3: Get a robocall-blocking app

If your carrier isn't squashing enough spam, independent apps offer a few
tricks of
their own. But they're not all effective, and might also be after the personal
data
in your phone.

Into my bot battle, I threw four popular apps: Nomorobo, RoboKiller, Truecaller
and
YouMail. I also spoke with the companies behind them about how they make money
and
handle our privacy.

I recommend starting with the free YouMail, which won my robocall speed test.
The
main reason it's faster is that it has data the carrier-provided services
don't: the
contents of your voice mail. YouMail replaces your phone's existing voice mail
service, and uses software to identify when robocallers leave messages -- like
Shazam
for spam. That helps it quickly crowdsource the identity of new robocallers and
block
them from other phones. If YouMail, which has about 10 million registered
users, sees
a scam rotating through lots of different spoofed numbers, it knows not to
block
those numbers that belong to legitimate callers for all its users. A coming
update
will also let you automatically block spoof calls designed to look like they're
coming from neighbors. And my favorite part: YouMail tries to trick known
robocallers
into taking you off their lists by playing them the beep-beep-beep sound of a
dead
line.

I wouldn't blame you for being hesitant about handing over so much data,
including
(on Android phones) the details of every call that comes in. You're required to
use
the YouMail app to listen to your messages, but it does helpfully transcribe
them,
make them accessible on the web and offer fun outgoing message options.

YouMail says it makes money through selling a premium voice mail service for
businesses and through advertising, but over its 12-year history has also run
an
identity-verification data service. The company told me it's ending its data
business
and won't sell user data or share it with others unless it's part of an effort
to
stop robocalls.

If you don't want to give up your voice mail, the most-effective option is
Truecaller, which replaces your phone's main call app, and crowdsources spam
numbers
from some 300 million users worldwide (including 10 million in the United
States).
But it wasn't my favorite app because you have to pay $3 per month to
automatically
block top spammers, and it stuffs in lots of functions unrelated to robocalling.

The simplest app, $2-per-month Nomorobo, is one of the first robocall blockers
on the
market with a popular service for home lines. On your smartphone, Nomorobo
doesn't
sell your data or monkey around with your voice mail or calling apps, and is
smart
about blocking spoofed calls that appear to be from neighbors. But I also found
it
was the slowest to add my test's robocalls to its blacklist.

Round 4: Get revenge

For some, dark times call for dark measures. The $4-per-month RoboKiller, which
ranked second in my speed test, also takes over and fingerprints your voice
mails but
adds a clever twist: "answer bots."

They're voice-mail messages that try to keep robots and human telemarketers on
the
line listening to nonsense. Answer bot options range from Trump impersonators
and
extended coughing sessions to someone doing vocal exercises.

Even better, RoboKiller will send you an often-hilarious recording of the
interaction. (It only uses these recordings when it's very sure it's a spam
call.)

Another service, called Jolly Roger, doesn't sell itself as a robocall blocker
but
takes this auto-generated annoyance idea a step further by actively trying to
game
the spammers' systems, such as when to press 1 to speak to a human. It calls
this
tech "artificial stupidity."

It costs $11.88 per year. It's possible you're better off not engaging with a
robocall in the hopes the dialer with decide the line is dead. And it's also
not
clear how much these actually cost the people placing robocalls.

But any time robocallers spend with your bot might be minutes they're not
calling
someone else, so you can think of it as community service. I expect we'll see
more
call software that works like this.

Google's Pixel phones last year added a button to have a robot assistant screen
calls
for you. Even if you're not interested in revenge, good bots can play a role in
combating bad ones.

Follow-Ups:
- [the-facts-machine] Re: LONG: Die, robocalls, die: A guide to stop spammers and fight back
  - From: rmilliman

[the-facts-machine] LONG: Die, robocalls, die: A guide to stop spammers and fight back

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