My phone rang.
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl@social.coop the moment texting became widely available, people almost entirely abandoned unsolicited phone calling. as such, the only people still making unsolicited phone calls are the threats -- people we actually want to talk to have the decency to text first.
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl Not only do I not answer unknown numbers, but I keep my voicemail box full at all times.
If you don't know me but have a legitimate reason to contact me, you already have an email address, physical address to mail, or can send a text.
If you need to get a hold of me but aren't in posession of the above means, then no the fuck you don't
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl what gets me is the fact that this tech is ancient and nobody tried to fix the issues with it for the last 25 years where spam and scam calling really started.
I mean why is it so hard to report a number to be blocked and the owner to be held accountable. This should be a default phone function to report a number.
Prepaid mobiles need registration everywhere how is it possible for scammers to get whole batches of numbers?
And so on ...
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@foolishowl Recently I had an elderly visitor. Her mobile phone rang. Unknown caller. She didn't take it. A few minutes later, it rang again.
I coerced her to take it. "Bit it could be criminals!", she said. "So what are they going to do to you over the phone?", I asked. Reluctantly, she took the call.
It was the police, offering her that she can move her illegally parked car right now or pay for a tow.
Picking up that call saved her hundreds of dollars.
I guess you win some, you lose some.
@newstik @foolishowl that police call could very well have been a scan though. I'd be wary of such a call.
That said, I always answer my phone. It doesn't ring very often, and 9 out of 10 times it's things like a doctor's clinic calling to tell me of a rescheduling.
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@foolishowl I answer almost every call I get, recite my script (including “This call is being monitored and recorded for quality assurance”) and over 95% of the time they hang up on me.
Half of these calls are just ping calls and they would habe hung up anyway...
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@foolishowl what gets me is the fact that this tech is ancient and nobody tried to fix the issues with it for the last 25 years where spam and scam calling really started.
I mean why is it so hard to report a number to be blocked and the owner to be held accountable. This should be a default phone function to report a number.
Prepaid mobiles need registration everywhere how is it possible for scammers to get whole batches of numbers?
And so on ...
I'm not sure what OS your smartphone uses, but in my Android phone reporting and blocking IS a default function.
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I'm not sure what OS your smartphone uses, but in my Android phone reporting and blocking IS a default function.
@ckd @foolishowl but the blocking is just you blocking a number on a local device. So everyone has to do it individually.
It should be reported to the ISP and it should be their responsibility to make sure that there are no scammers.
They should have an incentive to not allow scammers on their network.If hundreds of people block a number than it should be clear that this needs to be investigated.
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl The tech industry has facilitated a large number of threats but they aren't the only (or maybe even the dominant) problem.
Remember, Google is an _advertising_ company.
Recently, the trifecta of land developers, advertisers, and tech hit my phone. They honestly don't know or care how creepy and threatening they sound:
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
It's also online. We live in a world that is hostile to us.
For 24 years I am running the Israeli equivalent to snopes.com
I constantly get emails asking me if this or that is a scam. I stopped trying to check and get back to the senders. There is an auto reply saying "It's most likely a scam. Log in to the service, the usual way, not using this link, and see if there is a message for you".
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@ckd @foolishowl but the blocking is just you blocking a number on a local device. So everyone has to do it individually.
It should be reported to the ISP and it should be their responsibility to make sure that there are no scammers.
They should have an incentive to not allow scammers on their network.If hundreds of people block a number than it should be clear that this needs to be investigated.
The blocking is local, the report function indeed doesn't seem to go to the ISP but to the phone manufacturer. But it seems to work in the sense that spam calls are exceedingly marked as potential spam already when the phone rings.
Additionally, here in Germany it's quite easy to report these calls to the responsible agency via a web portal, and spammers are identified and get fined quite often...
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl When 19 calls out of 20 were social, and the 20th was antisocial spam, it made sense to answer. I stopped answering when every call for five or more calls in a row was from scammers/spammers trying to sell insurance. It's because they call so often that not answering stopped being taboo.
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl we feel that the emergence of phone flat rates has changed this. there was a monetary cost attached to each and every call, at least outside the local community, and in some countries even locally. you could be relatively sure that if the phone rang it was worth someone's real money to reach you, because the call would end up listed, with a price, on the bill.
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl You still answered in the 90s too. And really most of the early 2000s. There were spam calls from time to time, but honestly they were still kind of rare. At least compared to what we know today. If I got a call on my cellphone, I rushed to get it. I never got spam calls back then.
