telephone hackers - can we upload something?

On 07/23/2018 02:15 PM, Nil wrote:

[snip]

There are a few like that, but they'll leave a message. I've never had
Nomorobo block one of those.

This one did. A few junk callers do leave messages (including "This is
Officer. You have been sued by the IRS..."). Anyway, the junk messages
don't seem so bad once they're no longer real time.

BTW, there was really NO name given after "Officer".

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

If Jesus loves me, why doesn't he ever send me flowers?

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:25:36 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Just because you think a group of tall fat blacks staring
at you as you and they approach each other is not a sufficient excuse to
whip out a handgun and start firing at them. You getting scared is not
an excuse to kill.

I get your example, but be aware that at least 24 states have adopted
Stand Your Ground laws which essentially say that you can use deadly
force if you feel threatened. It used to be that those laws only applied
on your own premises, (home, office, etc.), but they've been expanded to
apply anywhere in public that you're legally allowed to be.

Just last week, a guy in Florida shoved another guy to the ground for
supposedly verbally confronting his wife because she improperly parked
in a handicapped spot. The guy on the ground whipped out a gun, shooting
and killing the guy who shoved him. He died in front of his wife and 5
year old child, according to news reports. The local DA has issued a
statement saying that charges will not be filed because the guy who got
shoved to the ground was acting out of fear for his life.

The whole thing was caught on video. To me, it looks like cold blooded
murder, but apparently they see it differently in that part of Florida.

What were you saying about, "You getting scared is not an excuse to
kill"? :-)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/23/stand-your-ground-no-charges-florida-man-parking-lot-shooting/817755002/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearwater-florida-stand-your-ground-shooting-markeis-mcglockton-parking-spot/

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html


--

Char Jackson

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 13:37:13 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Are you trying to avoid spam callers on a home phone or cell phone? On
my cell phone, the default ringtone is "silent". That is, by default,
my cell phone does not ring. For my contacts, I assign a ringtone for
them. In fact, on my phone, all my contacts are in a default Contacts
group. I define more groupings (but I haven't the need for it ... yet).
I can assign a default ringtone per group, so I defined a ringtone for
the Contacts group.

I like your approach and have helped a few friends and family members
set it up that way in recent years.

When a call comes in on my cell phone from one of
my contacts, my cell phone rings. All other calls are silent and the
caller either hangs up (typical of robodialers that hang up after 3
rings) or gets shoved into voicemail.

Robodialers that hang up after 3 rings? I've never seen that but I think
I'd like it. In my experience, they hang on and let the phone ring until
it stops ringing. That's typically 10 rings, at least for me. Maybe it's
something I configured at some point.

--

Char Jackson

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 21:41:59 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

The Caller ID info is sent between the 1st and 2nd rings. Since
NoMoRobo gets called at the same time as, say, your landline it will
also get the Caller ID info. They don't care about the name info, just
the phone number info from Caller ID (plus some providers only forward
the phone number info in Caller ID but not a name).

It seems like that would be a major shortcoming these days, with most of
my call-spam appearing to come from a random number that's made to look
local (same area code and prefix). Is NoMoRobo still successful these
days?

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:25:36 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Just because you think a group of tall fat blacks staring
at you as you and they approach each other is not a sufficient excuse to
whip out a handgun and start firing at them. You getting scared is not
an excuse to kill.

I get your example, but be aware that at least 24 states have adopted
Stand Your Ground laws which essentially say that you can use deadly
force if you feel threatened. It used to be that those laws only applied
on your own premises, (home, office, etc.), but they've been expanded to
apply anywhere in public that you're legally allowed to be.

Just last week, a guy in Florida shoved another guy to the ground for
supposedly verbally confronting his wife because she improperly parked
in a handicapped spot. The guy on the ground whipped out a gun, shooting
and killing the guy who shoved him. He died in front of his wife and 5
year old child, according to news reports. The local DA has issued a
statement saying that charges will not be filed because the guy who got
shoved to the ground was acting out of fear for his life.

