Re: Chairman Pai Proposes Mandating STIR/SHAKEN To Combat Robocalls

[James R Cutler <james.cutler () consultant com>]

In this case, “ebony phone” refers to the (usually) black housing of landline phones, either dial or manual that your 
parents probably used for years. Caller ID has long been supplied (for extra cost) to subscribers as a signal 
interspersed with the ring signal.

The answer to “what about ebony phones” is to require telcos to verify the Caller ID which is delivered to landline 
telephones along with the ring signal.

Again, this is not likely since it would impact the telco’s profit margin.


James R. Cutler
James.cutler () consultant com
GPG keys: hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net



> On Mar 9, 2020, at 9:25 PM, Ross Tajvar <ross () tajvar io> wrote:
>
> What is an "ebony phone"? (Google results for that phrase are mostly porn.)
>
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2020 at 12:55 PM Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists () gmail com <mailto:morrowc.lists () gmail com>> 
> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2020 at 4:10 AM Bryan Holloway <bryan () shout net <mailto:bryan () shout net>> wrote:
> > On 3/7/20 8:03 AM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
> > > On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 11:05 PM Brian J. Murrell <brian () interlinx bc ca <mailto:brian () interlinx bc ca>> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > So, if my telco can bill the callers for those premium calls, they
> > > > surely know who they are, or at least know where they are sending the
> > > > bill and getting payment from.
> > >
> > > You are mistaken, billing is very hard.
> > > Telcos show this regularly.
> >
> > On the contrary: billing is easy. Getting it right is hard.
>
> You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
>
> Seriously though, a bunch of the conversation about shaken/stir and
> various problems with spam callers reveals:
>   "telcos don't care (for any reason you can imagine)"
>   "gov't mandates aren't  really going to help"
>   "people care as recipients of these calls, but really there are
> options for them as well to not get the calls (or not answer them)"
>
> I like that Mr Thomas's answer: "Why can't we just cryptpgraphically
> sign the caller's ANI and use that as a method to ID real callers we
> care about?"
> since that was my suggestion to the stir folk in their very first
> meeting... "what about ebony phones!" said the lawyer from
> telco-ville.