Misleading bloggers and the use of "free".

On 6/18/2016 10:29 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| Thank you for the suggestions, which I shall soon try. I have never
| gotten a spam call from a cellphone here in the USA, for some reason.
|
That's surprising. I wonder how you know.
If your caller ID says private caller then it's
a blocked landline.

wrong.

private means that caller id was blocked by the caller, regardless of
phone type. that's *all*.

But if it just says something
like "Denver, CO" then it's a cellphone.

wrong on that too.

many cellphones have an area code database and will show a city/state
when the number in not in your contacts.

there is no cnam lookup with cellular, so unless the number is in your
contacts list you will either see the city/state or just the number (if
there's no database).

I get
mostly cellphone calls these days.

you have no way to know what type of phone the caller is using from
just the number.

this is particularly true with number portability. a user can port a
landline number to cellular or the other way around, which can mean
that what *was* a landline last month might not be a landline anymore.

and then there's voip, which is what most spammers use, typically
offshore.

They try
to trick people into picking up.

one common trick is to spoof the caller id to be from the same city or
town as yours or somewhere nearby.

for instance, someone living in manhattan is more likely to answer if
the call is coming from somewhere else in new york city, versus say,
lincoln, nebraska or seattle, washington.

that also makes it harder to block because normally you will want to
receive calls from people near you, whether it's family, friends or
businesses. less so from some random city across the country.

And as nospam
said, they can also spoof. I occasionally get
calls from myself.

block your own phone number.

however, that may interfere with voicemail access, depending on how
that is set up.

many voicemail systems check clid for access, which is obviously a
security hole since that can be spoofed.

It's got so bad that I don't pick up at all anymore
unless I know who it is. If someone is calling from
a cellphone and I don't recognize the number
then they just have to leave a message.

again, you have no way to know that.

If you're interested in this for spam calls you
might also find these two interesting:

www.whocallsme.com
www.whycall.me

They list known information about specific numbers.
People who get calls from specific numbers can
report their experience. Often you can find out from
those reports what the caller's scam is.

i always do a search on a number and see what comes back.

if it's associated with spam, it will usually come up with hits from
the above sites as well as others.

if not, then it might come up with the company or person. sometimes it
really is just a wrong number.

if it's spam, it gets blocked. if i see a pattern of spam calls from a
certain area, i may block more than a single number, perhaps an entire
exchange or sometimes even an entire area code.

i also have a block on non-nanpa numbers, which covers any call with
bogus clid, such as 000-0000 or an incorrect number of digits.


That would not work for me, since about 75% of the unknown calls I get
are from my wife's doctors, or involve her health issues.

--
PeterN

In article , PeterN
wrote:

i always do a search on a number and see what comes back.

if it's associated with spam, it will usually come up with hits from
the above sites as well as others.

if not, then it might come up with the company or person. sometimes it
really is just a wrong number.

if it's spam, it gets blocked. if i see a pattern of spam calls from a
certain area, i may block more than a single number, perhaps an entire
exchange or sometimes even an entire area code.

i also have a block on non-nanpa numbers, which covers any call with
bogus clid, such as 000-0000 or an incorrect number of digits.


That would not work for me, since about 75% of the unknown calls I get
are from my wife's doctors, or involve her health issues.

why wouldn't it work?

block known spammers and invalid numbers.

everyone else gets through.

if you get a spam call, add it to the block list.

if the spammer hears a number is not in service message with the
appropriate sit tones, your number will be flagged in the spammer's
database as invalid and eventually, your number will fall off their
lists, ultimately reducing the number of spam calls. that won't stop
all spammers, but it makes a *huge* difference.

In article , PeterN
wrote:


About 75% of the unrecognized calls I get are legitimate.

once you determine if it's legitimate or not, you can whitelist or
block, as appropriate.

| I get
| mostly cellphone calls these days.
|
| you have no way to know what type of phone the caller is using from
| just the number.
|

I'm not saying that. What I meant was that a
listed landline shows the name of the caller. If
the name does not show it could be spoofed. If
the name does show it could be a shared/transferred
number, as you said. I've had such calls: People
calling from a cellphone with a caller ID. But in
general, if it only shows a city and/or number then
it's probably a cellphone.

| And as nospam
| said, they can also spoof. I occasionally get
| calls from myself.
|
| block your own phone number.
|

? If I get a call from myself then I'm 100% sure
it's a scammer, so I know not to answer it. Thus,
I don't mind getting calls from myself. It's the ones
showing number only, with a local area code, that
are difficult to judge.

| however, that may interfere with voicemail access, depending on how
| that is set up.
|
| many voicemail systems check clid for access, which is obviously a
| security hole since that can be spoofed.
|

I have an answering machine. I've never understood
why people are willing to pay $6+/month to get limited
answering services from their phone company.

On 6/18/2016 11:14 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , PeterN
wrote:

i always do a search on a number and see what comes back.

if it's associated with spam, it will usually come up with hits from
the above sites as well as others.

if not, then it might come up with the company or person. sometimes it
really is just a wrong number.

if it's spam, it gets blocked. if i see a pattern of spam calls from a
certain area, i may block more than a single number, perhaps an entire
exchange or sometimes even an entire area code.

i also have a block on non-nanpa numbers, which covers any call with
bogus clid, such as 000-0000 or an incorrect number of digits.


That would not work for me, since about 75% of the unknown calls I get
are from my wife's doctors, or involve her health issues.

why wouldn't it work?

block known spammers and invalid numbers.

everyone else gets through.

if you get a spam call, add it to the block list.

if the spammer hears a number is not in service message with the
appropriate sit tones, your number will be flagged in the spammer's
database as invalid and eventually, your number will fall off their
lists, ultimately reducing the number of spam calls. that won't stop
all spammers, but it makes a *huge* difference.