The whole thing was caught on video. To me, it looks like cold blooded
murder, but apparently they see it differently in that part of Florida.

What were you saying about, "You getting scared is not an excuse to
kill"? :-)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/23/stand-your-ground-no-charges-florida-man-parking-lot-shooting/817755002/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearwater-florida-stand-your-ground-shooting-markeis-mcglockton-parking-spot/

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html

Did I say you are not allowed to defend yourself when physically
attacked? Getting pushed to the ground is a hell of lot different than
seeing some big guys walking down the sidewalk that you think look mean.
Did the shooter start firing because the girlfriend was yelling at him?
Nope, it took a physical attack from the boyfriend before he protected
himself.

McGlockton walks out of a store to go push Drekja to the ground.
Seconds after reeling from the physical attack, Drekja pulls out a gun
to shoot McGlockton. For whining at a girl, some asshole comes up on
your side to hurl you to the ground. Where's the connection the victim
would have between the girl and some guy (who turns out to be her
physically abusive boyfriend)? Looks like Drekja got blindsided.

I think McGlockton is one of those boys who have to always prove he's a
man to his girlfriend by getting into fights. Had that happen in an ice
cream store when a gal walked to counter to cut in front of everyone
else and started ordering. The counter clerk said she would have to
wait her turn. She started yelling and left. Came my turn to get to
the front of the line. A really huge guy come storming in and starts
cussing out the clerk. When he went to push me out of the way, I
clasped his hand against my chest and fell to my knees while bending
forward to break 3 of his 4 fingers (thumbs aren't used in pushing).
While knelt, I punched him in his groin. If that hadn't been enough to
disable him, I would've gone a lot further in my counter attack
considering his huge weight advantage.

I don't carry handguns but then I'm not living wherever Drekja lives or
shops. Seems there are parts of the story that the news isn't
revealing. That's so they can sensationalize on the event. Per one
article, '"He had to shoot to defend himself," Pinellas county sheriff
Bob Gualtieri said.' Jacobs (the girlfriend) said her boyfriend was
trying to protect her. From WHAT? Someone complaining that she parked
illegally? Oh yes, we must always physically assault everyone who ever
irritates us, uh huh. McGlockton was not protecting Jacobs. He
assaulted Drekja without due provocation. Drekja was not physically
assualting Jacobs. He was a whiner that protected himself from someone
that actually assaulted him, not because he thought there was some
nebulously interpreted intent to cause harm.

Yes, seems extreme to shoot someone for pushing you down to the ground
and also to be carrying a handgun. Yes, it *is* extreme to assault
someone to the ground for barking at a girlfriend.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.647c83131c97

Notice that Drekja probably didn't have any time or way to know that the
guy who pushed him down was Jacobs' boyfriend. The asshole just walks
up and blindsides him by pushing Drekja to the ground. Here is some
busybody whining to someone that they parked illegally and out of the
blue some asshole comes over to physcially assault him. At the point
Drekja drew his handgun, McGlockton stayed backed off. However, seeing
this in retrospect doesn't obviate belief of imminent danger which does
allow use of lethal force. This is a case of two extremists but one has
the law on his side.

This incident is far from blasting away at 3 mean-looking dudes walking
at you on a sidewalk on a dark night. Guessing what is their intent
doesn't permit you to shoot them. You could see if the mean dudes just
walk past you, or you could walk around them, or cross the street, or,
in the case of unwanted callers, just hangup on them. There was no
guessing what was McGlockton's intent because it wasn't intent. It was
assault!

Would be interested to know if Drekja has a permit to carry. If not,
well, that's something he could get charged with. Florida does ban open
carry except in some situations. You can get a concealed carry permit
there.

