Can someone explain to me how spoofing is even possible and why it is allowed? That’s what I’ve never understood about this whole thing. Does it has any legitimate use?
Robocalls would be much easier to address if you could block/report the actual number they come from.
1) Caller id was conceptually flawed from the beginning so was implemented as an honor system instead of something required to communicate (like an IP address)
2) Caller id is unregulated, so there is no penalty for spoofing
Unlike phone numbers and domain name service (DNS), wherein there are internationally recognized databases that are authoritative sources, there is no central authority or regulation for caller ID. No FCC guidelines regulate carrier accuracy, and although federal regulations exist regarding telemarketers and spoofing, carriers can maintain their caller ID databases as they see fit.
Exactly this. The last time I had a chance to talk to an FCC commissioner (they were in the Bay Area at an IEEE meeting) I strongly suggested that they could do a world of good by creating such a database, requiring anyone who wants to call into the US have their numbers registered in such a database, and to put 'DO NOT TRUST' on any number that wasn't in the data base as its default Caller ID.
Pair that with creating an access restriction to the US PSTN for any entity that originates a call with a spoofed number that is enforceable with technology rather than by voluntary or compelled action, and much of the problem will be mitigated.
There's a system like that in the works now. Although it's not implemented by the FCC, the agency has threatened "regulatory intervention" against any providers who don't implement the SHAKEN and STIR protocols. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/att-a...
That doesn't solve the problem where legitimate numbers are spoofed, does it? It seems my number is among the many that are being used by robocallers, because I sometimes get texts from strangers saying "who are you?", or "sorry, can't talk now".
That is part two, adding real teeth to spoofing a legitimate number. Basically on confirmation that a provider allowed such a call to be made on the US PSTN would result in all their numbers being blocked from the US PSTN until they could prove they had fixed the problem.
Originally the telephone network was directly switched, that means that it effectively connected your phone directly to the caller's. There was no need to route a return path because, well, it was as if you had a copper line going from your phone to the caller's. In such a setup the caller might not even need a functional phone number, just an entry point into the network.
It's very different from a packet switching network where data is cut in small chunks with a header meant to be routed across the graph (and in which case you need to be able to find your way back for the reply somehow).
Of course I expect that modern phone networks have evolved massively from the early days but I'm sure that this original design decision still makes what you're proposing difficult. There's a lot of historical baggage.
It used to be a felony to plug unauthorized equipment into a telephone line. You had to get your telephone from Ma Bell.
Caller Id came about in '68. It was built around an honor system because that's the environment that's how telephone lines used to be operated. They weren't able to predict the future.
Yes. One common use is that companies often want to display their main number rather than the number associated with a specific employee.
Phone numbers can also often be associated with a physical address which can be a problem for people who legitimately don't want to give away their location.
Email has a `reply-to` header specifically for this purpose. The from field, I believe, was meant to be the actual from, which can now be verified via DKIM keys. A common case might be: `from: tom@co, reply-to: support@co` so that the response goes to the full support team but it is still clear who the sender is.
You probably already know this but for anyone else reading: "from" isn't quite the same as "sender" (there's also a Sender field and it's optional). I think Sender is supposed to represent something like your secretary sending an email on your behalf? Or another situation where the entity sending is not the same one nominally writing the message.
Re From, there's From: and there's also From_ (From space) that's created by the terminal mail server from the (E)SMTP handshake. All but the most recent (topmost) Received: header(s), supplied by the terminal mail server, are easily spoofed...
I believe that's essentially what's going into place now. You pay a bunch of money to get a certificate that says you own a bunch of numbers, and then you should be fine to project any of those numbers as your caller id.
Last big company I worked for had 90 offices in all 50 states. Up until a large consolidation and VOIP change, Each office had a PRI line (or more) with a phone number associated with each incoming line (for the hunt group). Each PRI came with 24 numbers, 1 'main' number, and 20 others for the individual lines in the PRI. Calling the main number would forward to the 20+ numbers in a hunt group. All 23 of those numbers would then forward to the local PBX, and then get the 'please enter the extension of the party you are trying to reach' kind of IVR response. (there were hundreds of actual people in the office)
This is a relatively small company with 2500 employees. Imagine something much, much larger, with offices worldwide, VOIP routing internally, least cost routing of phone calls, etc.
AIUI spoofing is possible because the phone systems were designed back in the days when a single entity controlled the entire network and so everything just trusts everything else.
