In message , Mayayana
writes:
"Ken Blake" wrote

| There are many "poor sods trying to make a living" with whom I don't
| sympathize--bank robbers, hired killers, mafia members, and so on.

This is really only a UK problem. The majority of the
calls I get are scams. Both state and federal gov't
have stopped enforcing DoNotCall lists. But CallerID
means I never have to answer scam calls in the first
place. In the UK they don't seem to have a CallerID
function.

We've had one for years. There are even 'phones you can buy that screen
calls based on them (you press a button to add them to your blocklist).
We call it CLI - calling line identification. (Not sure why - maybe
CallerID might be confused with the criminal investigation department!)
I don't see why _I_ should pay out for such a 'phone, though.

The CLIs are often spoofed though - for example, calls obviously from
Asia show as UK ones, or they show as ones which if called back are
non-existent. I've tried to argue that the telecomm.s companies are
participating in the deception by passing on these faked CLIs (which
ought to be detectable), but unsurprisingly I haven't got anywhere.

But I agree with you. I always hang up on bank
robbers without so much as a how do you do.

(-:

I'll repeat it in case the thread wander has diverted attention from it,
but I still suspect the answer's no (as I can't think how it would
work), but: anyone think of a way we could upload something to their
systems? (If only a list of numbers to call - including the private
lines of their prime minister and the heads of crime families, and every
police station in their country ...)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"There are a great many people in the country today who, through no fault of
their own, are sane." - Monty Python's Flying Circus