FCC proposes fining conspiracists $5.1M for voter suppression robocalls | Hacker News Reader

FCC proposes fining conspiracists $5.1M for voter suppression robocalls

politico.com

76 pointscommoner66 comments

Now can we do something about all the other spam calls please? Something like 90% of the calls I get are spam.

Out of curiosity, if you are in the US, have you put yourself on the no call list?

https://www.donotcall.gov/

I did this probably over 10 years ago, I have not changed my phone #, and I receive very few spam calls. I did receive some in 2015 and stated I would like them to remove me from there list and not contact me again, and I never heard from them again. The majority of "spam" I get is from recruiters offering me jobs for tech I haven't done in 15 years :(

I'm in the US, have had the same cell phone number since 2004 [1], and have put it on the do-not-call list, and it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I receive 2x as many junk calls as legitimate calls, but at least an unknown number in my cell phone's area code (where I haven't lived since 2007) is a strong signal that its nobody I want to talk to. (But I can't tell my phone to filter unknown numbers by area code)

[1]: https://xkcd.com/1129/ applies well to me.

"You successfully registered your phone number ending in XXXX on March XX, 2006."

I still get 5-10 spam calls per day.

I tried this multiple times over the past several years and it seemed to make little difference for me. I'm thinking whoever had this number before me gave it out to anyone and everyone. I will try signing up for this list again. Thanks!

Most spam calls I get are about the soon-to-expire warranty on my car or the student loans I haven't had since since the 20th century. They always hang up when I ask if it's a scam.

"You successfully registered your phone number ending in xxxx on May 05, 2017."

... The number of calls went up and stayed up months after i did that.

what are the mechanics of adding oneself to this list? I just did, but how is this realistically going to stop robocalls?

It will stop robocalls from law abiding callers. Unfortunately, most robocalls are spammers who are frauding anyway, so the list doesn't matter.

I think it just enables you to collect damages of $3000/call if you are able to identify the entity robocalling you and you sue them.

Add another condition: "and they are under US jurisdiction".

Technically, yes, you can obtain a judgement against a call center operating outside the US, but you're never going to collect on that judgement.

The DNC list doesn't work. Scammers ignore it. Politicians are exempt. Any nominal business relationship is also exempt.

> Politicians are exempt

True, but they mostly call you if the polls are closing and your haven't voted yet.

> Any nominal business relationship is also exempt.

true, but here again they have a relationship and are at least somewhat useful. They also aren't robo calls, but a real person spending their time calling you so they won't abuse your time like robo calls do.

I get a constant stream of political push-poll callers from both major parties.

As for the business calls - it's a lot of car warranty crap and similar mostly useless, borderline scammy sales pitches.

Your business calls are scams and nothing to do with the legitimate businesses with an established relationship.

I no longer do, but only because I recently learned that some carriers allow you to block them completely, before they ever reach the phone. For example, on T-mobile, you just dial #662# to activate it, #632# to deactivate it, and #787# to check if it's currently enabled.

Wait, what? Would that work on Ting?

#787# and #632# work for me on Ting with an X3 SIM, but #662# says "unable to process request." I'm guessing you actually need to be a T-Mobile customer to use the service.

I have T-Mobile and a Pixel. With their blocking measures combined, it's very rare that I get robocalls.

If you have time you can figure out who is behind each one and take them to court. You just about need to be an unemployed lawyer to get all the paperwork right, but it is possible.

The industry is implementing STIR/SHAKEN which should help somewhat.

https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication

My voicemail gets plenty of robocalls, many of them threatening me about some "expired warranty" for a product that I never bought. If you are in the US, here are some ways to reduce robocalls or at least make them less annoying:

- Enroll all of your phone numbers into the National Do Not Call Registry: https://www.donotcall.gov. This lets you report robocalls immediately after registration, and forbids sales calls (including ones that are not robocalls) to your number starting 31 days after registration. Report all robocalls to https://www.donotcall.gov/report.html after registering your numbers. When the FTC receives enough reports about a robocaller, they will file a class action lawsuit and you can get reimbursed.