That said, I don't know why we still haven't fixed this. We've had plenty of time. I guess the answer just comes down to it costs money to fix it and the phone companies historically haven't cared. Though at this point, given how many people outright refuse to answer numbers they don't recognize due to spammers, you'd think the phone companies would be feeling financial pressure to work towards restoring trust in the phone system.
> Though at this point, given how many people outright refuse to answer numbers they don't recognize due to spammers, you'd think the phone companies would be feeling financial pressure to work towards restoring trust in the phone system.
What financial pressure do the phone companies feel when I never answer my phone?
I still have to give them identical amounts of money to maintain my internet connection.
> Though at this point, given how many people outright refuse to answer numbers they don't recognize due to spammers, you'd think the phone companies would be feeling financial pressure to work towards restoring trust in the phone system
I imagine it's the kind of issue where there are still enough people answering the calls where if they dealt with the issue it would have a noticeable, measurable financial impact, so nobody in the company can propose it. But by not fixing the issue now it will also destroy all future business.
Let's say you're a business. You have a "front desk" number that you want incoming calls to come from, but you have a bunch of other people with their own numbers that make outbound calls. You want those outbound calls to show up as if from your "front desk" number, not from the actual individual numbers they came from.
But spoofing to a number that you don't own? No, I don't know of any legitimate use for that.
I did this for the medical industry. We made robocalls to remind patients of their appointments. We originated the robocalls from a central location, but would spoof the Caller ID so that it would show the number of the appointment desk of their local medical facility. This way if they called the number on the CID, they would reach an appointment desk with the power to help them reschedule or otherwise.
> But spoofing to a number that you don't own? No, I don't know of any legitimate use for that.
When making calls on behalf of an entity that does own that number. Happens all the time, a company hires a bunch of call centers, they make outbound calls, then those return calls go back to a number owned by the original company. They can then answer them in-house, transfer them to a certain call center, transfer them round-robin, whatever they need to do. Plus it gives them the flexibility to drop a certain call center if needed, without having to worry about losing control of that number.
One purpose is for legitimate calls on the behalf of others.
I got a call just yesterday from my DR's office reminding me of a scheduled appointment. Have no way of knowing for sure, but I have no doubt that it's a service spoofing their office phone number so the calls get answered. It was a computer generated voice and automated response processing.
Speaking personally, I always let calls from numbers not in my contacts go to voicemail and then listen to the message afterwards to see if I need to call back. For an automated appointment reminder, calling from a different number than my doctor's office wouldn't be an issue, since it would still go to voicemail just the same (which I actually prefer, since then I can listen to the message again later if for some reason I forget the time).
It’s the difference between dropping an envelope in a blue mailing box with only the destination address vs registering on usps.com to print a label. Probably Due to the Unabomber, they stopped accepting large packages in the anonymous blue postal bins that were paid by stamps.
Phone companies can CHOOSE to stop routing calls without more identity/registration from the caller but it’s just not implemented, maybe for legacy compatibility reasons. I believe for some countries on twilio, phone number registrations require additional verification, but for the US you just need credit on twilio.
Some businesses operate with a single outside facing telephone number. So when you call 1-800-myc-mpny you reach the business at that number. But if that company has 10 people who are making outside calls they need 10 outside lines. By allowing companies to spoof CID all 10 callers can make calls that appear to have originated from 1-800-myc-mpny even though the lines they're using all tie to different external phone numbers.
Yes, but when they spoof a completely different number for strategic purposes it should still be possible to block calls from the unspoofed number's account. I mean, it should be possible to block any account holder, but it would be especially effective here.
I don't have the real answer, but I remember back when Google Desktop was a thing, I had a widget that would allow me to send a text to anyone and it had a field for the "from" number.
So my guess is that the protocol they use asks the caller for the "from" number.
Caller ID is a bit of an afterthought hack added to the system so it's not really built into the original design of phone systems. There's not really the validation built in for a phone company to validate that the phone number sent from another network matches what they get is the target number and some caller id info to continue connecting the call. Add on top of that the fact that phone companies are required to connect incoming and transit phone calls and you get the current mess. Phone companies can't refuse to connect calls systematically from a bad actor and there's no validation mechanism because only the caller's phone company actually knows the initial number for sure.
