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United States Communications

Trump Signs Traced Act Into Law in Bid To Help Put an End To Robocalls (cnet.com) 60

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
The fight against annoying robocalls just got another boost. This week President Trump signed the Traced Act into law, giving government agencies and law enforcement officials more weapons to go after individuals and companies who break telephone consumer-protection laws. From a report: The bi-partisan legislation was previously approved by the House and Senate, respectively, earlier this month before arriving on the president's desk. Crafted by Sens. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, and Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, among the act's features are an increase in penalties for those scammers who knowingly initiate illegal robocalls and the requirement that phone companies authenticate calls to determine if the number calling you is real. As part of a Federal Communications Commission push, major wireless carriers and home phone providers have been implementing a verification process known as STIR/SHAKEN throughout 2019 to authenticate calls and fight spammers. In addition to raising penalties and pushing for authentication, the bill also gives regulators like the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission four years to go after scammers, as opposed to the one-year statute of limitations that was previously in place.
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Trump Signs Traced Act Into Law in Bid To Help Put an End To Robocalls More

Trump Signs Traced Act Into Law in Bid To Help Put an End To Robocalls

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  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Happy new year to you too. As for the rest, well you got the title right, not sure if the link was meant to be serious, funny, troll, or spam but whatever youtube link you failed to post - better luck next year.

  • Hear hear! (Score:3)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @07:45PM (#59575190) Journal

    I love this legislation, yet I feel like I'm going to be using the broken clock/blind squirrel idioms ad infinitum the next few days.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Hear hear! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @08:42PM (#59575260) Journal

        I suppose robocalls is one of the few things it is possible to reach bipartisan agreement on.

        Isn't it sad that, in this political climate, there are so few topics of legislation it is possible to reach bipartisan agreement on? FFS, could we have all in for a robust economy with careful concern for the environment, current access to living with resource aplenty while not mitigating future generations well being, and uncommon courtesy for those who share different, perhaps valid, opinions?

        • FFS, could we have all in for a robust economy with careful concern for the environment, current access to living with resource aplenty while not mitigating future generations well being, and uncommon courtesy for those who share different, perhaps valid, opinions?

          Go ahead and post an actual specific plan for any of those things and it won’t take but five minutes for someone else to disagree. Anything more complicated than spam calls is going to have disagreement regarding how to accomplish that thing. If it were truly that easy we wouldn’t even be talking about it, just like there’s no discussion about whether or not we should be impaling more toddlers on spikes.

          • Re:Hear hear! (Score:4, Insightful)

            by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @08:55AM (#59575962)

            Go ahead and post an actual specific plan for any of those things and it won’t take but five minutes for someone else to disagree. Anything more complicated than spam calls is going to have disagreement regarding how to accomplish that thing. If it were truly that easy we wouldn’t even be talking about it, just like there’s no discussion about whether or not we should be impaling more toddlers on spikes.

            What would make America great and solidify its future isn’t agreement on what to do, but in agreement of basic facts. At this point we have people calling impaling fake and denying that impaling them is painful or often causes death or even is possible to exist in the first place. Everyone sharing a common set of verifiable facts and then voting for your policy choice about what to do with those facts creates far less division and has better outcomes than when policy is based on reality denial. Bonus points for critical thinking and using introspection to create consistency within ones own beliefs instead of compartmentalism and believing disparate things that can’t simultaneously be true.

        • The interesting part is that the single worst offenders for Robocalls are politicians themselves.

          AND - whilst they managed to exempt themselves (along with charity/religious calls in the original TCPA) they DIDN'T get exemptions for robocalls to emergency services numbers or hospital phones - guess what their blasting software almost always hit, and yet they were never sucessfully prosecuted for? (It's criminal per the TCPA. ON TOP of the civil penalties)

    • IMHO he's an ass, the legislation has been good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @10:02PM (#59575378) Journal

      I've been pleasantly surprised at the legislation Trump has signed, give that I think he's an ass. I really don't like the guy. I voted against him twice. Of course he doesn't write legislation; maybe if he did he would write bad legislation. As it is, the legislation he has signed has worked out pretty well so far.

