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Author Topic: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution  (Read 17,733 times)

Tinman57

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FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« on: November 02, 2012, 12:57 AM »
FTC Wants to Give You $50,000 to Stomp out Cellphone Robocalls

Tired of unsolicited calls using up your cellphone minutes? Do you find yourself running short before the month is over due to them? Do you have what it takes to develop a technology that would prevent robocalls and thereby prevent these type of phone calls from disturbing the recipients? If so, the FTC Director of Consumer Protection believes that the winner could become a national hero with the additional incentive of $50,000 being offered by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) for their efforts. Though the term national hero may be somewhat of an exaggeration, the problem of robocalling is for real. In fact, it continues to flourish despite regulations and legal attempts to stomp out the problem. However, one must know that there are exceptions to the rules, laws, and regulations -- such as the main one, which is designed to protect those individuals who actually opt-in to receive such solicitation. So, while the exceptions are few, telemarketers whose livelihood depends on making phone contact with the public as well as scam artists continue to bombard the public with unwanted calls -- some even disturbing us in the middle of the night.

http://www.lockergnome.com/news/2012/10/30/ftc-wants-to-give-you-50000-to-stomp-out-cellphone-robocalls/
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40hz

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2012, 02:22 AM »
Hmm...how many "hits" can you put out "on contract" with $50K in the bank? :tellme:

Oh yeah...I'm asking this purely as an intellectual exercise. ;D

rgdot

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2012, 02:25 AM »
A whitelist

Where is my $50k?  :P

Ehtyar

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2012, 02:41 AM »
$50k wouldn't fund research for a terribly long time - especially without the ancillary resources available to the government. Typical government - "look, we're doing something about it!" when really they're just frivolously spending your money. Wonder how much it costs them per year to handle all the reports and followup.

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hamradio

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2012, 03:58 AM »
A whitelist

Where is my $50k?  :P

And what about spoofed numbers?  There goes your 50k...

rgdot

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2012, 04:16 AM »
That's entirely in the phone companies' hands, they can disable that. As far as I understand it it's not like DNS, Mac addresses or anything. At least not in the plain old system, maybe VoIP complicates it.
I don't want to get political one more time but this robocall issue cannot become another excuse for the phone companies to pass another cost to the consumers. Call it some 'infrastructure spending' and then sorry another bill hike...

Renegade

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2012, 01:18 PM »
The solution will involve serious privacy implications. Because an intelligent solution would be outright rejected. e.g. Limit on number of calls you can make, perhaps? Nobody needs to make a call every 10~15 seconds for prolonged periods.
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Tinman57

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2012, 12:07 AM »
The solution will involve serious privacy implications. Because an intelligent solution would be outright rejected. e.g. Limit on number of calls you can make, perhaps? Nobody needs to make a call every 10~15 seconds for prolonged periods.

  Except for perhaps, at home or office collection agencies, political advertisers, pollsters, real estate agents, tax-exempt marketers (Red Cross, ACS, ADA, etc etc etc).  As much as I'd like to see even these stopped, under the law they can still market legally and aren't affected by the DNC registry.....
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40hz

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2012, 01:30 AM »
Drag out the recycle interval. Force a 15-second minimum delay between hanging up and being able to place the next call on all business lines?

Robocalling is volume driven.

Of course if they did that I risk losing the opportunity play head games with political party campaign callers. ;) ;D

« Last Edit: November 03, 2012, 01:35 AM by 40hz »

Renegade

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2012, 07:29 AM »
The solution will involve serious privacy implications. Because an intelligent solution would be outright rejected. e.g. Limit on number of calls you can make, perhaps? Nobody needs to make a call every 10~15 seconds for prolonged periods.

  Except for perhaps, at home or office collection agencies, political advertisers, pollsters, real estate agents, tax-exempt marketers (Red Cross, ACS, ADA, etc etc etc).  As much as I'd like to see even these stopped, under the law they can still market legally and aren't affected by the DNC registry.....

Depends. No *HUMAN* needs to make calls that often. Any desk where a human is has no real need to make calls every 10 seconds. Except for marketers... Whatever they are peddling is pretty much irrelevant - they're still trying to hock something off on you. Whether it's "please help the *children*" or "please buy my vacuum".

The solution is very simple - throttle call volumes. Make it impractical to run a call center (that calls out).