- If you have a postpaid plan with a major US carrier, you may be able to use a free app that blocks calls identified as spam. Postpaid customers of AT&T, T-Mobile/Sprint, and Verizon all qualify. The Verge has a summary: https://www.theverge.com/21327304/spam-calls-how-to-stop-blo...

- Both Android and iOS have APIs for call blocking, which third-party apps can use. If you are on Android, Yet Another Call Blocker is a free and open source app that uses an offline database to show you the reputation of incoming callers, and optionally lets you block them automatically: https://gitlab.com/xynngh/YetAnotherCallBlocker

- If you don't need to receive calls from phone numbers outside of your contact list, you can set your phone to send all calls from numbers not on your contact list to voicemail. Instructions for Android vary by phone manufacturer, but Yet Another Call Blocker can do this on any Android phone (use "*" in the blacklist to block all calls, and whitelist all contacts). iOS has the Silence Unknown Callers feature: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

My buddy does all that, and still gets calls every day. They rotate the caller-id numbers they report. His phone has a blocking list and he adds to it every time but that means he still gets the robocall once a day anyway. There's no perfect solution?

I just added the fourth point about blocking unknown numbers. If your buddy is in a situation (e.g. certain type of job) that makes this impractical, then I'm afraid there's no better solution yet.

Edit: Actually, Google Pixel phones have an automatic call screening feature using the Google Assistant: https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9118387. Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWap-nPQUO0. The privacy trade-off is that Google screens all of your calls, and the feature does not work with custom OSes, but some people might find this to be worth the added convenience. I'd love to see a FOSS implementation of this after a free voice recognition solution becomes available.

I thought the whole SHAKEN/STIR[1] push would help. I think what happened is that it pushed out the amateurs. So the pros just amped up their volume.

It's still pretty new though. So maybe it will start working better soon.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN

I'm always hesitant to add numbers to my phone's block list because they spoof numbers often and I'm worried that I'll block a number that legitimately needs to reach me in the future. I know the chances are tiny but it would be a huge PITA to debug that issue and if they do reach me through some other means I doubt I'd remember to check my block list to see if I happened to block them in the past.

I want to install a captcha/menu into my phone (like "press 1 to speak to the owner of this phone") but my phone doesn't allow my software to interact with my phone calls. I can't even record them!

Could port your number to a voip provider which supports IVR (e.g. voip.ms) and then use a softphone for it.

You’d have to disable inbound POTS though.

For anyone considering this approach, anveo.com has a really nice drag/drop IVR.

> You’d have to disable inbound POTS though.

Why would that be? POTS calls are gated to VoIP above the end-users system.

I’m imagining a cell phine where it’s associated to a phone number no matter what. A lot of consumer providers are incapable/unwilling to provide data-only services. Maybe you can get a machine to machine plan, but that reduced feature set is going to cost you.

My pixel does something similar. It will answer calls and prompt them to basically identify themselves. You can see what they are saying in real time.

I don't remember the last time I had a spam call make it past it. They almost always just disconnect.

https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9118387?hl=en

In my experience, none of these are sufficient. Robocallers/spammers rotate numbers, so the only solution I've found is to ignore all unknown callers. But, that falls apart when you're expecting a call from a doctor, or potential employer, or similar - they can never get through.

The majority of my robocalls come from a spoofed number with my same area code. Luckily, I happen to have an area code from several states away, so all my fake calls have out of state numbers. The odds that spammers spoof my local code is nearly 1:1000, so I am able to answer local numbers without issue. It is a less effective system post-covid because more people are using personal cells and VOIP to WFH.

Depending on the logistics, others might have similar success with a google voice number or the equivalent from a unique area code.

I just ignore unknown callers and tell anyone trying to call me to text instead or send me the number they're going to call from ahead of time. I've never had anyone try to tell me they can't do that and have to call from an unknown number.

These are all great, but I've done none of them and get maybe 1 spam call a month. It's easy... just answer the calls and talk to them.

Have a bookmark to https://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com, go along with their script and feed them all the fake CC numbers they want. After a couple, they'll cuss you out, hang up, and put you on the real do-not-call list. You're hurting them by tying up a phone line, a "representative's" time, and making them give bad credit card numbers to their payment processor.

