You get a call from a number with digits similar to your own, but when you pick up the phone, it’s clearly a robocall. And then, it happens again and again and again, until you stop answering calls that appear to be local.
This annoying phenomenon, which has somehow gotten even worse over the past few months, is known as caller ID spoofing. Technically, it’s already illegal, but the phone industry has turned a blind eye to these robocalls. Not anymore.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai just announced that phone providers must adopt a robust call authentication system to crack down on illegal caller ID spoofing.
The general framework to tackling caller ID spoofing involves two components: STIR and SHAKEN. STIR is an international standard using math to discern an original caller ID. Then, SHAKEN (short for Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs) works in tandem with STIR to vouch for whether a call has high attestation — as in, a phone number the provider is positive is authentic — or low attestation, such as one from an online call service.
An FCC spokesman says: “With SHAKEN/STIR, the consumer can use the attestation to make much-higher-confidence decisions as to whether the call is legal, illegal, or unwanted. The service provider or application can use that to display a big green checkmark on the consumer’s phone for a high-confidence call, ‘SPAM?’ for a moderate-confidence call, and blocking for clearly illegal calls.”
The pivotal point here is that there are three tiers of attestation, so stealth robocalls come with a warning, and repeat or blatant offenders get definitively blocked.
Democrats warned the country that the end of net neutrality would kill us all. So, while we’re waiting for that to happen — surely, it’s just a matter of days — at least the FCC will finally phase out those terrible robocalls at last. And that’s a victory Democrats and Republicans alike can celebrate.
