December 2019 - VoiceOps - lists.voiceops.org

ANIs flagged as telemarketer/spammer/scammer
by abalashov＠evaristesys.com Nov. 14, 2021

Nov. 14, 2021

Hi, So, of course, it is a known problem in the legitimate side of the lead engagement call centre, survey, etc. business that ANIs get flagged as "telemarketer" pretty quickly and start showing up that way on people's phones. Your normative viewpoint on that may vary depending on what you think of lead gen calls, but regardless, a reasonable person would differentiate between: (1) Legitimate outbound dialing operations that are following up with leads who provided their phone number and agreed to be called (at least, as a matter of clicking "accept" on _something_), or for some other legitimate mass-dialing purpose, and who actually own the DID inventory from which they present local-market ANIs and can in fact be reached on those numbers; (2) Illegal spammers who use fake ANIs and call people who did not in any way consent to being called by them. I am trying to learn a bit more about how this is done and what a legitimate, above-board business can do about it. Ignoring the factor of third-party call-screening apps (which most people with a mobile don't use), where is this generally implemented? As I understand it, T-Mobile do it on the network level. I have T-Mobile myself, and probably 2/3rds of unfamiliar numbers, including quite legitimate ones, show up as "Scam Likely" ? I know that's come up on the list before. AT&T displays "Telemarketer"; do they do it that way too, or do they use a Google Android feature for that which they enable as part of their carrier defaults for carrier-issued phones? What about other carriers and Android? As far as I know, Apple don't do anything like this. Do people with iPhones just not receive this "service"? How does that work? Asking where the central, or the most influential authority lies and who provides it goes to the heart of the real question, which is: what can a legitimate business do if their number has been blacklisted this way? As I understand it, the maintainers of these lists, along with the criteria for getting on them, are elusive and inscrutable, and there's really no recourse and no appeals process. I furthermore understand that this has led to the widespread approach of rotating ANIs, but that's a losing battle; they get flagged too. I imagine it won't be long before the criteria for "Scam Likely" are just "number appears to call lots of numbers in this rate centre and otherwise hasn't been around very long". But this is all just conjecture on my part; I really don't know much about how my carrier, anyone's carrier, or some BigCo that's behind my mobile OS decides that a call is a "telemarketer" or "scam" call. If anyone can shed some light on how this really works and what, if anything can be done about it, I would be most appreciative. -- Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC Tel: +1-706-510-6800 / +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.csrpswitch.com/

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Connecting to Remote Tandems
by voiceops＠ics-il.net July 9, 2021

July 9, 2021

I'm evaluating methods of extending our footprint. I purposely left out company names. One of the companies we talked to was really only interested in getting us the inbound long distance calls, not the local ones. Well, they would, but the terms were vastly different. Given that I still need to build out to connect to the local tandem, what's the point in using a third party to connect to long distance? Are the terms for connecting to the local tandems different because the access tandem is simpler, whereas the local tandem could potentially involve connections to a bunch of other switches, once volume dictated I needed direct connections... and they don't want to deal with that? Are there third parties that don't have vastly different terms for local tandem services? Also, is it likely that I just don't understand what's going on? I went circles with the sales rep to make sure I understood what he was saying, but I could be wrong. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com

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NANPA Resource Management
by voiceops＠ics-il.net Jan. 9, 2020

Jan. 9, 2020

For those of you with NANPA resources, how are you managing them? There are a variety of reports one has to file and I'm not sure of a good way of keeping track of what's used, other than attempting to keep track of it in an Excel sheet... which seems error-prone. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com

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STIR/SHAKEN Discussion: Will it help?
by beckman＠angryox.com Jan. 2, 2020