The first jerk bitches at (verbally assaults) a girl for where she
parked. A second jerk physically (not verbally) assaults the first
jerk. The second jerk thinks he has the advantage in willingness to be
physically abusive. The first jerk proves more dangerous than the
second jerk by proving a handgun outweighs the second jerk. The first
jerk has the law on his side. To me, the first jerk reacted too fast in
using his handgun to be sure the second jerk was or was not going to
physically assault the first jerk. However, judging others based on
your combat training doesn't obviate the first jerk might've truly
believed there was imminent danger of further attack. This wasn't a
case of misjudging intent. The assault already happened! The first
jerk already experienced a physical attack by the second jerk. For the
common citizen, they're likely not be to able to read people's body
motions (hip, stance, shoulders), eyes, and jawline to know if another
attack is coming or not. Don't expect citizens to be trained in combat.

This was not a case of reacting to guessed intent. This was a case of
reacting to actual physical assault. "Might they do something bad" is
not the issue in your example.

Char Jackson wrote:

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 21:41:59 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

The Caller ID info is sent between the 1st and 2nd rings. Since
NoMoRobo gets called at the same time as, say, your landline it will
also get the Caller ID info. They don't care about the name info, just
the phone number info from Caller ID (plus some providers only forward
the phone number info in Caller ID but not a name).

It seems like that would be a major shortcoming these days, with most of
my call-spam appearing to come from a random number that's made to look
local (same area code and prefix). Is NoMoRobo still successful these
days?

Spoofing has been a long-time problem. There are even sites that assist
(as a cost) with doing the spoofing. Some spammers even spoof the
number they call; i.e., you get a call that identifies as you calling
yourself. The idea is that few users block their own phone number but
then who calls themself? Spammers did this with e-mail, too, until more
users realized they weren't sending spammy e-mails to themself, so the
users started adding filters looking for e-mail from them sent to them,
and e-mail providers started adding similar filters.

Even when you decide to block a spammer, the number you block can be a
spoofed number. That's why you have to clear out the old numbers from
your blocklist. I'm not sure how long for when to expire old
blacklisted phone numbers but I usually delete those older than a month.

With NoMoRobo, you can only report spam calls. You don't get to
otherwise update the blacklist. They don't release specs on how long or
if they expire old "bad" phone numbers, and if they did then spammers
could use that info against their blacklist. In the same way you rely
on your e-mail provider's anti-spam blacklist to be updated so it is
current is the same for when using NoMoRobo. I use DNSBLs (DNS
blacklists) in blocking spam e-mails, too, and they each have their own
flooring function (when to expire old records). I've used Bayesian
filtering in the past but that requires a decent e-mail volume to be
reasonably (not 100%) accurate, and I don't get enough e-mails to make
Bayesian a viable filtering scheme. Some clients with Bayes don't have
a flooring function (e.g., Outlook which instead relies on updated
blacklists from Microsoft) which, to me, is stupid. Thunderbird doesn't
have a flooring function for expiring outdated keywords, and I don't
know if it gets an updated blacklist from Mozilla.

Well, I suppose you could use nothing but then the effect is zero
percentage of caught spam calls. I don't see how anyone would expect
any blacklist to be 100% for coverage. That's just foolish expectation.
I still use an umbrella in the rain despite that I might still get a bit
wet in a storm.

On 24/07/2018 16:35, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 07/23/2018 02:15 PM, Nil wrote:

[snip]

There are a few like that, but they'll leave a message. I've never had
Nomorobo block one of those.

This one did. A few junk callers do leave messages (including "This is
Officer. You have been sued by the IRS..."). Anyway, the junk messages
don't seem so bad once they're no longer real time.

BTW, there was really NO name given after "Officer".


Yes it's almost as if somebody produces kits of messages to use for robo
dialer scams and the scammers buy them and don't follow the instructions
and leave the description of what they should fill in rather than
actually filling in the name.

I've had: "This is internet service provider, your internet will be cut
off soon if you don't....".

Pathetic.

--

Brian Gregory (in England).

