RoboCalls- A Problem of Epidemic Proportion
One Answer- STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs).
Published January, 2019
When spam Robocalls make up a greater percentage than actual
"real" calls, then we all know that something is terribly amiss.
With spoofed local numbers now showing up as caller ID presenting a
different picture than the true caller, the problem has risen to a new
level. Most people now don't answer many calls because of this enormous
problem, which says we are loosing our footing. The cost to both business
and individuals is a major concern.
The FTC fields more complaints for
unwanted "spam" calls than for any other issue, however the changes and
advancement in communications has made preventing these types of calls
nearly impossible.
Telephone spam has become the problem it is for two major
reasons. VoIP makes it easy to call numbers halfway around the
world for nearly nothing. And a savvy person can set up
computers to make thousands of calls hourly from some remote city into
the US and make lots of money. The rewards are too great to
easily dissuade the behavior.
A solution to prevent spoofed
numbers from being easily faked is in the works. The quest is to to bring
back phone numbers where they can once again be trusted. It can come from
STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Signature-based
Handling of Asserted information using toKENs). The challenge is
implement it so every phone has a trusted certificate of authenticity
attached to it. Much like a green check mark that displays when you see a
website result that shows "trusted", only this time it displays with the
phone number on the phone coming from only the actual "real" number and not
the spammer using that caller ID.
For the STIR/SHAKEN system
to work carriers on both sides of a telephone call will need to have it
implemented. Verizon has already stated down the path.
We
are all hopeful that we can get back to trusting our communication's
systems in the next year or two to a higher degree than the last couple
of years.
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