this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024

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A specific practical objection to modern blocking culture (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Android prompts me to "Block and Report Spam" for spam phone calls, in both the Phone app for regular phone calls and the Voice app for calls through Google Voice.

There is no way to report spam in either app without blocking the number.

Spammers and scammers change their phone numbers frequently. Daily or more, in the case of sophisticated large operations. Those numbers get reassigned to innocent users, who will forever be blocked from calling me.

"Dumb" phone number blocks should only last for maybe a month or a year, not forever. And we should have "smart" blocks, that sync to phone number registration databases and expire when the number changes hands.

This is going to become an increasingly impactful problem if we keep using phone numbers as identifiers while most phone number users don't keep the same number for decades.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I've had my number reported as spam before from someone impersonating my number, and I've run into several customers through work whose numbers had been reported as spam as well. I've also gotten calls from people who supposedly missed a call from me, that I had never called before. Most likely they missed a spam call that was impersonating my number.

Thankfully it wasn't too hard to get off of the spam call registries, and you can even preemptively register your number with them as a non-spam number to try to avoid getting caught in this. But it's still frustrating to have to deal with this at all, and it's far too difficult to realize your phone number has been flagged as spam. The people you frequently talk to probably have you added as a contact and will never get a chance to see you've been flagged as spam. And if you call anyone new, they probably won't answer your call because it shows up as spam. End result is you just have trouble getting in touch with people you haven't already swapped contacts with, and never get a good chance to learn why.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, a timed block list is a great idea! (Not sarcasm)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Mastodon has timed muting, but only permanent blocking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Good, I already don't answer the phone anyway.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think the bigger problem is why is the phone system configured in such a way that anyone can just claim to be calling from a number they don’t own? There should be some sort of authentication protocol built into the system to prove the person calling actually is from that number. Then it would be easier to charge someone for violating the Do Not Call registry. Once I had a call that Google identified as being a small local bakery, but on the other end was someone trying to sell me an extended warranty for my car. I’m sure the scammer’s software just picks random numbers, and it hurts legitimate phone users in the process.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Because the phone company's profits would go from $99.99 billion to $99.98 billion.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nah. This is a carrier issue. Let it burn down.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It won't burn down, carriers won't care. To them its a customer issue, they're providing the service just fine, so their job is done. Whether or not your number is blocked by other clients is your problem. Only class of customer they might care about is business lines, because you're paying them to have better services, uptime, etc, etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

You’re right but at some point regulation gets brought up.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You can unblock numbers if you need to, its not forever?

I have ~100 blocked numbers, statistically, its extremely unlikely that a legit person will attempt to contact me from one of those numbers. And the number of legit contacts from a random phone number (not a contact) is pretty close to zero.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

It's extremely unlikely ... YOU, sure. But it's absolutely certain that legit people will be blocked from contacting from those numbers to hundreds or thousands of other people.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (3 children)

with a 10 digit phone number, that's a 1 in 10,000,000,000 chance someone will get a specific number that you blocked...
it's a little more because not all numbers are valid, and you're blocking more than one number... but i don't think it's going to be a huge problem....

i do think that "blocking culture" (a term that makes no sense) is a problem online, however...

not only is there a completely opaque process for banning you online, and zero opportunity to talk to a human about it... but when individuals block trolls they continue to troll, but with impunity....

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Half the spam calls I've gotten have a 1/10,000 chance of being local to me by using the same area and exchange code - XXX-XXX-????. About 1/4 use the same area code, so 1/10,000,000. The other 1/4 are in that 1/10bil chance. Still, unlikely since there aren't too many in the 1/10k bucket with reason to call me, but it's important to not misrepresent the majority of calls having odds off by 3 magnitudes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Those odds aren’t valid because you’re assuming random fake numbers, when I reality they tend to chose similar numbers to yours. You’re more likely to think a local number may be valid so will answer.

If they fake the same area code, how many legitimate numbers might you talk to there? Make sure to include all doctors offices, schools, local government, and anyone you might do business with, along with their full set of possible numbers. Now you e got a much larger set of possible conflict out of a space three orders of magnitude smaller, and you’re up to X/10,000,000 chances of blocking a legit number

What if they spoof more locally than just area code, greatly reducing the number space? What if they chose a legit number from your local area, not just any possible, reducing the number space still more? What if you have kids, so multiply the number of possible conflicts. Now it’s likely to affect some people, possibly someone you know

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Spammers will spoof numbers similar to yours to get you to trust it. I even had a guy text me FURIOUSLY demanding I stop calling him, when I never had. Someone had spoofed MY number, calling him, who had the same area code and next 3 digits.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

This is going to become an increasingly impactful problem if we keep using phone numbers as identifiers while most phone number users don't keep the same number for decades.

Hahahaha, you're about 20 years behind if you're just now realizing this.

And Android has had phone number blocking database apps for 15 years that I know of.

Everyone has a phone number. Everyone would have to stop using that number as an identifier.

How you gonna do that?