On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 01:45:52 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Nil
writes:
[]
they invariably hang up. If I call back the caller ID number, it's
usually not in service.
[]
Oh, you get faked CLIs in the US too, do you?

Isn't faking CLI illegal?

I'm still catching up on this thread, so someone may have mentioned that
here in the US it's not illegal to spoof what we call Caller ID. Thus,
the telco's aren't participating in any crime by passing on what they
receive.

If it is, aren't the telco.s participating in the crime? I don't think
they can claim "common carrier" immunity; sure, any that _relay_ it
maybe can, but the ones where the call _originates_ must know it isn't
coming from the line it pretends to be. (And if they're from abroad,
then it's the one that handles the call where it enters the country.)

Aside: telco.s? Is it something on my end that's replacing the usual
apostrophe with a period?

--

Char Jackson

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 12:57:26 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Note that while some are ISPs provide voice service, they are not a VOIP
service.

If it's not POTS, it's a form of VoIP, and in the case of cable
providers, it's not going to be POTS, so it's a form of VoIP.

They operate as a telco.

True, but all that means is that they tend to hand off the digitized
VoIP traffic to the local telco exchange. If the destination is also
within that exchange, then it's routed directly to its destination,
converted back to analog within the exchange if the receiving customer
is on POTS or forwarded as VoIP packets if the receiving customer has an
eMTA or ATA. In that case, it'll be converted back to analog at the
customer's premises. However, if the destination is not within that
exchange, the packets will go out over the Internet to the exchange
nearest the destination. Once they arrive there, they're treated the
same as above, converted back to analog either at the exchange or at the
customer's premises, depending on the type of service that the customer
has.

In the case of an ISP with a large-ish footprint, if the calling party
and the receiving party aren't local to each other but both are
customers of the same ISP, it's possible that the VoIP traffic will not
be handed off to the local telco exchange but rather kept in-house, but
even then it would travel over the Internet, even though it might stay
within links controlled by that ISP.

Your voice traffic is NOT traversing the Internet.

It is unless the destination is also serviced by the exchange that the
ISP handed off to. How else would it get delivered?

For example, Comcast Voice is not a VOIP service.

Actually, it is. They use an eMTA (ATA) to digitize the analog signals,
then stuff the results into IP packets and send them on their way. It's
literally Voice over IP.

You
are using an eMTA with Comcast Voice, not a VOIP adapter. The eMTA
(embedded Multimedia Terminal Adapter) is an embedded ATA (analog
telephone adapter) incorported into the cable modem.

I'm not getting the distinction you're trying to make between a VoIP
adapter (ATA) versus an eMTA (which I agree has an embedded ATA). Both
are an ATA. One is a standalone device while the other is incorporated
into a cable modem. They do exactly the same thing in exactly the same
way.

magicJack is definitely VOIP.

Agreed.

I do sometimes, however, tend to lump the ISP voice
providers operating as telcos along with VOIP providers but I know I'm
being inaccurate. Visually both are using the cable modem but the user
may be unaware that a voice-capable cable modem has an eMTA.

There are minor differences, but essentially all are forms of VoIP.

VOIP

The acronym is VoIP rather than VOIP.

is Voice Over Internet Protocol

I'm nitpicking, but it's actually Voice over IP. The 'o' is always lower
case.

which means VOIP traverses the Internet

No, VoIP just means that the analog voice signals are digitized and
packetized, then carried over an IP protocol to their destination where
they will be converted back to analog. SIP is one such IP protocol, but
there are others. (For example, Sprint uses SIP. I helped to design that
portion of their data network way back in the day.)

VoIP calls may or may not traverse the Internet. In most cases, they do.
Local (intra-exchange) calls don't because they don't need to, but
almost everything else uses the Internet for transport.