Known spammers are blocked. invalid numbers such as 00-66, are mostly
from the docs.
Known spammers switch numbers faster than Clark Kent goes in and out of
a phone booth. (Wonder what he does now that there are so few, if any
booths.)

--
PeterN

On 6/18/2016 11:20 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jun 2016 22:52:22 -0400, PeterN
wrote:

The problem is that they are constantly changing numbers.
The worst offender calls itself credit card services,


I am a frequent "winner" of all-expense paid vacations.
Many of them are to Disney World and include free airfare.


Wanna go on a free cruise.
Most of the vacation scammers have taken me off their list. I tell them
that I am a hundred and five, and then argue that with my family gene
pool I am expected to live at least another thirty years. So not dealing
with me is illegal age discrimination.
My daughter's ex roommate used to tell them that he would only talk to
them if they would accept the lord Jesus Christ as their personal
savior. His theory was that they would think he is a nut job and remove
him from their list.

--
PeterN

On 6/19/2016 8:07 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| I get
| mostly cellphone calls these days.
|
| you have no way to know what type of phone the caller is using from
| just the number.
|

I'm not saying that. What I meant was that a
listed landline shows the name of the caller. If
the name does not show it could be spoofed. If
the name does show it could be a shared/transferred
number, as you said. I've had such calls: People
calling from a cellphone with a caller ID. But in
general, if it only shows a city and/or number then
it's probably a cellphone.

| And as nospam
| said, they can also spoof. I occasionally get
| calls from myself.
|
| block your own phone number.
|

? If I get a call from myself then I'm 100% sure
it's a scammer, so I know not to answer it. Thus,
I don't mind getting calls from myself. It's the ones
showing number only, with a local area code, that
are difficult to judge.

| however, that may interfere with voicemail access, depending on how
| that is set up.
|
| many voicemail systems check clid for access, which is obviously a
| security hole since that can be spoofed.
|

I have an answering machine. I've never understood
why people are willing to pay $6+/month to get limited
answering services from their phone company.



When local power goes out, answering machines do not work very well.


--
PeterN

| I have an answering machine. I've never understood
| why people are willing to pay $6+/month to get limited
| answering services from their phone company.
|
| When local power goes out, answering machines do not work very well.
|

Yes, that's true. I don't lose any sleep over the
chance that once every five years someone might
not be able to reach me for 20 minutes. It's not
like I'm running a nuclear power plant. If the machine
doesn't pick up, they'll call back.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| I get
| mostly cellphone calls these days.
|
| you have no way to know what type of phone the caller is using from
| just the number.
|

I'm not saying that. What I meant was that a
listed landline shows the name of the caller. If
the name does not show it could be spoofed. If
the name does show it could be a shared/transferred
number, as you said. I've had such calls: People
calling from a cellphone with a caller ID. But in
general, if it only shows a city and/or number then
it's probably a cellphone.

again, wrong.

only the calling number is sent by the originating caller, with a block
flag if the caller chooses to block it, regardless whether it's a
cellphone or landline.

the destination central office receives the number no matter what and
then it checks the block flag and if it's blocked, the number is not
sent to the subscriber. if it isn't blocked, the number is sent
(assuming they have clid service, which is typically standard these
days).

if the receiving phone is a landline, the destination central office
does a cnam lookup on the clid that's sent and sends both the number
and the name to the subscriber (assuming they have caller id with name
service, which is also typically standard, it used to be an additional
cost service). if the cnam lookup fails (fake number, unlisted number,
or just nothing came back), no name is sent.

cellphone carriers do not support cnam lookups so only the number is
sent to the cellular phone. the name is not sent. any name lookup is
done *by the cellphone* from your contacts list. if the number is not
in your contacts list, the phone will not display a name (because it
doesn't have any name to display). however, if the cellphone has an
area code database (most recent cellphones do), it will display the
city/state.

caller id can be spoofed (and often is by spammers), so you can't be
100% certain the call is really coming from who or where it says it is.
most of the time it's correct but not always.

tl;dr - there is no way to know if the originating call is a landline,
cellphone or voip and the lack of a name means absolutely nothing,
*particularly* on a cellphone.

| And as nospam
| said, they can also spoof. I occasionally get
| calls from myself.
|
| block your own phone number.

? If I get a call from myself then I'm 100% sure
it's a scammer, so I know not to answer it.

since it's guaranteed that it's a scam call, why not block it so the
calls will not get through and you won't be disturbed.

if you play a disconnect message with sit tones, the spammer will flag
your number is disconnected and the number of spam calls will
eventually drop.

Thus,
I don't mind getting calls from myself.

however it still rings and still causes an interruption, even if you
ignore it.

It's the ones
showing number only, with a local area code, that
are difficult to judge.

only seeing numbers on a cellphone just means it's not in your contacts
list.

on a landline, only seeing numbers means the cnam lookup failed for any
of a variety of reasons.

either way, the clid can still be spoofed.

| however, that may interfere with voicemail access, depending on how
| that is set up.
|
| many voicemail systems check clid for access, which is obviously a
| security hole since that can be spoofed.
|

I have an answering machine. I've never understood
why people are willing to pay $6+/month to get limited
answering services from their phone company.

voicemail is usually bundled for free, and having it served from the
phone company makes it *very* easy to check messages from anywhere.

In article , PeterN
wrote:


I have an answering machine. I've never understood
why people are willing to pay $6+/month to get limited
answering services from their phone company.


When local power goes out, answering machines do not work very well.

nor do cordless phones, and in the case of verizon fios, it's uses
battery power during a power outage.