      Yeah a lot of people wish he had handled illegal immigration differently and that's a fair criticism. That's just one issue, though. Heck, the most recent news on that is even starting to make the jackass look better - fewer people are crossed illegally in 2019, which meant fewer problems of deciding what to do with people who come in illegally.

      Anyway, it's possible to see Trump as a jackass as far as his personality, and also see that the bills Congress sent him and he signed have been pretty decent.

      • Bear in mind that what he's signing into law has little to do with him. It's passed by the houses. His signature is only a formality and if he refused to sign it there are ways of making it happen anyway - it just takes longer.

  • Something we all agree on (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bobbutts ( 927504 ) <bobbutts@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @08:42PM (#59575258)
    This is rare. I approve, congress approves, Trump approves.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Noishkel ( 3464121 )
      Ehh, I still expect to see at least one stink-piece to try and make a claim that this law is bad simply because Trump signed off on it.

      • Ehh, I still expect to see at least one stink-piece to try and make a claim that this law is bad simply because Trump signed off on it.

        This isn't insightful, it's troll or flaimbait. You're just trying to stir up more hatred abut a group you don't like based on something that hasn't even happened.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ebh ( 116526 )

        I expect to see at least one stink-piece to try and make a claim that this law is an onerous intrusion of government into private business affairs.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • As Trump hasn't spoken/tweeted about this, I'm guessing he neither approves or disapproves. It's just procedure for the president to sign everything congress passes - it's only newsworthy when the president doesn't do so, and invokes his veto instead, which doesn't happen often.

    • The following Congressmen voted against the TRACED act: Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Justin Amash (I-MI). Rand Paul (R-KY) was the only senator voting against it. 10 congressmen did not vote, including Bera (D-CA), DeGette (D-CO), Waltz (R-FL), Gabbard (D-HI), McGovern (D-MA), Dingell (D-MI), Serrano (D-NY), Cartwright (D-PA), Cunningham (D-SC), Carter (R-TX) Senators Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) did not vote.

  • On the subject of putting an end to something... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by uWotM8 ( 6496392 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @10:06PM (#59575382)
    ...can we do the same thing for junk mail? I can't think of one time that a mail offer to AT&T or Dish didn't go straight to the trash. Especially local sales papers. I feel like this would be a big win for people like me or someone who thinks the global warming is real.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by techno-vampire ( 666512 )
      You don't want to get rid of junk mail, because all the postage that gets paid for it subsidizes first class mail. Not only that, companies spend more money than you'd think designing, printing and getting that junk mail addressed, and there are probably more people than either of us would expect who earn their livings from junk mail.

      • Or, it is mostly automated and driven by templates and employs shockingly few people. It might even not generate much revenue.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • It's a nice urban legend, but 99.9% of such material never gets further than the first post office before it hits a dumpster. There are weight and size limits on PP return mail.

      • Fuck you.

        I absolutely do want to get rid of junk mail. Fuck the spamming spammers who make a living by it. Fuck assholes like you who think we should support that wasteful, environmentally unfriendly practice in exchange for cheaper mail. Definitely fuck you for thinking you can tell me what I want, when you are dead wrong.

        If it costs me $2 to mail a letter, fucking great. Because that means it costs everyone else a ton too, and hopefully that will finally make us all stop mailing physical hunks of paper ar

      • No, I do want to get rid of junk mail. I'll take the higher postage rates for the few times a year I actually need to mail something if I can go a whole year without having to deal with any trash in my mailbox.

        • It's likely you'd see virtually no change in rates (possibly a slight decrease) if junkmail is eliminated.

          The power of the advertisers is pervasive but the economics of their operation is questionable and they're mostly riding on federal subsidies of the USPS

      • "it subsidizes first class mail"

        There have been numerous studies over the years disproving that claim, five minutes research will find them.

        https://stateimpact.npr.org/ne... [npr.org]

        “While Advertising Mail takes up a larger percentage of mail today, it takes on average three pieces of mail to make up the contribution of a single piece of First-Class mail.”

        In other words, it's "make work" - it keeps postal workers busy, but it actually works out to being very close to break-even/slight profit/slight loss

    • "...can we do the same thing for junk mail? "

      Yes you can.

