Why am I not in full control as a cellular user? | Hacker News Reader

Why am I not in full control as a cellular user?

kumarfeels.wordpress.com

I agree, I think control is something the user should have rather than the provider supplying the solution.

Technologically speaking, implementing something like this is pretty simple.But it will cost the provider money rather than make money - which makes this investment pointless (No company will invest money to loose even more....).

I currently own a N900 and i have an app to block calls (currently blacklist only) i think - though i am not familiar with the N900 incoming call API - it should be rather simple to implement a whitelist instead.

And i pretty sure the same goes for SMS etc...

But frankly i don't really want that kind of blocking, i would prefer blocking numbers of known spammers (which i have a list of) while occasionally letting one pass through the filter, rather than miss even one important call which could change my life (And it happens every day doesn't it?)

This just outlines another spot where having a sufficiently open operating system on your mobile does make a lot of sense. In android, I could implement my own SMS application (maybe even just base it on the existing stock one if that's open source - I don't know).

This clone would only use the existing notification framework if the sender is in my address book.

Then I would just disable the built-in SMS application.

Of course this isn't as good as blocking the SMS on the provider level, but on the other hand it provides more granularity than a wholesale SMS block would provide.

He has a n900, one of the most "open" phones there is. If he had a "normal" Nokia with DRM, he'd probably be able to download that app mentioned in the comments.

:) That's funny, but I guess I can find or develop something myself to block it on phone level.

Makes perfect sense

Most spam I get comes from my provider anyway, and I imagine that even if they did add something along these lines they would make their own messages get through regardless.

My fear would be something like a friend or family member being in some emergency situation where they have lost their phone and need to reach me on someone else's phone but I never see the call/text. There's a danger in micro-managing your life without fully thinking about all the ramifications. This is why in my opinion it's better to just deal with the 1-2 seconds of annoyance to dismiss a spam call/text. It's not the end of the world. A child/SO/friend/family/co-worker not being able to reach you in an emergency is much worse.

There's always the middle ground:

If the number is blocked - a truly unknown number - send them to voicemail. Most marketers won't leave a voicemail - they'll just hang up.

I voicemail-screen every call I get from numbers that aren't in my address book. 99/100 times, blocked number calls don't even leave a voicemail.

Sounds good

I tend to disagree with this kind of worse-case-scenario thinking. That there's a slim possibility that something terrible will happen is not reason enough to stop doing something that will undoubtedly be of benefit. Not receiving an important emergency call because you disable calls form unknown numbers seems about as (un)likely as missing an important call because you were busy taking care of an unwanted one.

Precisely my thinking.

That's not a valid fear, I guess. Even normally you might miss those so called emergency calls - (1) You are in a meeting and your phone is on silent (2) You had few long chats over phone with friends/clients and your battery is dead (3) You are in a very crowded place or traveling and just couldn't hear your phone ringing (very common) (4) You obviously don't carry your phone in the bathroom; do you? At least, I don't. (5) And other technical/non-technical scenarios I can't think of right now.

Also about these emergency situations, can you think of the number of times, you actually received these kind of calls? In last 8 years, I can't think of any. And let's say, even if there were couple of them, I think it is unreasonable to consider that 0.001% probability. In that case, you already have enough from the above 5 points to worry about.

They have your number so you can tell them to include it in their sms when they are sending it to you. Or better yet their own number. Your spamfilter might let such messages through. Or at least name or something. Anyway you they have to provide some details about themselves in sms so you can know who contacts you.

Thinking further voicebot to filter out call spam also would be nice. ;-)

I can't imagine how we ever survived as a race before we had cell phones and we had to be unreachable by hours(!!) at a time.

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5900#c0

I put this issue into Android some time ago. Google's probably in a position to make some change here, and carriers should be ramping up to deal with mobile spam.

http://i.imgur.com/uB7UI.jpg

tl;dr: there are no spam filters at (some?) SMS providers, and (apparently) no incentives and no mechanisms for SMS providers to filter unwanted traffic. For spamming or harassment or whatever the sender might want, based on the OP.

The poster will want to chat with the regulatory entities that have oversight of the SMS provider and over consumers. Given the reference to the (US?) DNC, that discussion would involve the US FCC, as well as the state-level commissions.

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