Ask HN: What it be like if phones could only recieve calls/texts from contacts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What it be like if phones could only recieve calls/texts from contacts?

6 pointsmdwalters13 comments

A few days ago, I had a question: what would it be like if phones only recieved calls and texts from people in your contacts? I imagine this could end phone scammers once and for all, but at the same time, it could be really hard for the end user; Person A may have gotten Person B's card, tries to call Person B and gets declined.

What do you think?

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I've had "silence unknown callers" turned on for like two years. If I'm expecting a call from a number I don't know in advance and I remember to, I'll briefly turn the setting off. Otherwise if it's important they'll leave a message (which gets transcribed) and I call them right back if the transcription doesn't read like spam.

Most spammers won't leave messages, but the few that do are easily identifiable at a glance, so I haven't felt the need for more aggressive filtering (ie, automatically discarding phone messages that include "warranty" in the transcription, etc)

I want to use the silence unknown callers feature but in the long tail I’ve received some calls from unknown numbers that I definitely needed. For example, I once called a call from a bank fraud department informing me that someone had been taking out credit cards in my name.

It would be nice.

You could work around the no call from a desired but unknown number issue by whitelisting approved pay phones (which you'd have to bring back) where someone needs to traipse down to one in person to make a call. Probably would also have to require whitelisting from professionals like doctors, lawyers, etc. But then politicians would want to also be whitelisted too.. so maybe nothing would change other than the fact you'd get fewer calls from overseas to tell you that Microsoft needs you to update your car warranty or you'll be arrested.

True, but who knows? A scammer could possibly be calling from an approved pay-phone.

In the US, 911 calls are automatically routed to nearest PSAP [0] which has a real number. In the event a user originated 911 call gets disconnected, the number 911 agent calls you from will be a local number. For this reason phones and networks cannot block incoming calls.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_safety_answering_poin...

I believe it's possible on recent versions of iOS and Android to screen all calls from unknown parties or direct to voicemail.

Yep. I've had this set for months.

What I don’t understand is why spam-friendly telephone exchanges are allowed to continue to send those spam calls. It doesn’t seem like a difficult technical problem. Spammers have to send messages from a number, which aren’t infinite supply. It’s similar to the “Report as Spam” feature that often exists with email providers.

The carriers are paid money that deliver calls from peer networks regardless of whether you want them. If they turn a blind eye to spam, they make more profit whereas fighting it costs them money and they have no downside unless it’s so bad that you cancel your phone service entirely.

This is over-simplified because there are multiple layers of companies and when VOIP was introduced they decided not to spend money validating identity and are now clumsily bolting it on with things like STIR/SHAKEN, but it’s basically a classic negative externality where the costs we born by parties other than the ones making the decisions.

You can see the difference in European countries where the sender pays for the call/message and spam is far less of a problem because it costs too much to spew messages with a successful sale rate well under 1%.

Spammers have to send messages from a number, which aren’t infinite supply.

The numbers are spoofed. They really do have a near infinite supply. If one has their own SS7 link they can spoof any number. There are plenty of shady VoIP services that enable this.

That's already the de-facto situation on iPhones a lot of the time - you can set it to only ring when called by a contact.

The downside is that I've missed important calls with that setting on. I'd love the option to opt into only allowing calls from some kind of verified white-list.

Or we could just have an FCC that does it's job.

On Google Fi, there is an option to block all calls and text from anyone not in your contacts.

I haven't used it yet because the built in spam protection is already pretty good (the robot will screen suspected and unknown calls).

There would be virtually no difference to me. I only get calls from contacts or from expected callers.

The spam call problem is much worse in America from what I hear.

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