Now I have literally set my default ringtone to silence and then manually set contacts to have a ringtone. It's now so bad my default is to not even ring or vibrate. I've gone from not answering to not even knowing if there's a call because 99.99999999% of it is spam.
And now they're ruining text messages too!
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The blocking is local, the report function indeed doesn't seem to go to the ISP but to the phone manufacturer. But it seems to work in the sense that spam calls are exceedingly marked as potential spam already when the phone rings.
Additionally, here in Germany it's quite easy to report these calls to the responsible agency via a web portal, and spammers are identified and get fined quite often...
@ckd @foolishowl I am using an iPhone and Android in Spain. Without additional Apps (which don't work well) there is no automatic marking calls as Spam. And I turned all features to the max.
I argue that the manufacturers are not the ones that need to take action. It is the ISPs who give away these numbers or allow them to be spoofed. Going for the root cause vs symptoms.
And I am not sure how many people actually block vs how many get scammed.
Responsibility should not be on the end user!
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@ckd @foolishowl I am using an iPhone and Android in Spain. Without additional Apps (which don't work well) there is no automatic marking calls as Spam. And I turned all features to the max.
I argue that the manufacturers are not the ones that need to take action. It is the ISPs who give away these numbers or allow them to be spoofed. Going for the root cause vs symptoms.
And I am not sure how many people actually block vs how many get scammed.
Responsibility should not be on the end user!
@ckd @foolishowl you can see how big the problem is by the amount of apps and websites that try to identify caller IDs.
The German website (which I also used several times) should be notified automatically by the ISPs when there are many reports of people blocking the number.
And it should not be a localized German thing.
All I am saying is this is a 25+ years old problem that is not being solved on purpose as there is no incentive to do so.
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@ckd @foolishowl I am using an iPhone and Android in Spain. Without additional Apps (which don't work well) there is no automatic marking calls as Spam. And I turned all features to the max.
I argue that the manufacturers are not the ones that need to take action. It is the ISPs who give away these numbers or allow them to be spoofed. Going for the root cause vs symptoms.
And I am not sure how many people actually block vs how many get scammed.
Responsibility should not be on the end user!
@themipper @ckd @foolishowl I think the reporting actually goes to the phone service provider (which is not the same thing as an Internet service provider.)
But they're pretty lax about bothering to do anything about it. As you say, they have little incentive. In fact, I don't know how it is elsewhere, but over here in America they actually now get to sell people a spam blocking subscription (so they actually have incentive to not help people for free to get more money for it...)
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@foolishowl Recently I had an elderly visitor. Her mobile phone rang. Unknown caller. She didn't take it. A few minutes later, it rang again.
I coerced her to take it. "Bit it could be criminals!", she said. "So what are they going to do to you over the phone?", I asked. Reluctantly, she took the call.
It was the police, offering her that she can move her illegally parked car right now or pay for a tow.
Picking up that call saved her hundreds of dollars.
I guess you win some, you lose some.
@newstik @foolishowl Why are the police using an unlisted number?
That's the most suspicious thing I've ever heard.
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@themipper @ckd @foolishowl I think the reporting actually goes to the phone service provider (which is not the same thing as an Internet service provider.)
But they're pretty lax about bothering to do anything about it. As you say, they have little incentive. In fact, I don't know how it is elsewhere, but over here in America they actually now get to sell people a spam blocking subscription (so they actually have incentive to not help people for free to get more money for it...)
@nazokiyoubinbou @ckd @foolishowl Yeah, I meant the phone service provider (it is so rare to talk about phone service providers these days that I actually didn't think about using the term ISP)
I think they cannot sell spam protection subscriptions in Europe. But I just looked it up my provider rolled out a spam protection service last November. Did not see a difference.
Still get a lot of calls that either ring once or have a robot telling me that they have a job for me ... -
My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl I'm not sure it's fear of contact.. it's the advertising industry abusing phones to the point that they became useless.. they same way they did for email and answering your front door.
If the advertising industry died in a fire we'd all be better off.
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My phone rang. I looked over and, as usual, it was an unknown caller, so I didn't answer it.
It crosses my mind that in the 70s and 80s, you always answered the phone if you could. Fraudulent and spam calls were a concern, but a minor one. We usually just assumed if someone was calling, we should answer, because it was a friend, or something important.
TV shows would show someone not answering the phone as an indication they were in some sort of crisis.
Now, most communication is assumed threatening by default.
The long and short of it is that the tech industry has made fear of contact the social norm.
@foolishowl I always get a startle when it rings. Usually it makes other sounds 🤪.
