Hacker News Reader

Comment by ascar | Hacker News Reader

The problem I have with a whitlisting approach is, what if it's actually some legitimate and damn important call? When my father was in the hospital close to death I got informed by phone from an unknown number. You get these calls hopefully only a few times in your lifetime, but I definitely don't want to miss them.

What's your approach for these cases?

View on HN

Most people don't answer unknown calls anymore. They're likely to miss these life/death calls right now. That's why the PIN feature is better for most people--you can give a 5 digit PIN to loved ones. You may be an exception if you answer every call--I won't answer any call from an unknown number, and most young people don't answer unknown calls anymore. Seniors tend to answer more, but that's because they are more used to landlines and times when there were less robocalls. I'd rather make sure that my family can remember a 5 digit PIN (obviously there are lots of tricks to make numbers memorable) than answer every unknown call in my life.

Until this service becomes so popular that the robocallers start deliberately working around it, I think you may only need a 1-digit PIN. I've had a service from the phone company on my landline for decades that just makes an unknown caller dial a 1 before my phone will ring, and it continues to nearly eliminate spam calls. So the 1-digit PIN can just be a "1".

Randomized "Enter X to be connected" with 0-9 is a feature several people have requested. I agree that you can probably cut most with just that.

So, a captcha :)

A soundcha ?

> What's your approach for these cases?

If it's important enough, the caller will leave a voicemail.

I had unknown/blocked phone numbers blocked so a deputy had to unblock her number to notify me my brother had died.

I would've been alright with a voicemail, tho.

>What's your approach for these cases?

Send an SMS/Whatsapp/etc

Reply on news.ycombinator.com