People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones.

I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this?

Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replaced with Microsoft Lync phones - now I get spam phonecalls at work.

(from the article:)

In fact, late last week, the CTIA wrote the FCC to tell it that the kind of blacklist approach taken by Foss’s company wouldn’t work. According to the lobbying group, it raises privacy concerns—and causes other problems too.

“Even assuming an accurate database of blacklisted and whitelisted numbers can be compiled and maintained, the ease with which modern equipment and software can allow a caller to spoof a caller ID would present significant challenge,” the group says.

I thought the phone companies had access to more information than caller ID for the calls they handle. Surely you can't fake caller ID details to dodge your phone bill? I'd love it if they'd give out a star code we could all dial after a call we didn't want to receive that would, if enough people did it, disallow future calls from that entity from reaching any phone line for which a customer has requested the blocking of calls reported as bothersome. No exemptions for charities or politicians either.

Having managed the "global black list" for a major VoIP company (millions of subscribers) I can tell you it does make customers happy. However ... if you implement one you will inadvertently block valid calls. The FCC and big phone companies are correct about that. It's just not possible for someone like AT&T to take the risk.

Real life problems you will see and have to deal with: - blocking of valid calls from legitimate voice broadcasts (i.e. schools / municipalites) - managing trouble tickets from other phone companies opening tickets constantly for "blocking the call" - managing trouble tickets from customers about not getting calls they should have - how to deal with call attempts that do not provide proper signaling information (i.e. "anonymous" as the actual caller ID and not using RPID, PAI, or SS7 appropriately)

When I had a land line, I changed my recorded message to the three tones and "We're sorry, the number cannot be completed as dialed" message and eliminated pretty much all spam calls.

There is a technical solution to this. Hashcash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

was created to stop email spam but is equally valid for phone calls. It /could/ be fully implemented by your phone carrier.

+1 for using Google Voice. They catch most spam and call screening gets the rest. Only close friends have my actual cell number.

Google voice blocks most of this crap for me. Much like gmail, Google knows when something is spam before it ever reaches me.

Its is funny seeing one of your college friends on a wired article. Aaron is a good guy.

Have we really reached the point where a reputable publication liked Wired magazine is using clickbait titles?

The tone of the article sounded like a marketing blog post for Nomorobo (or whatever his company is called).