The most insane “robocall mitigation plans” that telcos filed with the FCC

FCC received blank pages, a Windows Printer Test, and an “indiscernible object.”

Twenty phone companies may soon have all their voice calls blocked by US carriers because they didn’t submit real plans for preventing robocalls on their networks.

The 20 carriers include a mix of US-based and foreign voice service providers that submitted required “robocall mitigation” plans to the Federal Communications Commission about two years ago. The problem is that some of the carriers’ submissions were blank pages and others were bizarre images or documents that had no relation to robocalls.

The strange submissions, according to FCC enforcement orders issued yesterday, included “a .PNG file depicting an indiscernible object,” a document titled “Windows Printer Test Page,” an image “that depicted the filer’s ‘Taxpayer Profile’ on a Pakistani government website,” and “a letter that stated: ‘Unfortunately, we do not have such a documents.'”

Yesterday’s FCC announcement said the agency’s Enforcement Bureau issued orders demanding that “20 non-compliant companies show cause within 14 days as to why the FCC should not remove them from the database for deficient filings.” The orders focus on the certification requirements and do not indicate whether these companies carry large amounts of robocall traffic…

“Bad-actor” phone companies that profit from robocalls could be blocked by more legitimate carriers under rules approved unanimously yesterday by the Federal Communications Commission.

Under the change, the FCC said carriers can block calls “from bad-actor upstream voice service providers that pass illegal or unwanted calls along to other providers, when those upstream providers have been notified but fail to take action to stop these calls.” Carriers that impose this type of blocking will get a safe harbor from liability “for the unintended or inadvertent blocking of wanted calls, thus eliminating a concern that kept some companies from implementing robust robocall blocking efforts.”

This expanded level of blocking—spurred by a new law in which Congress directed the FCC to expand safe harbors—could be implemented by companies that sell phone service directly to consumers. That includes mobile carriers Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, traditional landline companies, and VoIP providers.

Carriers won’t be able to block calls from just any provider. As Chairman Ajit Pai explained, the safe harbor will be available in cases when the “bad-actor” telecom has been notified by the FCC that it is carrying illegal traffic and “fails either to effectively mitigate such traffic or to implement effective measures to prevent customers from using its network to originate illegal calls.”

Allowing carriers to block virtually all calls from a particular provider is a significant change in policy, the FCC said in a draft of yesterday’s order:

Until very recently, we have only authorized call blocking for particular calls, not based on the provider. In April of this year, the Commission’s Enforcement Bureau and the FTC jointly issued letters making clear that, in some instances, provider-based blocking is appropriate. Today, we clarify that voice service providers are permitted to block calls from “bad-actor” upstream voice service providers… The safe harbor thus provides protection to a voice service provider that blocks all calls from a bad-actor voice service provider.

Accused phone providers would be given 48 hours to “take effective mitigation measures” before other carriers can block their call traffic. The FCC identifies these bad-actor providers using traceback technology, in collaboration with the telecom industry. The new rules are scheduled to take effect 30 days after the FCC order is published in the Federal Register.

Despite the safe harbor, carriers will still have to “make all reasonable efforts to avoid blocking emergency public safety calls,” the FCC said.

FCC threats have been effective

Yesterday’s vote follows other US government efforts to cut robocalls off closer to the source. The FCC sent letters in April and May to six gateway phone companies, telling them to cut off scam robocalls or have all their calls blocked by other phone providers. “Within 48 hours of receiving the letters, each of the gateway providers confirmed they had terminated the robocall traffic,” the FCC said in the draft of yesterday’s order. The Department of Justice also sued two small companies that allegedly connected hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls from Indian call centers to US residents.

FURTHER READING

FCC requires anti-robocall tech after “voluntary” plan didn’t work out [Updated]

The new safe harbor is one of several measures adopted in yesterday’s FCC order. Another new safe harbor “protects phone companies that use reasonable analytics, including caller ID authentication information, to identify and block illegal or unwanted calls.” The FCC also laid the groundwork for future rulings by voting to seek public comment “on whether to obligate phone companies to better police their networks against illegal calls, and whether to require them to provide information about blocked calls to consumers for free.”

Phone companies would be required to deploy technology that prevents spoofing of Caller ID under a plan announced today by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.Pai follows Congress’ orders, requires carriers to verify Caller ID accuracy.

The STIR and SHAKEN protocols use digital certificates, based on public-key cryptography, to verify the accuracy of Caller ID. STIR/SHAKEN would work best if all phone companies adopt it because it can only verify Caller ID when both the sending carrier and receiving carrier have deployed the technology. Robocallers who spoof real numbers to hide their identities would get flagged by STIR/SHAKEN. Depending on how each carrier implements it, flagged calls could be passed on to consumers with a warning or be blocked entirely.

Carriers have already been adopting STIR/SHAKEN, but Pai said not all companies have done so. “Last year, I demanded that major phone companies voluntarily deploy STIR/SHAKEN, and a number of them did,” Pai said. “But it’s clear that FCC action is needed to spur across-the-board deployment of this important technology.”

While STIR/SHAKEN might help reduce robocalls or slow their growth, it’s not enough on its own to solve the large and complicated robocall problem. For one thing, a lot of robocalls originate from overseas. The FCC recently sent letters to seven US-based voice providers “that accept foreign call traffic and terminate it to US consumers,” saying these companies’ services are “being used as a gateway into the United States for many apparently illegal robocalls that originate overseas.” In a related action, the Department of Justice sued two small companies that allegedly connected hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls from Indian call centers to US residents.

March 3, 2017

Blocking robocalls from spoofed numbers may soon become easier, as the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to give carriers authority to take more aggressive action against this type of scam call…