On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 11:27 AM Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:
On Thu, 2019-12-19 at 11:02 -0800, William Herrin wrote:
I call your phone number. Your phone company compares my number against your whitelist. Ring through on match. If no match, "You have reached Name. Press 2 to leave a message. Press 3 to enter your code. Press 0 or stay on the line for an operator." Ring through on a valid code. If 0, the call connects to a call center where a live operator evaluates the call. Who am I? Why am I calling? Do I meet the plain-English criteria you've established for calls to allow through? If no, the operator offers to connect me to your voicemail. If yes, the operator dials you, explains who's calling and asks your permission to connect the call.
It really doesn't (currently at least -- until robocallers start using voice recognition to defeat my system) need to be this complicated or over-engineered. A simple audio captcha works wonders.
Hello. If you are a telemarketer, press 1. If you want to speak to somebody at this number, press 5.
Anyone pressing 1 gets their caller-id added to my blacklist and is asked to add our number to their do not call list. In reality all telemarketers use robocallers so they don't even get that far.
Hi Brian, I don't want to start an arms race with the spam callers, I want to end it. That means: jump directly to something they can't easily defeat. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin bill@herrin.us https://bill.herrin.us/