When a phone call is made, there are (at least) two parties responsible for what gets displayed on the callee's phone:
a) CallerID: This is the numeric part of the info displayed on the callee's phone. Is provided by the calling party, DOES NOT have anything to do with the second part. IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE NAME THAT SHOWS ON THE CALL
b) CNAM: This is the Name part that gets delivered to the callee's phone. This is essentially a reverse lookup on the CallerID part of the call IN THE CALLEE'S PROVIDER'S DATABASE
Back when (today's) AT&T ran the whole phone system, those two databases were essentially the same. Now that they aren't, hilarity ensues.
Nobody has mentioned VoIP yet. If you think about corporate VoIP networks, it's pretty clear why spoofing works. There's no secure out-of-band signaling available when everything is made of standard IP packets passing through normal networking equipment. This stuff got plugged into the public switched telephone network without adding authentication first.
My "landline" is actually VoIP through Callcentric. They have good rates, the service is extremely customizable, and they are very reliable. Sometimes I use Callcentric to block numbers before they reach my phone.
I'm not affiliated with Callcentric or Panasonic. I'm just a happy customer.
I believe they just add the currently listed (via caller ID) to a blacklist that it will block in the future. It doesn't help for spam calls that rotate their spoofed numbers.
That's right, the button instantly adds the caller ID to a blacklist. In my experience, spammers don't rotate their numbers very often, so the button works well enough. YMMV of course.
> Alistair is such a common name in the Chinese-American community
I'd bet you a dollar they're just dialing numbers sequentially; while they're specifically targeting Chinese folks, I very much doubt it's more cost effective to pre-filter phone lists.
> The problem here is partly bureaucratic: While the FCC has the power to dole out fines, it lacks the power to actually enforce those orders. That task, according to the Journal, falls to the Justice Department, and is not made easier by the fact that many entities responsible for this relentless aural spam are individual people or small outfits that can't afford the fees they rack up and can skirt collectors without too much fuss.
... and...
> The Federal Trade Commission, it should be said, has done slightly better. Since 2004, it has won a total of $1.5 billion from robocallers and No-Call Registry violators in court, of which it has collected $121 million, or 8 percent of the total.
The Federal Trade Commission, it should be said, has done slightly better. Since 2004, it has won a total of $1.5 billion from robocallers and No-Call Registry violators in court, of which it has collected $121 million, or 8 percent of the total.
Can filtering out robocallers be solved through technology? Similarly to how Spam folder in your email app works. I have zero knowledge about how telecom works, but it seems not too complex.
I've noticed that almost all of the robocalls i receive come from a number beginning with the same three numbers as my number. I would love for the ability to block all calls beginning with these three numbers, UNLESS they are already on my contacts list. This would solve 95% of robocalls for me and wouldn't have too much of a negative impact.
Although I could imagine the impact for people who receive many unknown calls from their own area code would be non-negligible.
> I've noticed that almost all of the robocalls i receive come from a number beginning with the same three numbers as my number. I would love for the ability to block all calls beginning with these three numbers, UNLESS they are already on my contacts list.
This will become unhelpful as soon as it becomes sufficiently popular (perhaps even before: as the trick gets more widely recognized for what it is, the mental spam filters it hacks around will get updated whether or not they are augmented with technological tools, and the practice will lose its value and be abandoned, making automated filtering that assumes it is widely used more likely to screen out good calls than spam.)
> I've noticed that almost all of the robocalls i receive come from a number beginning with the same three numbers as my number. I would love for the ability to block all calls beginning with these three numbers, UNLESS they are already on my contacts list.
Hiya (and presumably other solutions, but I've used Hiya extensively) does this.
There's a protocol being worked on called STIR/SHAKEN to address robocalls [0]. It's more like website / browser certificate PKI than spam filtering. Some of the major US telcos are working toward implementation already.
Yes, if you can get your system "in the middle". I would love to have an automated system that says, "please say your name and why you're calling and I will connect you", then relays that information to me, and I can choose to accept or reject the call. After a certain phone number has been accepted they wont have to hear that message again, so family and friends can reach me directly. That system would be 98% effective, and it doesn't even use machine learning! Problem is you cannot reasonably get a system like that "in the loop", you have no way to intercept calls, the phone service providers wont let you.
You could set up some elaborate system to proxy your calls through a call forwarding service, and then only give out the proxy number to people, but that wouldn't stop anyone who randomly calls your directly number and would be a big hassle to set up.
I've considered hacking something like this together for myself, except if I'm the only one doing it I can do something even simpler and just have the system say "please press 6 to be connected". The robocalls will be to dumb to figure it out, thus no more robocalls.
Google Pixel phones have exactly that: call screening.
