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The FCC's Robocall Plan Sounds Awfully Familiar
Source: Wired
BRIAN BARRETT SECURITY 05.15.19 06:07 PM
THE FCC'S PLAN TO STOP ROBOCALLS SOUNDS AWFULLY FAMILIAR
Despite high-profile arrests and protocols with clever names, the robocall scourge remains indomitable. On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai teased a new proposal to put a serious dent in the problem. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
On the face of it, Pai’s proposal sounds appealing. It would allow carriers to block robocalls by default, rather than on an opt-in basis. If you want even more rigorous blocking, you could, under the proposal, opt in to use your contact list as a so-called white list, bouncing any number you don’t already know. And it would grease the skids for carriers to implement standards known as “SHAKEN” and “STIR,” which will make it easier to flag calls from spoofed phone numbers. You know, the ones that are weirdly so close to your own.
-snip-
Without knowing the exact language of the proposed rule, it’s hard to say exactly how Pai’s broad strokes will play out in practice. But the notion that carriers should block calls on behalf of consumers dates back to Tom Wheeler’s FCC, which in 2016 proposed that very thing.
“It seems to follow a familiar pattern from chairman Pai of taking things that the Obama administration did, filing off the serial numbers, and trying to take credit for it,” says Harold Feld, senior vice president of the nonprofit group Public Knowledge. “There’s a certain chutzpah in having spent the previous administration in a passionate campaign to undermine every single thing, and dissent from every single order, to now try to pretend that these are your own initiatives and take credit for them.”
-snip-
THE FCC'S PLAN TO STOP ROBOCALLS SOUNDS AWFULLY FAMILIAR
Despite high-profile arrests and protocols with clever names, the robocall scourge remains indomitable. On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai teased a new proposal to put a serious dent in the problem. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
On the face of it, Pai’s proposal sounds appealing. It would allow carriers to block robocalls by default, rather than on an opt-in basis. If you want even more rigorous blocking, you could, under the proposal, opt in to use your contact list as a so-called white list, bouncing any number you don’t already know. And it would grease the skids for carriers to implement standards known as “SHAKEN” and “STIR,” which will make it easier to flag calls from spoofed phone numbers. You know, the ones that are weirdly so close to your own.
-snip-
Without knowing the exact language of the proposed rule, it’s hard to say exactly how Pai’s broad strokes will play out in practice. But the notion that carriers should block calls on behalf of consumers dates back to Tom Wheeler’s FCC, which in 2016 proposed that very thing.
“It seems to follow a familiar pattern from chairman Pai of taking things that the Obama administration did, filing off the serial numbers, and trying to take credit for it,” says Harold Feld, senior vice president of the nonprofit group Public Knowledge. “There’s a certain chutzpah in having spent the previous administration in a passionate campaign to undermine every single thing, and dissent from every single order, to now try to pretend that these are your own initiatives and take credit for them.”
-snip-
Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/fcc-plan-stop-robocalls-awfully-familiar/