Robocallers
Next month the FCC will vote on new proposed rules that would require all gateway providers to adopt more stringent rules regarding SHAKEN/STIR, the FCC’s program to combat robocalls and ID spoofing. Currently gateway providers, essentially those that provider software interfaces that allow carriers to ’speak’ with each other despite different protocols, have been exempt from SHAKEN/STIR rules. These rules require carriers to confirm the validity of a caller ID at its origination point and compare it to a list of known IDs. If valid, the carrier adds an encrypted certificate to the call header that includes the carrier’s identity and a ‘trust value’. VoIP software on the receiving end then checks the authenticity of the message by decrypting the certificate using the provider’s public key.
Small carriers were given an extended period to implement the SHAKEN/STIR rules, which was recently shortened to accelerate the program, however gateway providers were given certain exceptions which the current proposed rules would end. Gateway carriers have been the mechanism by which spoofers and robocallers have been working around the SHAKEN/STIR rules already implemented by large carriers, using the un-blocked gateways to enter US carrier networks. By closing this ‘hole’ the FCC is hoping to reduce the number of illegal calls made from foreign countries to US consumers, which total over 125m/day, with consumers losing a bit under $2b each year to this type of fraud.
The new rules, if passed, would put the onus on gateway providers to participate in blocking programs, investigations, and overall mitigation, along with taking responsibility for robocall campaigns that occur on their networks, and non-compliance would result in that gateway’s removal from the Robocall Mitigation Database and would cause other networks to block calls from that gateway. While not yet at the rule stage, the FCC is also reviewing a similar proposal for intermediate carriers who might sit between networks, who are not yet part of the SHAKEN/STIR requirements. While such rulemaking has been around for years, little has actually been done to increase US and foreign carrier responsibility for robocalling and spoofing, so any rules that focus the carriers on the fiscal impact of not policing such fraud is a benefit to consumers, but the wheels of progress grind exceedingly slow, especially when they are government rules, and while the FCC has sanctioned and fined an increasing number of Robocallers based in the US, most of the calls originate overseas, which .
The FCC is expecting that cease and desist rules to foreign carriers will be honored with the threat of blocking, but if there is money to be made through scammer fraud, it is going to be hard to slow the tide unless those rules are carried out, and that becomes not only a carrier issue but a political one which can complicate enforcement even further. It is a tough problem but a necessary one to address but one that has become so out of control that many US consumers no longer answer their phones unless the CID is in their contact list. That’s a sorry state for any country to be in, especially one with a relatively sophisticated telephony infrastructure.
Small carriers were given an extended period to implement the SHAKEN/STIR rules, which was recently shortened to accelerate the program, however gateway providers were given certain exceptions which the current proposed rules would end. Gateway carriers have been the mechanism by which spoofers and robocallers have been working around the SHAKEN/STIR rules already implemented by large carriers, using the un-blocked gateways to enter US carrier networks. By closing this ‘hole’ the FCC is hoping to reduce the number of illegal calls made from foreign countries to US consumers, which total over 125m/day, with consumers losing a bit under $2b each year to this type of fraud.
The new rules, if passed, would put the onus on gateway providers to participate in blocking programs, investigations, and overall mitigation, along with taking responsibility for robocall campaigns that occur on their networks, and non-compliance would result in that gateway’s removal from the Robocall Mitigation Database and would cause other networks to block calls from that gateway. While not yet at the rule stage, the FCC is also reviewing a similar proposal for intermediate carriers who might sit between networks, who are not yet part of the SHAKEN/STIR requirements. While such rulemaking has been around for years, little has actually been done to increase US and foreign carrier responsibility for robocalling and spoofing, so any rules that focus the carriers on the fiscal impact of not policing such fraud is a benefit to consumers, but the wheels of progress grind exceedingly slow, especially when they are government rules, and while the FCC has sanctioned and fined an increasing number of Robocallers based in the US, most of the calls originate overseas, which .
The FCC is expecting that cease and desist rules to foreign carriers will be honored with the threat of blocking, but if there is money to be made through scammer fraud, it is going to be hard to slow the tide unless those rules are carried out, and that becomes not only a carrier issue but a political one which can complicate enforcement even further. It is a tough problem but a necessary one to address but one that has become so out of control that many US consumers no longer answer their phones unless the CID is in their contact list. That’s a sorry state for any country to be in, especially one with a relatively sophisticated telephony infrastructure.
New Delhi phone scam center - Source: AARP.org/Doug Shadel
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