When you receive a call you can let the phone ask what the call is about and it will locally transcribe what they say back so you can decide whether or not to pick up.
The only reason I didn't cancel my phone is 2FA and a few essential apps relying on you having a phone. Otherwise it's been weeks, if not months I haven't initiated a voice call, and I might only get one valid voice call per 2 weeks.
My solution to the robocalls problem is that I essentially don't answer my phone anymore. Some known numbers will get through, like my parents. 95% of my communication is either text-based, web-based video calls, or something else that's not traditional phone calls, especially not from unknown numbers.
Fines are a worthless form of punishment since almost all companies just see them as a tax that may or may not be levied, and even if it is levied it will never exceed the profits made by the illegal behavior. Every single fine over $1000 should come with prison time for somebody. I don't care if it's a single weekend in jail, when company executives choose to abuse consumers it's people who should be punished, not bank accounts.
This is kinda funny. This is one area where private industry is demonstrably doing better than a government agency.
Lawfirms have collected billions from private industry via class action TCPA cases.
This just means that the FCC has been ineffective. The law is actually mostly working as intended. It stops/punishes legitimate large enterprises from robocalling. It's no surprise that a law isn't doing anything about scammers who are already breaking the law.
I still don't understand how hard it would be for major phone carriers to validate the source and let the calls thru. Wouldn't it be possible just to allow Verizon to TMobile, or ATT to Verizon, since they both have their user info and can validate each other's calls? I mean, I can see their names on my phone, why not just add a little bit more info to make it more legit.
For my own understanding, is the issue with robocalling the same with the issues of spam emails or arbitrary DDOS attacks? In the guise that they look "legitimate", but are "malicious" and any attempt to identify the original source is difficult due to multiple proxies masking the origin?
Stop fining and start jailing. Those fines aren't going to compensate the people getting robocalled anyway. Jail a few dozen people, and in 10 years when parents tell their kids that recordings used to call to trick you into financial scams, they'll think their parents are joking.
Mandate that telephone customers who receive bad calls can acquire the billing information of every call received (whatever is behind the spoofed Caller ID), as well as implementing the ability for users to block incoming calls based on the unspoofed number and/or account holder.
Any time I get a call from a human robocaller, I treat it as a game to get them to hang up by telling them I plan to waste their time, then dong so without remorse. Knowing many companies won't let them hang up so long as I'm on the line, it can be quite the game.
In theory this could actually be done by a robot on your behalf that pretends to be a human being. In theory this could even be a service that you transfer the caller to silently. Want to write this so I can subscribe?
Call center agents are some of the most micromanaged groups on the planet. You waste their time, and you can bet you just caused them a ton of trouble at work.
If your average handle time is too high, you're in trouble. If your sales per hour are too low, you're in trouble. If you spend too much time in wrap, you're in trouble. If you don't collect all the information you need to after a call, you're in trouble. If you're having your best week ever but end up at the bottom of the stacked rankings regardless, you're in trouble.
I'm not too concerned about the career prospects of people hired to harass and scam people for a living. In fact anything that damages their interests helps mine by making it less efficient to run such operations.
If there was a sega genesis like cheat code one could press on ones handset that would deliver an electric shock to the person on the other end of the line I would press it.
Sure. Appointment and other reminders. Mind you, some of these calls can get spammy without being scammy. I've had at least a couple examples in recent weeks where companies were giving me calls trying to get me to do something that was far more about their benefit than mine (and doing so multiple times).
Why even have laws and regulations that aren't or can't be enforced? Might as well stop pretending like the government cares about this issue or that there is even a law/regulation. It's exactly the same thing as not having a law/regulation.
Has anyone had any success with one of the handful of call blocking apps or services? T-Mobile's Name ID service seems to be doing a fairly good job, but a handful of calls still slip through the cracks.
You can stop robocallers by simply not using the archaic phone system. Set your phone to only accept calls from people in your contacts, or simply reject all calls. Educate everyone you know about doing so. Legacy telecom needs to die.
If anything that makes robocalls more lucrative. The scammers would love to exclude people with enough awareness to opt out of their potential call pool, allowing them to focus all of their time on the more gullible.
I've declared phone call bankruptcy yesterday and decided to do exactly that. But at least on the iPhone, I couldn't find a way without affecting notifications (by putting it on Do Not Disturb).
