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Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

(news.virginmediao2.co.uk)
706 points ortusdux | 8 comments | 14 Nov 24 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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dmurray ◴[14 Nov 24 17:28 UTC] No.42138633[source]▶
This is cool when some independent hacker / artist does it as "Lemmy".

When a big telecom does it, the second thing they do with it is to fuck up the spam detection so bad that every third phone call I make gets answered by "Daisy".

And just think about it - why would a telecom need this tech? They can already drop the spam calls and stop routing calls from the bad actor telecoms who enable the spammers. They don't do that because they prefer to collect a few cents a call from them rather than serve their customers better. It's everyone else who needs this.

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waiwai933 ◴[14 Nov 24 17:42 UTC] No.42138812[source]▶
They're not intercepting calls over their network from suspected bad actors; rather, they've created some phone numbers that always go to Daisy - see https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/11/virgin-media-o...
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axus ◴[14 Nov 24 17:50 UTC] No.42138918[source]▶
Ah! So step 2 is wait for the spammers to automate blacklisting of Daisy phone numbers, and only then start rolling out a (paid) Daisy option to customers.

Not connecting calls doesn't waste spammer money, but maybe Daisy does.

If the big telco can find 10 righteous callers from a a bad actor telecom, they should keep routing the calls.

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ttul ◴[14 Nov 24 17:51 UTC] No.42138942[source]▶
My friend works for a big telco and is the guy fixing this problem for them. They have amazing powers of deception when they need it. New numbers can be conjured up at any time.
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simfree ◴[14 Nov 24 18:04 UTC] No.42139115[source]▶
The new fad among wireless carriers here in the US is to route what they think are spam calls to a fake voicemail box.

Voicemail that is left in this generic voice mail box never makes it to their customer and the customer is completely unaware that some of their calls have been diverted.

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immibis ◴[14 Nov 24 18:11 UTC] No.42139217[source]▶
Then suddenly, calls from consenting callers to consenting receivers are labeled as spam and blocked. What can you do about it? Nothing. Switch to email, I guess. Oh wait, same problem.
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1. kabdib ◴[14 Nov 24 18:45 UTC] No.42139644[source]▶
reductio ad absurdum: we're back to Pony Express
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2. telgareith ◴[14 Nov 24 19:07 UTC] No.42139924[source]▶
Simple: shoot the messenger.
3. immibis ◴[14 Nov 24 19:55 UTC] No.42140467[source]▶
I called out email because email actually has this problem. It's not reductio ad absurdum if it's true.
4. connicpu ◴[14 Nov 24 20:27 UTC] No.42140815[source]▶
Bulk scams by mail are at least less common because mail fraud is investigated pretty seriously and results in federal felony charges. Not to mention the cost of initiation is much higher. Unfortunately individuals are still sometimes targeted.
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5. ethbr1 ◴[14 Nov 24 22:38 UTC] No.42141946[source]▶
> Not to mention the cost of initiation is much higher

This is the thing we screwed up for email and phone (after per call fees dropped to zero).

It's not rocket science to create systems that net to zero for common usage (balanced in-bound vs out-bound), but charge an arm and a leg for bulk senders.

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6. plagiarist ◴[14 Nov 24 22:45 UTC] No.42142014[source]▶
The physical mail spammers know to only use deceptive tricks, like "FINAL NOTICE" or pretending to be affiliated with you using some publicly available information. I have not yet seen one dare to full-on lie, because there would be real consequences.

If a scammer puts "FINAL NOTICE" on a solicitation they mailed with no prior relationship, I do still report it as fraud. But that's probably wishful thinking.

7. immibis ◴[14 Nov 24 22:56 UTC] No.42142130{3}[source]▶
Until you're running a file server or the equivalent. There has to be some way for a willing recipient to zero-rate or reverse-charge the responses to their requests. The Internet gets this wrong.
8. efitz ◴[14 Nov 24 23:20 UTC] No.42142346[source]▶
The pony express put significant cost burden on the sender per message, which is inherently self regulating.