      USPS form 1500 - and they CANNOT refuse it or dispute it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Any postmaster who raises a stink should only need to be reminded of Rowan vs USPS and the fact that they can be pulled up on contempt of court proceedings if they refuse to go along with it.

    • I don't care about junk mail, or 'direct to consumer postal advertising.'

      Its not like my mailbox lights up and makes constant noises every time something arrives over the course of the day.

  • Will it work though? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @10:06PM (#59575386) Homepage Journal

    I am sure robocallers will find ways around these new laws. :(

  • Trump didn't do anything to prevent anything (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gojira Shipi-Taro ( 465802 ) on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @12:31AM (#59575534) Homepage

    He just signed something on his desk. He didn't read it, and he DAMNED sure didn't write the bill, push for the bill, or understand the bill. Stop green-lighting administration propaganda.

    • He didnâ(TM)t read it, but you can be dam sure he âs gonna use it in the next campaign, as something of itâ(TM)s own making.

      • Sure, but you can also be damn sure that when he talks about it he won't know what it's called or what it does. And it will be the greatest.

        Every major Democrat running for president, they want to sell your number to telemarketers. In other words, the Democrats want to completely annihilate your privacy. The Democrats want us to be subservient to foreign producers. They want us to be at the mercy of rogue regimes. That’s not happening anymore. It’s been a long time. It’s been a long time. It’s not happening anymore.

        Yesterday, I signed a law, a most beautiful law, that will stop one-hundred-percent of unwanted communications. The fake news would never have allowed us to say that during the campaign, even as a promise. And I used to say during the campaign, you go back, it’s hard to believe, I’m here almost three years. Can you believe how time is flying? Can you believe it? I don’t know about it me, but you look all much better than you did three years ago.

        But this law, which the Democrats opposed, it changes everything. You know that the radical left Democrats want to demolish everything that we’ve gained. They want to raise your taxes. They want to bury you in regulation. They want to take away your health insurance, 180 million Americans. They want to erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate our students with left-wing ideology. They want you so confused that you can't even think straight.

        But not any more. Over the last several years I have met with dozens of families whose lives were turned upside down with the constant calls, the emails. Knocking on doors at dinner time. I would ask, imagine if it was your child, your husband, or your wife whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken. When I took the oath of office, I swore to protect our country and that is what I will always do so help me god. It's a beautiful law, and now you'll all be able to eat dinner in peace.

  • Good to see that the Democrats and Republicans can work together on something but the law is going to take years to implement and insiders will probably leave enough loopholes in the policy to allow robocalls to exist. Frankly, it's disappointing that the phone companies haven't done more to ensure calls are from legit sources. Robocalls and faked caller IDs completely undermine the phone system. I don't bother answering calls from unknown callers any more.
  • This new law should help, until US based scammers outsource to India, where call center employees are immune to US laws. Authentication of spoofed call origins should help, if AT&T and Verizon CEOs are motivated to do it. "STIR/SHAKEN" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, to fool the public. It hasn't happened yet. The best solution is to require telcos to disallow spoofing and to prosecute telco CEOs who fail to do so. India based IRS scammers will be laughing at the Traced Act until or unless AT

    • 87% of scammers are outside the US already. I'd actually say that 100% of the fraudulent calls I get are from people who don't speak American English as a native language.
      STIR/SHAKEN will definitely cut down on the VoIP spam calls. And the reporting will show just how horrible the problem is.
      And as the scammers find new loopholes, I'm hoping that we'll continue to pass laws to fight them.

  • This law will be about as effective as giving light as a lighted match in the dark outside in a hurricane.
  • If I don't know the number I don't answer it. If it's important they will leave a message. If not I block the number.
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  • TL;DR: It won't stop robocalls, and it providers ZERO authentication, just "attestation"

    For a quick summary please see e.g. https://www.bandwidth.com/glos... [bandwidth.com]
    For a detailed technical document please see e.g. https://support.bandwidth.com/... [bandwidth.com]

    Specifically:
    The requirements will allow SIP providers and gateway providers to "attest" to their level of confidence as to the veracity of the caller line ID (CLID).
    - It does NOT in any way provide authentication
    - It does NOT in any way block any calls whatsoever
    - It doe

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