I believe a call from anyone worth answering will probably result in a voicemail, and I know that robocalls leave voicemail, so I know it's not a perfect plan. But I am at a point where I would rather just ignore "phone" functionality on my iPhone than to put up with the huge daily distraction of robocalls.
Out of curiosity, what sort of business do you run? Is providing VoIP options out of the question?
I said what I said because I've disabled calls for people who are not on my contact list, whom rarely call me anyway, in favor of email and video chat like Hangouts. Most businesses can be contacted via email, and nearly all my correspondence with companies, when I was apply for jobs, was handled over email and Hangouts. It just seems to me like we already have plenty of viable options for ditching the outdated, low fidelity phone system, but maybe that's not for everyone. For individuals, however, I do still think disabling calls is worth a try just to see how much one really needs to be answering them.
I am interviewing for jobs and I have my phone number on my resume so recruiters can contact me. This is not a good solution for many people or small businesses.
Honestly, if I really needed a phone for finding jobs or other things, I'd buy a burner phone for that purpose, which I'd shut off when I've found a job.
I was interviewing for jobs the past 4 months, and asked nicely if they would be willing to use Hangouts instead of a phone call because of lots of robocalls. Third party recruiters might refuse(but I avoid them at all costs), but I've yet to have hiring managers or engineers be unwilling to do so. Small businesses are in a tough place, but an individual really does have plenty of options for avoiding phone calls.
EDIT: I'm being a little myopic here, since not everyone is applying for engineering positions. lol Employers outside SV probably won't be receptive to not using the legacy phone system.
I just took a Google Voice Number and put it in the resume. I get so many calls from recruiters and I will not even be notified as I don't have anything that connects them to my phone. I use the web interface of GV everyday end of day and go through the voicemail, or calls them back if I think they are legit. Again call back is also from GV number. So Google voice handles it for me where it even converts voice to text in voicemail.
Besides the fact many people may not want Google to listen to their phone calls and voice mails, I still receive robo calls on my GVoice number, albeit less.
I stopped putting my telephone number on my resume years ago. I realized I would start getting spam calls more often (and this was years ago) whenever I started passing my resume around to recruiters or applying directly to companies.
If they want to reach me, they can do so my email, and it has worked fine so far.
I suggest using a dedicated Google Voice number for this. I have over 300 voicemails and texts from recruiters and they keep coming, even though my number hasn't been listed in years.
Telephone calls are still the default (or only) way to reach people in some circumstances. Making yourself difficult or impossible to reach in an emergency isn't a very realistic option for a lot of people.
You can still take voice mails, and there are even ways to transcribe them to text. That way separating the wheat from the chaff takes less time.
If the government calls you, you're really in trouble. Calls from the "government" are almost always a scam. Same with banks to a lesser extent.
The school issue is an interesting one. Schools ought to have other methods to contact parents(or students). At the very least, a school should be willing to provide a list of numbers to whitelist.
My point is that there are difficulties in not taking phone calls, but there aren't as many of those difficulties as one might assume, and they exist in large part because nobody is pushing for obsolescence of the phone in favor of something better.
I wouldn't even mind a system that wasn't IP based so long as it had better security measures. In fact, that'd be preferable to relying on proprietary systems owned by the likes of Facebook and Google. The fact that a Caller ID can be easily spoofed, that numbers themselves can be spoofed, and that phone companies have long been complicit in the criminal activity that goes on over their system, is absurd. It can't be fixed and should either be thrown away or rebuilt from the ground up.
People especially on the poor end of the spectrum can't not have a phone. A solution that only works if you have $100-$300+$600 per year per person is probably not a solution.
Any totally new solution is liable to be useful only to an increasing minority of the population over at least the next few decades.
It would probably be easier to graft authentication onto the current system and force individuals to post a tiny bond per assigned phone number.
Let people report robo calls and cause robo call originators to forfeit their numbers and bonds and don't allow them to buy new numbers under the same identity or credit card.
Even paying $10 per per 10 robo calls placed would boost the cost to $1 per call.
If you need 1000 bullshit calls to scam $500 out of someone then your net is negative.
There's no reason the phone system can't be fixed incrementally. They did it for 911 and location data, they can do it for ANI. After all, it's not like the phones themselves are faulty (well, maybe on the wireless spectrum, but that's a separate issue)
If you want a solution, whitelisting isn't it. You could even create them at the organizational level, like schools and government offices publishing lists of numbers to be whitelisted... But that would just be used by the robocallers, spoofers and scammers.
We as a society benefit hugely from instant communication and trying to remove it today would put too many people at risk.