Like I said, my spam calls are down to one a month. I get excited when one calls. At first I was doing a call every day or so, but it fizzled out really fast.

Spammers are a business; if you make it hideously unprofitable to call you they'll quit calling you.

I've heard hearsay that the list you get put on is the list where they call you then connect you to someone else on the list. Game theory suggests the spammers wouldn't want to give spammees a winning scenario.

I bet some of them out there do that, but so far mine haven’t. My spammers usually threaten to kill me, then hang up, then I never hear from them again. If they were using me to slow down competitors, I’d expect more call volume than I get.

How would that work?

    Spammer: Hello?  
    Trickster: Yes hello?  
    Spammer -> *redirects to another list member*  
    Member: Hello?  
    Trickster: Yes, hello?  
    Member: Hello? How can I help?  
    Trickster: You called me?  
    Member: No? You called me?  
    Trickster: No no, you called me?  
    Member: No no no, you called me?  
    [etc ad infinitum]

When this happened to me, the spammer remained on the line and attempted their spiel to the other person, giving me the opportunity to intervene to some extent.

Why do they let you stay on the line? It seems detrimental to them successfully scamming the new person they called.

I think their metrics are tracked and thus they want to avoid short calls or hanging up on someone who calls in.

Yeah this has happened to me. I wrote a simple script that spams spammers from a pool of phone numbers I rent. At one point my calls were starting to get connected to other targets of the spammers. When I noticed this I actually got on the phone and tried to tell the other person that they were being scammed and they seemed appreciative.

I didn't see much of an improvement when using do not call many years ago. Enabling an iPhone app dedicated to it helped greatly. And by default on iOS I have all unknown calls sent to voicemail, and I just make sure to have anyone I know who expect to call my in my phone book already. So most all calls in voicemail are spam. And if I know I will be getting a call from an unknown number like to schedule a delivery I disable the feature temporarily. Process works well.

Apparently I signed up for this 10 years ago. It's nice to see something be maintained that long, even if it has done absolutely nothing.

I've started thinking that at some point society will be forced to make lying a crime.

Tell something untrue that is not clearly labeled as fiction or satire and be fined or even charged with a misdemeanor or felony in certain circumstances such as influencing elections.

The reason is similar to why large scale wars must be effectively outlawed in the nuclear age. Before then wars were fought with weapons that while deadly to the soldiers did not present an existential threat to the rest of humanity.

Today's microtargeting, viral social media, and AI-driven text generation are to lying and con artistry what the H-bomb was to warfare. It is now possible to construct deception weapons of mass destruction that have the capacity to obliterate rational discourse across entire swaths of society. I truly think that a sufficiently determined and clever attacker could at this point destroy civilization through expertly crafted propaganda augmented by big data and AI.

Of course a huge number of our politicians, pundits, news anchors, and PR flaks would be in prison. Maybe that would be a good thing.

Who gets to decide what is a lie? Which is the lie: "Biden won" or "Trump won"? Depends on who is in charge, depends on who gets to decide what "proof" is, depends on who controls the "news" (there is no such thing as news anymore, it is all infotainment click-bait nonsense)

"The Earth is flat" is not true. If you think the Earth is flat you are wrong. If you tell people the Earth is flat you are lying.

I don't like the idea of regulating speech this way, but I am starting to wonder if there's an alternative.

I hope I'm wrong, but right now it seems like the emergence of information age digital propaganda has altered the balance of power in some fundamental way. I am deeply concerned about the continued existence of societies that are both free and open.

I get the sense that we will be forced to either give up a lot of freedom to restrict speech and discourse or give up all our freedom when unrestricted speech and discourse is exploited by a populist totalitarian to take power. Of course one of the things this new totalitarian regime would do immediately is shut down the systems of free and open discourse they exploited to gain power to make sure nobody else can repeat the same trick.

So is climate change real? Depending on the administration, you will get a different answer. My point is that if you start making it illegal to tell a lie, you may find yourself having to break the law or "tell the truth".