And quite honestly, if some advertising call center goes broke, who cares? They hire people for a pittance anyways, so they're not providing decent employment in any event.

ISPs already do this exact same thing.

"Get UNLIMITED high-speed downloads for only $59.95 per month!" = Once you've used up 100 GB of traffic (up or down), we drop you from 2 Mbps to 160 kbps.

Spam is spam. Whether it's in your physical mailbox, email inbox, or on your phone. They're spammers.

UCE - Unsolicited Commercial Email --> Unsolicited Commercial Phone Calls -- Is there any significant difference? I don't think so.

As for the Red Cross, or political parties or collection agencies... What makes what they're doing different from what spammers do? I really don't see any difference at all.

They all boil down to one thing - they want your money or they want *something* from you.

Throttle. Make it impractical to run a business based on spam.

It won't completely solve the problem, but it would certainly make a large dent in the problem. (I do not believe that the problem can ever be "solved", but only "tamed" somewhat.)


I do have a very nasty solution though... Diabolical if I might say...

Diabolical solution
For all phone calls, intercept the call and play a message that states that the call they are making is subject to "terms and conditions" (or an "agreement") and that those terms and conditions can be read at some URL that's rather long, complicated, and annoying. e.g.

http://92634sfdneith4h43hgg.termsandconditions.com/read/843thc4gh4ghm4c4h8thnghmcdsgh8478hmcvew8/3mcnh39n8fv2n?safh=eo8fnhefvef&ienhewifgvewfgen=eoi7fhbeoifhidu#oiwerghegfveogfe?ewocgnvdsghe=4o8fhneife

Force the caller to choose to accept the terms to make their call, or simply hang up if they don't.

If they accept, forward the call on as normal.

In the terms and conditions, utterly and completely rape the caller as hard as possible. Charge the b'jeez out of them with the maximum legal interest rate calculated and compounded by the yoctosecond (10^-24). Record everything. In the terms/agreement, make them surrender all rights to arbitration, or any rights at all - get draconian, brutal, imaginative is a seriously evil way, etc. etc. etc. Make them your slave for eternity. i.e. Pretend that you're a lawyer/politician/bankster. :P ;D

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40hz

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #10 on: November 03, 2012, 03:26 PM »
I do not believe that the problem can ever be "solved", but only "tamed" somewhat.)


I do have a very nasty solution though... Diabolical if I might say...

I like your style! :Thmbsup:

Renegade

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2012, 12:30 AM »
I do not believe that the problem can ever be "solved", but only "tamed" somewhat.)


I do have a very nasty solution though... Diabolical if I might say...

I like your style! :Thmbsup:


Ooops! I forgot one thing... for the terms & conditions web page, add in a nasty CAPTCHA that takes at least 5 tries for a human to get right. With every CAPTCHA being a paragraph instead of a word. :D
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40hz

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2012, 05:37 AM »
^Code it in poorly written Java while you're at it. Make sure it hangs or crashes every third time it runs. ;D

Renegade

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #13 on: November 04, 2012, 06:02 AM »
^Code it in poorly written Java while you're at it. Make sure it hangs or crashes every third time it runs. ;D

Hmmm... I think we could get this done pretty quick! 50/50 on the $50,000 sound good to you? ;D
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TaoPhoenix

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #14 on: November 04, 2012, 06:24 AM »
I do not believe that the problem can ever be "solved", but only "tamed" somewhat.)
I do have a very nasty solution though... Diabolical if I might say...
I like your style! :Thmbsup:

Wait, you just solved it! Play Gangnam Style to all RoboCalls until they hang up!  ;D
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Renegade

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #15 on: November 04, 2012, 08:39 AM »
Wait, you just solved it! Play Gangnam Style to all RoboCalls until they hang up!  ;D

Hahahahaha~!

A far simpler and easier solution! We have a winner~! :P

For those that actually like the song, there's always this. :P (You KNOW that you're curious...)
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40hz

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Re: FTC to give $50,000 for robocall solution
« Reply #16 on: November 04, 2012, 11:27 AM »
^Code it in poorly written Java while you're at it. Make sure it hangs or crashes every third time it runs. ;D

Hmmm... I think we could get this done pretty quick! 50/50 on the $50,000 sound good to you? ;D

It's all yours. You have a daughter to send to college someday. ;D :Thmbsup:

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