Banks don't call my very often. I have a deep mistrust of calls claiming to be from banks.
If a bank is calling me, they'd better want zero information from me - they better be just telling me things. Otherwise, I'm going to call them back at a number that I know is really them.
Can someone explain me what is the business model for WSJ of acquiring new readers. If new readers can’t even read the article to know if it’s worth subscribing or not. It looks like they only rely on older people who used to read WSJ when it wasn’t behind a paywall
The WSJ has a well-deserved reputation for its financial analysis. People in business and especially in finance will gladly pay for the subscription.
They don't really care if anyone else reads the paper; the expected return on a non-core subscriber isn't worth much more than the cost of acquisition, so there's not much point to changing their business model to chase gadflies.
At the same time, non-core readers are a large source of potential revenue, so they make their stories available through some means (like Apple News) in a manner that allows them access to a large non-core market while protecting their core subscription model.
>Can someone explain me what is the business model for WSJ of acquiring new readers. If new readers can’t even read the article to know if it’s worth subscribing or not. It looks like they only rely on older people who used to read WSJ when it wasn’t behind a paywall
They give them out for free in colleges, especially in business schools. Many corporate offices and law firms and stuff also have subscriptions that they maintain.
That's why I subscribed to Apples' latest News+ service. If I paid 9.99 to have access to whole bunch of publications, then I wouldn't mind paying at all.
Shh...the knowledge workers that arrange bits in one format don't think the knowledge workers that arrange bits in another format deserve to be paid. They should innovate their way out of their victimization in a way that pleases their attackers.
I know I read an article claiming that people don’t consume a medley of news publications, but the internet and things like hackernews clearly have changed that. So I think an Apple News subscription really solves this issue. One flat monthly fee, and I can consume all the paywalled stuff on HN.
inkl.com has been around a lot longer than “apple news” and seems to have much more news sources. Im going to be voting for the underdog with my money.
I feel it is warranted. To me, paywalled journalism feels hostile. I don't want an internet where every link I click wants me to buy a new subscription. It's the same reason I don't pay for TV anymore. And I don't mean I'm pirating it, I just don't consume it.
If this is the only way to save journalism then I'm guessing regardless of people's ambitions it's probably doomed anyways. I mean, there has been some success, but seriously, how many monthly subscriptions do I need? I pay for Creative Suite, Jetbrains Toolbox, YouTube, Amazon, multiple Patreons, a few VPS providers, Mullvad, and so many other things. Monetary value aside, I just can't manage to have more subscriptions, less one for every major publication just so I can click on links and not get paywalled constantly. I don't read from these publications regularly at all.
The day every link on the net wants it's own subscription is the day I completely stop bothering with reading entirely.
I agree completely regarding the overwhelmingness of online subscriptions. Personally, I'm interested in seeing how Apple's News+ works out, as that's the best of both worlds (a single subscription + nominal fee journo support).
Edit: out of curiosity, why do you pay for YouTube Red? I don't really see the value in it
I basically just pay for things I use a lot. With YouTube I use the offline videos and background playback very frequently, and not having ads without adblock is nice.
And yes, I concede that something more like Apple News would be much better. Still, I fear for a future where every last bit of content is behind a subscription paywall. The freemium model and ads in general get a lot of well-deserved flak, but they do at least make things more accessible.
I find it fascinating how different the opinion on HN regarding paywalls is when it comes to scientific journals versus news publications. Like yeah, the money is ostensibly going to the right person with news publication paywalls. But a lot of arguments about paywalls hinge around how it gates knowledge and information, and to the end user, it really isn't any different than if your ISP charged you $5/mo for Wikipedia access. I realize this comparison will make people upset, but to the average user? Really is the same thing.
All in all, I shouldn't be so irrationally angry over paywalls, but there are days when I come across 3 or 4 links that I can't read, and I just pass over it, remembering the past when people could discuss almost any article online regardless of how much free cash they have to pay for subscriptions.
Definitely didn't say I don't care about journalism, just that if this is the future I'd rather it died, consequences be damned. To me, a future with only paywalls is nearly as bad.
But you choose the restaurant, it doesn't automatically call every restaurant nearby. The product is the automated voice, not the automated calling of numbers.
Google Call Screen on Pixel phones is pretty amazing and entertaining. Get robocall, just run it through that and you get real time voice to text with options on how to respond.
Robocalls would be much easier to address if you could block/report the actual number they come from.