Jan. 2, 2020

A few months ago I attended an FCC STIR/SHAKEN discussion in Washington DC. They didn't get deep into the technical details but there were a bunch of big carrier representatives there. If you haven't followed STIR/SHAKEN, it's really just an additional SIP header that contains cryptographically-signed information about the origin point of the call. You can verify the signature with publically published public keys so you know whomever signed it is really them. Here's a few resources if you want to learn more: https://www.bandwidth.com/glossary/stir-shaken/ https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN https://www.home.neustar/stir-shaken-resource-hub There are three levels to tell you how much you should trust the origin of the call: 1. Full -- The call came from the originating carrier's customer and is authorized to use the number 2. Partial -- The call came from the originating carrier's customer but may or may not be authorized to use the number 3. Gateway -- The carrier has authenticated from where it received the call, but cannot authenticate the call source (e.g., International Gateway call). As an example, as will be many legit cases, a Verizon Wireless mobile customer will place a call, which will route to Verizon, who will sign the call using STIR/SHAKEN with Full Attestation and we can all "trust" the call. But now we throw in VoIP. I'm a small customer, Initech, of a larger carrier, Hooli. I don't sign my calls, so I hand my calls to my larger carrier, Hooli. Hooli sees the call from me (their customer) with a valid CallerID I'm authorized to use and so Hooli signs the call with STIR/SHAKEN with Full Attestation. Turns out the call was a robocall. What changes? The only thing that changes is that the receiving party, say Soylent Corp, knows that Hooli originated the call. Soylent is not Hooli's customer, so how does Soylent complain to Hooli about the content of the call? And as carriers, we are not legally responsible for the content of our customer's calls. How will Soylent accept 90% of Hooli's Fully Attested valid traffic but avoid the 10% that is spam/robocalls that are ALSO Fully Attested? How exactly does STIR/SHAKEN help fix the robocall and spam call problem? Yes, I could block all of Hooli's calls where the attestation is Partial or Gateway, but you run the risk of false positives, especially in the International category, or just when Hooli isn't sure, like when I rent a DID from Acme but do termination through Hooli -- Hooli doesn't know that I am authorized to use that DID from Acme, even though I am, so Hooli has to mark my call as Partial or Gateway. I'm all for reducing annoying spam and robocalls, but I'm still not yet convinced that STIR/SHAKEN is going to materially reduce them. Let's discuss! Beckman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman at angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Odd Routing to Iowa
by voiceops＠ics-il.net Dec. 31, 2019

Dec. 31, 2019

Is anyone else seeing odd routing when calling Goldfield Telecom in Iowa? Yes, I'm almost positive no one here has had that need. Today when I call from Sprint, I get a guy that just keeps saying, "Hello". When I call with T-Mobile, I get through to the desired conference brdige. When I call with US Cellular, I get a lady's voicemail. I'm using the Google Fi service to call out from. I just tried via Pac-West\Impact Telecom and it wouldn't go through. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com

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Microsoft Voice exams
by ryan＠finnesey.com Dec. 22, 2019

Dec. 22, 2019

This may be a bit OT but I am looking for a few people that might have an interest in taking a few Microsoft Voice exams around Skye for Business. My firm would cover the cost of the exam and study guides. Exam 70-334: Core Solutions of Skype for Business 2015 Exam 70-333: Enterprise Voice Skype for Business 2015 Thanks Cheers Ryan

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Visible Wireless security contact
by ross＠tajvar.io Dec. 19, 2019

Dec. 19, 2019

I'm looking to get in touch with someone on the Visible Wireless security team. If you have a contact please shoot me their info. Thanks, Ross

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API for Intl CLI in spam lists
by dovid＠telecurve.com Dec. 17, 2019

Dec. 17, 2019

Hi, Does anyone know of an API that will give accurate results to see if a calling number is spam? The ones available on twillio seem to be geared to US phone numbers. When we try numbers that are set listed as spam in true caller they show clean on all the API's that twillio offers. Does anyone know of any other API's that offer something more accurate like TrueCaller? TIA. Dovid

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MVNO
by clecny＠gmail.com Dec. 16, 2019

Dec. 16, 2019

I apologize in advance if anyone finds this off topic. We are NY based CLEC and exploring to become MVNO(possibly nationwide) . Where do I start? Anyone with good contact with ATT/VZ/TMO wholesale/MVNO division? We do not need standard billing, branding and network management offerings. Just cheapest way re-sale mobile services. Thanks Jay.

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SIP Credential Strength / Domestic Fraud
by dave＠socket.net Dec. 13, 2019

Dec. 13, 2019

All, We recently saw fraudulent calls via compromised SIP credentials to Killduff, IA. Any thoughts on why? I?m also interested in what everyone is doing today regarding enforcing and auditing strength of SIP credentials. In our experience compromised devices leaking credentials are more of a threat than weak passwords but we?re on Broadworks and running secureTlktWeakPasswordsTool currently. Thanks, Dave Sill IT Director, Socket Telecom <https://www.socket.net/> 573-817-0000 ext 211

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