What many people may be surprised to know is that virtually all
non-intra-exchange calls are now VoIP, and have been for well over 10
years. Sprint Long Distance, for example, completely converted to VoIP
somewhere around 2003 or 2004, (and the other telcos did likewise around
the same time). The exact timing is fuzzy since it's been so long, but
they use SprintLink, aka the Sprint backbone, aka the Internet, to
transport the digitized voice packets to wherever they need to go. At
some point, the packets are converted back to analog, either at the
exchange that's local to the destination in the case of POTS or at the
eMTA/ATA that's part of the customer's CPE equipment. (Yes, that's
completely redundant but I'm too lazy to fix it.)

hence why quality suffers due to routing through various hosts, and

VoIP has no real inherent voice quality issues. Did anyone notice when
switched analog circuits gave way to digitized voice packets? I'd say
no, not really. There were a few hiccups in the early years here and
there, but I'm not aware of any significant issues within the last 8-10
years or so. The technology is pretty fully baked by now. QoS is
implemented at each of the bottlenecks, for example. (I helped set that
up, as well.)

connecting to landlines using VOIP requires the VOIP provider have gear
at the telco exchanges to convert from VOIP to regular telephony (and
why it took years for magicJack to work everywhere in the USA while they
were implanting their converters at the telcos).

VoIP providers don't need to have gear there. They just need to have an
agreement in place, and that's often harder than it might seem. Every
exchange is already connected to the Internet, so no additional gear is
needed.

--

Char Jackson

On 7/25/2018 5:59 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
Aside: telco.s? Is it something on my end that's replacing the usual
apostrophe with a period?

It is not only you. I too see a period instead of an apostrophe.

--
David E. Ross
http://www.rossde.com/

Attorney-General Sessions claims the bible favors imprisoning illegal
aliens. However, God repeatedly commanded us to welcome the stranger in
our land. For example, see the following:
Exodus 22:20 at
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=2&CHAPTER=22#P2 131
Exodus 23:9 at
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=2&CHAPTER=23#P2 151
Deuteronomy 10:19 at
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=5&CHAPTER=10#P5 200

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:30:46 -0700, "David E. Ross"
wrote:

On 7/25/2018 5:59 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
Aside: telco.s? Is it something on my end that's replacing the usual
apostrophe with a period?

It is not only you. I too see a period instead of an apostrophe.

Thanks. Maybe it's a new thing that I'm slow to catch on to. :-)
I'm sure John (J.P.) will clue me in.

--

Char Jackson

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:17:23 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:25:36 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Just because you think a group of tall fat blacks staring
at you as you and they approach each other is not a sufficient excuse to
whip out a handgun and start firing at them. You getting scared is not
an excuse to kill.

I get your example, but be aware that at least 24 states have adopted
Stand Your Ground laws which essentially say that you can use deadly
force if you feel threatened. It used to be that those laws only applied
on your own premises, (home, office, etc.), but they've been expanded to
apply anywhere in public that you're legally allowed to be.

Just last week, a guy in Florida shoved another guy to the ground for
supposedly verbally confronting his wife because she improperly parked
in a handicapped spot. The guy on the ground whipped out a gun, shooting
and killing the guy who shoved him. He died in front of his wife and 5
year old child, according to news reports. The local DA has issued a
statement saying that charges will not be filed because the guy who got
shoved to the ground was acting out of fear for his life.

The whole thing was caught on video. To me, it looks like cold blooded
murder, but apparently they see it differently in that part of Florida.

What were you saying about, "You getting scared is not an excuse to
kill"? :-)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/23/stand-your-ground-no-charges-florida-man-parking-lot-shooting/817755002/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearwater-florida-stand-your-ground-shooting-markeis-mcglockton-parking-spot/

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html

Did I say you are not allowed to defend yourself when physically
attacked?

No, you said "You getting scared is not an excuse to kill" but in this
case the shooter said he fired out of fear for his life, so apparently
in Florida (and potentially 23 other states) 'you getting scared' is
precisely an excuse to kill.

--

Char Jackson

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018 18:10:59 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 21:41:59 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

The Caller ID info is sent between the 1st and 2nd rings. Since
NoMoRobo gets called at the same time as, say, your landline it will
also get the Caller ID info. They don't care about the name info, just
the phone number info from Caller ID (plus some providers only forward
the phone number info in Caller ID but not a name).

