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Comment by pasttense01 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is mostly a PR gimmick as I don't think much of the money is collectible.

I would think it should not be all that difficult for telephone companies to implement spam blocking measures: so why isn't this happening?

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I don't know if it's still the case but Verizon used to charge you to block spam calls - so if you didn't pay and they knew you were being called by a spam number, they would still let it go through. Absolutely insane. It was something like $4 a month.

They should be fined too. Trying to rip off their customers instead of protecting them.

See my other comment. The FCC is claiming to have finally done that, instructing providers to completely cut off this operator.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37000227

This is very similar to advice on the internet given to people, "Just block the number that you got a spam call from."

Unfortunately, spam calls come from a new random number every time, ensuring that blocking the number doesn't work. Also, the number is spoofed, I even got a call from my own number once.

My understanding is they can easily just setup a new route/new ip/new account and start making calls again.

This would be less like setting up a new IP address and more like setting up a whole new AS. Sure, it can be done, but it costs the scammer a lot more than a simple blocked number.

That’s good to hear, but it’s disappointing how little of an impact these big take downs seem to have.

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