Image credit: ChatGPT

Hopeful news in a time of gloom: forty-six state attorneys general across the United States have banded together in a bipartisan coalition to defeat a common hated enemy: illegal robocall operators.

Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, and his fellow AGs have called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to close a loophole in the Robocall Mitigation Database that allows bad guys to exploit access to the U.S. telephone network.

“When was the last time anyone was thankful for a robocall?” Attorney General Jason Miyares says in a press release issued today. “Not only are robocalls annoying, they can also rack up billions of dollars through scams targeting the most vulnerable.”

Let’s not mince words: robocallers are vermin. They must be exterminated. The AGs are doing God’s work.

Telemarketers must register on the FCC’s database to operate as a voice service provider in the United States. But illegal robocallers are expert at circumventing the restrictions and face no real consequences for filing inaccurate, false, misleading, or otherwise incomplete information.

According to Miyares’ press release, the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force is calling on the FCC to strengthen the database by making robocallers meet deadlines for submitting required information, validating the data, and penalizing them for false or inadequate information.

If Miyares and his buddies could do something about email scammers, they’d be national heroes!

A copy of the task force letter is available here.

As a special treat, I asked Chat GBT to compose a haiku on the topic:

Silent phones rejoice
Forty-six heroes unite
Robocalls no more.

Meanwhile, Suno has immortalized “Miyares and his mighty crew” in song. (Click here to listen to the song.)

[Verse]
Forty-five strong and Jason Miyares
Taking down those thieves and liars
Robocalls they won’t survive
Truth and justice come alive

[Verse 2]
Endless ringing late at night
Spam and scams they ignite
But here comes the cavalry
Fightin’ back the misery

[Chorus]
No more calls that drive us mad
Justice hammer comin’ down hard
Miyares and his mighty crew
Making sure they pay their due

 

— JAB

 


ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)




Comments


Comments

10 responses to “Silent Phones Rejoice!”

  1. How does this affect the phone companies that allow the robocallers to show fake originating phone numbers?

  2. I hope they are successful.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar

    I'm not really bothered much by robocalls. If I don't recognize the caller, the're toast! AND I'll join the crowdsourcing by putting a SPAM label on it.

    But the problem of spoofing like Carol is talking about is a more serious problem that is causing real harm to folks who are not able to
    recognize the calls are bogus. THAT, in my mind, is what the AG
    ought to be focusing on.

    Like the advice to not click on links in an email especially from sources you don't recognize, never call back a number involving an issue involving money, credit cards, your banking account, etc , hang up and dial the actual listed number. NEVER give out any personal, bank, etc info on the phone !

    As far as I know, they're not able to spoof self dialed numbers. If that changes, we do need some serious govt involvement!

    Ditto identity theft. I'd like the see the AG focus more on these kinds
    of issues.

    More and more, two-factor authentication is becoming the de-facto
    standard for online security. We need to find something like that
    for phone calls involving privacy and security – i.e. a more automatic
    way to verify a phone number IS valid and not being spoofed.

    Perhaps some kind of *xx keystroke to verify the number is not spoofed.

  4. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    I don't see how making them file accurate information on time is going to help anything. Even if they complied with the filing requirements, they still would be able to make robocalls. Furthermore, isn't the new administration going to eliminate thousands of federal positions? The FCC is probably understaffed now and will be even more understaffed in a year or so. Forget it–the robocalls will keep coming, maybe in greater numbers.

  5. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    โ€Letโ€™s not mince words: robocallers are vermin. They must be exterminated. The AGs are doing Godโ€™s work.โ€

    Robocallers, not illegal aliens?

    Dropped the landline years ago. Havenโ€™t answered a spam/robocall since. Voicemail does wonders.

    (Barely even received any unknown or unsolicited calls. Poor Bobby in Mumbai misses me. โ€œโ€˜Ello, โ€˜ello my friend. My name is Bobby and I am calling from Med-ee-care.โ€)

  6. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    Hmmmmโ€ฆ and here I thought regulating the free market was a bad thingโ€ฆ.

  7. DJRippert Avatar

    Jimbo – What is "Chat GBT"? You keep using the term. I've heard of ChatGPT – Chat + Generative Pre-trained Transformer. I've never heard of Chat GBT. Are you boys down in Richmond doing some sort of deep, next generation, neural network research?

  8. LarrytheG Avatar

    THIS is an area where the AG might prioritize his activities to help Va citizens:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/870884b1c94e6047d11f5e859cea9457fb0eca20a93da455afc68fad0adb4ac8.png

  9. Clarity77 Avatar

    Love the article graphic! Perfect visual as to what Trump is doing with his new cabinet appointments to the SWAMP! Beautiful!

Leave a Reply


ADVERTISEMENT