In my opinion, the bigger issue is that it is extremely profitable to amplify lies. As long as selling (faux?) outrage keeps the ads flowing, platforms are incentivized to amplify lies and push click-bait. Instead of of trying to outlaw lying, I'd prefer to tax digital advertising to try to make lying less profitable.

Why not just $5.1M for...robocalls? In the age we live in, there's virtually no reason for robocalls to be legal when emails exist. If robocalls are needed, they should be exceptional with exceptions granted, not the norm.

I live in central California and any bit of forecast wind nets me a robocall from the utility letting me know that they my cut my power to reduce the risk of fire. Which seems like one of those exceptional cases.

Even it gets flagged as potential spam.

"conspiracists" is the new "terrorists"

You can't actually be trying to defend spam robocallers.... Can you?

I think a more charitable reading of the above comment is that the use of the term "conspiracist" in this context is interesting because it ties the broad concept of "conspiracy theories" and the "conspiracists" who subscribe to them, to robocallers, based on the actions of two individuals. in recent months, we've seen a concerted effort in the media to label various Americans as "domestic terrorists" for actions that don't exactly fall in line with how the term has been used in the past two decades. thus, this seems to be another example of attaching nebulous political labels to people, which is concerning for anyone whose political thought lies outside the generally-accepted mainstream narrative, because instantly associating them with unrelated people doing unrelated actions isn't exactly fair.

I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts to words but in general, using terms like "conspiracists" in headlines tends to give me pause, because it tends to have the effect of painting a large group of people with a broad brush and associating them with the actions of a few.

The sibling comment captures the idea well.

Reading through the notice [0] it looks like the FCC played things pretty straight and has evidence of other similar fines, so maybe the "conspiracists" is more descriptive than boogieman language.

0. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-21-97A1.pdf

A $5.5m fine for 1.1k robocalls appears extremely excessive and reeks of an underlying political motivation

The message included:

> personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts

Whichever side uses that would be in the wrong.

I am a lawyer that does collection work and I use Lexis Smartlinks to get current address information on debtors. Smartlinks includes voter registration information as part of the profile it generates. I don't know about police departments, but I have heard of law enforcement using private data services. I think the statement is true.

I also receive 5 - 10 robocalls per day. To go after these people reeks of selective enforcement based on politics.

They didn't use the robocalls to promote their side, like the robocalls that you get, they used them for voter suppression.

As the title indicates, the relevant portion is the alleged crime committed by the robocallers, not the fact that they used robocalls to perform it.

>Nessel said 85,000 calls were believed to have been made across the nation. She said nearly 12,000 residents in the 313 ZIP code received the calls in Detroit, and that similar calls also blanketed urban pockets of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and New York. And she encouraged anyone who received such a call to file a complaint with her office.

Voter suppression is illegal and carries with it both a fine and up to a year in jail.

Even if it was only 1.1k that would still be over 1,000 years in jail.

The people making these robocalls are fortunate the FCC is the organization taking up the issue instead of the justice department.

And when it comes to messing with someone's constitutional voting right, there's no such thing as "only" a certain # of incidents. It's all bad, it's all illegal.

> Voter suppression is illegal and carries with it both a fine and up to a year in jail.

Is that a year per person who's vote was suppressed? Seems like an old law meant for before the internet. Now that a single action can affect millions of people it seems prudent to modernize punishment to reflect the scale of attacks.

So many laws are badly outdated in times of cryptocurrencies, robotic workers, offshoring, global warming... and most of those in position to change them are badly outdated themselves.

> The people making these robocalls are fortunate the FCC is the organization taking up the issue instead of the justice department.

For various reasons, the federal agencies with civil enforcement powers tend to be faster in producing legal action than DoJ is with criminal action, but civil action does not preclude criminal action based on the same conduct.

The FCC order linked has detailed background on other enforcement actions contextualizing the $4,500/call basis for the fine, which is (1) in line with what FCC has assessed since 2006 for violations of the same provision, (2) less than half of the maximum authorized in 2006 for such violations, and (3) less than one-quarter the maximum currently authorized under the governing law for such violations.

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