It seems like that would be a major shortcoming these days, with most of
my call-spam appearing to come from a random number that's made to look
local (same area code and prefix). Is NoMoRobo still successful these
days?

Spoofing has been a long-time problem. There are even sites that assist
(as a cost) with doing the spoofing. Some spammers even spoof the
number they call; i.e., you get a call that identifies as you calling
yourself. The idea is that few users block their own phone number but
then who calls themself? Spammers did this with e-mail, too, until more
users realized they weren't sending spammy e-mails to themself, so the
users started adding filters looking for e-mail from them sent to them,
and e-mail providers started adding similar filters.

Even when you decide to block a spammer, the number you block can be a
spoofed number. That's why you have to clear out the old numbers from
your blocklist. I'm not sure how long for when to expire old
blacklisted phone numbers but I usually delete those older than a month.

With NoMoRobo, you can only report spam calls. You don't get to
otherwise update the blacklist. They don't release specs on how long or
if they expire old "bad" phone numbers, and if they did then spammers
could use that info against their blacklist. In the same way you rely
on your e-mail provider's anti-spam blacklist to be updated so it is
current is the same for when using NoMoRobo. I use DNSBLs (DNS
blacklists) in blocking spam e-mails, too, and they each have their own
flooring function (when to expire old records). I've used Bayesian
filtering in the past but that requires a decent e-mail volume to be
reasonably (not 100%) accurate, and I don't get enough e-mails to make
Bayesian a viable filtering scheme. Some clients with Bayes don't have
a flooring function (e.g., Outlook which instead relies on updated
blacklists from Microsoft) which, to me, is stupid. Thunderbird doesn't
have a flooring function for expiring outdated keywords, and I don't
know if it gets an updated blacklist from Mozilla.

Well, I suppose you could use nothing but then the effect is zero
percentage of caught spam calls. I don't see how anyone would expect
any blacklist to be 100% for coverage. That's just foolish expectation.
I still use an umbrella in the rain despite that I might still get a bit
wet in a storm.

Thanks. I don't think you answered my question, but you did provide
enough info to let me know that NoMoRobo is not for me. Not only would
it be ineffective against the vast majority of calls that I get, but you
also hinted that users might be expected to report spam calls to help
build the database, which makes sense, but those two items combined are
a deal breaker.

--

Char Jackson

I say people need to stop freaking out when confronted for doing illegal or
wrong things.
This menelennial generation has is ruining this world for the rest of us
normal folks.
If the guy had just talked calmly to the other person the shooting might not
have happened.
I my self show no mercy for those who park in handicapped spaces with out a
handicapped plate or hang tag its just wrong to park in one for no reason.

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:25:36 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Just because you think a group of tall fat blacks staring
at you as you and they approach each other is not a sufficient excuse to
whip out a handgun and start firing at them. You getting scared is not
an excuse to kill.

I get your example, but be aware that at least 24 states have adopted
Stand Your Ground laws which essentially say that you can use deadly
force if you feel threatened. It used to be that those laws only applied
on your own premises, (home, office, etc.), but they've been expanded to
apply anywhere in public that you're legally allowed to be.

Just last week, a guy in Florida shoved another guy to the ground for
supposedly verbally confronting his wife because she improperly parked
in a handicapped spot. The guy on the ground whipped out a gun, shooting
and killing the guy who shoved him. He died in front of his wife and 5
year old child, according to news reports. The local DA has issued a
statement saying that charges will not be filed because the guy who got
shoved to the ground was acting out of fear for his life.

The whole thing was caught on video. To me, it looks like cold blooded
murder, but apparently they see it differently in that part of Florida.

