Ed Cryer wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
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 ...)

Have some harmless fun.
Do you remember the old dial-up connection sound?
Record this;
https://youtu.be/PDE9b5iU8vI
and keep it handy on a phone or tablet.
Next time you get a call, just give a whistle and play it into the mic.

Ed (:-

If you have an answering machine (where you can listen to new calls to
screen them by waiting for someone to start leaving a message and then
pick up the handset if you want to talk to them), you could add the
"service disconnected" tone to the beginning of your outgoing voicemail
message. Robodialers will not remove you from their calling list if you
hang up on their call. You'll go back into their queue. However, many
robodialers are calling non-verified phone numbers and will update their
list when they hit a disconnected number. They only have so much time
to make so many calls, so they don't want to waste time redialing a dead
number. Only add the 3-tone sound to the start of your outgoing
message. Do not add "This line is no longer in service." You want the
robodialer to hear the tone and remove you from their calling list.
Real humans will hear the tone which is immediately following with your
real outgoing message to them.

https://lifehacker.com/182989/stop-t...ted-line-tones

You need to hunt down a recording of just the SIT (Special Information
Tone) sound - just the sound and not followed by a human-like
explanation. You want to confuse the robodialer, not human callers. I
had to find someone that had recorded just the tone. At Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specia...rmation_tones), record their
vacant SIT. You only need one copy (wiki pays the tone twice). I did
find another copy at:

http://www.yourhomenow.com/sound/sit-tone.wav

Your outgoing message would be something like "SIT You have reached
yourname. Please leave a message after the tone. Thankyou." The
robodialer will drop the call after hearing the SIT.

Since most robodialers will disconnect after the 3rd ring, they won't
hear the 3-tone sound at the start of your outgoing message. Most
answering machines won't let you configure them to answer on shorter
than 4 rings; however, some let you send all calls to voicemail. With
monitoring (aka screening) enabled on the answering machine, you could
hear it was a real human and perhaps someone you want to talk to to
interrupt the voicemail to take the call. Lots of answering machines
have screening.

Been too long to remember but I once played with an automated phone
system using my computer, analog modem, and some software. When a new
call was received, and just like the voice prompts you get at large
companies that make you drill through their menus, this setup would have
callers press "1" to forward the call to you. All it did was have the
modem ring an attached phone. Robodialers cannot follow instructions.
Since the instruction was issued during the robocall and before any
human spammer picked up the call, they wouldn't hear the instruction to
hit "1" to forward the call.