What were you saying about, "You getting scared is not an excuse to
kill"? :-)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/23/stand-your-ground-no-charges-florida-man-parking-lot-shooting/817755002/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearwater-florida-stand-your-ground-shooting-markeis-mcglockton-parking-spot/

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html


--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018 18:10:59 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 21:41:59 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

The Caller ID info is sent between the 1st and 2nd rings. Since
NoMoRobo gets called at the same time as, say, your landline it will
also get the Caller ID info. They don't care about the name info, just
the phone number info from Caller ID (plus some providers only forward
the phone number info in Caller ID but not a name).

It seems like that would be a major shortcoming these days, with most of
my call-spam appearing to come from a random number that's made to look
local (same area code and prefix). Is NoMoRobo still successful these
days?

Spoofing has been a long-time problem. There are even sites that assist
(as a cost) with doing the spoofing. Some spammers even spoof the
number they call; i.e., you get a call that identifies as you calling
yourself. The idea is that few users block their own phone number but
then who calls themself? Spammers did this with e-mail, too, until more
users realized they weren't sending spammy e-mails to themself, so the
users started adding filters looking for e-mail from them sent to them,
and e-mail providers started adding similar filters.

Even when you decide to block a spammer, the number you block can be a
spoofed number. That's why you have to clear out the old numbers from
your blocklist. I'm not sure how long for when to expire old
blacklisted phone numbers but I usually delete those older than a month.

With NoMoRobo, you can only report spam calls. You don't get to
otherwise update the blacklist. They don't release specs on how long or
if they expire old "bad" phone numbers, and if they did then spammers
could use that info against their blacklist. In the same way you rely
on your e-mail provider's anti-spam blacklist to be updated so it is
current is the same for when using NoMoRobo. I use DNSBLs (DNS
blacklists) in blocking spam e-mails, too, and they each have their own
flooring function (when to expire old records). I've used Bayesian
filtering in the past but that requires a decent e-mail volume to be
reasonably (not 100%) accurate, and I don't get enough e-mails to make
Bayesian a viable filtering scheme. Some clients with Bayes don't have
a flooring function (e.g., Outlook which instead relies on updated
blacklists from Microsoft) which, to me, is stupid. Thunderbird doesn't
have a flooring function for expiring outdated keywords, and I don't
know if it gets an updated blacklist from Mozilla.

Well, I suppose you could use nothing but then the effect is zero
percentage of caught spam calls. I don't see how anyone would expect
any blacklist to be 100% for coverage. That's just foolish expectation.
I still use an umbrella in the rain despite that I might still get a bit
wet in a storm.

Thanks. I don't think you answered my question, but you did provide
enough info to let me know that NoMoRobo is not for me. Not only would
it be ineffective against the vast majority of calls that I get, but you
also hinted that users might be expected to report spam calls to help
build the database, which makes sense, but those two items combined are
a deal breaker.

You asked (without stating it as spoofing) how NoMoRobo eliminates
spoofing. It can't. That's a technical issue that must be address by
the telephony providers in figuring out how to completely eliminate
spoofing (whether it be legally or illegally employed).

What's your solution that eliminates 100% of spam calls? For me and
many others, getting rid of 85% of the spam calls has a big impact of
reducing the nuisance.

I've yet to see any suspension or tire completely eliminate road noise
and vibration transmitted into the passenger cabin but that doesn't mean
I'll sacrifice those amenties to replace the shock absorbers with pipes
and use solid-rubber tires just because there isn't a perfect setup.

Do you also not employ any anti-spam filtering for your e-mail whether
it be inbuilt to your local e-mail client or embedded in your e-mail
provider's service? Your e-mail client has absolutely no anti-spam
functionality? Does your e-mail provider even let you disable their
server-side anti-spam filtering? You disable all anti-spam filtering in
your local e-mail client and in your account settings so you can relish
and wallow in all spam that hits your account? Well, some folks enjoy
cutting themselves, too. Most of the rest of prefer less pain, and that
means less spam e-mails and less spam calls although nothing we employ
will guarantee 100% freedom from spam.