News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by cglong on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:33PM (#22743987)
From my understanding, it basically means all telecoms will be required to do what T-Mobile already does in the U.S. If I get a call and the reported Caller ID doesn't match the transmitted one, it reads on my phone as "Scam Likely".

Pixels also have their own solution to this: If that condition occurs, the Google Assistant will answer the call and auto-decline if it is actually a robocall.

Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by mehrdadn on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:35PM (#22744013)
So that means phones will still ring (unless you have a Pixel or something)? That will still drive people crazy!
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by yellow_lead on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:49PM (#22744105)
Some carriers may have the ability to limit calls to customers based on attestation level. Customer could configure they only want to receive i.e "A" attested calls. This means the carrier from where the call originated knows that the customer who made the call owns the number they dialed from.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by mehrdadn on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:53PM (#22744138)
Right, but I guess I'm asking, are plans for this in the works? Because currently I'm not aware of anything like this, nor of any plans to implement anything like this. None of the announcements suggest it might be happening either, so that's why I'm lost as to what the end-user experience would be.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by yellow_lead on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:58PM (#22744170)
I can only speak for one carrier, and the answer as of this moment is no. Pretty much everyone is struggling to meet the FCCs aggressive timelines and do interoperability testing with each other. After that is done, maybe. I'm sure the FCC has upcoming requirements based on this, but to my knowledge those aren't out yet. If the FCC doesn't make additional requirements, then it will depend on the carrier's decision. I'm under the assumption that they will introduce those additional requirements though.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by mehrdadn on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @08:00PM (#22744185)
I see. Thanks!
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by hwbehrens on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:42PM (#22744063)
iOS also has a feature to send unknown calls directly to voicemail without ringing through [0]. It seems an easy jump to classify numbers into three categories (known, unknown but authenticated, and unauthenticated) rather than two once reliable authentication is available.

[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by imajoo on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @08:31PM (#22744396)
I think T-Mobile only does this for postpaid users though. Prepaid users are excluded AFAIK.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by nulbyte on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @09:45AM (#22748412)
It is available to all customers[1] with a supported device (plan doesn't matter, but I suspect prepaid customers are more likely to have cheaper, unsupported devices).

[1]: https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/mobile-security

Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by imajoo on Monday April 06, 2020 @08:14PM (#22799201)
Hmmm. Interesting.. When I was on postpaid, I used to get caller ID with something like "Scam Likely", but since switching to pre-paid, I don't get those anymore. Looking at their page about it, it only mentions post-paid.

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/scam-id-and-...

Here's also a thread about it on their site.

https://community.t-mobile.com/thread/146574

Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by gsharp on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @10:53PM (#22745137)
Wrong. Prepaid MVNO Metro By T-Mobile has this feature as well.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by imajoo on Monday April 06, 2020 @08:15PM (#22799209)
I can't be sure about Metro since I don't use them, but I've gone from postpaid to pre-paid on T-mobile and I no longer get the the warning/caller ID saying it. Even on their page, it does not mention anything about pre-paid.

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/scam-id-and-...

Also, their website doesn't have the option for me like it used to, and here's a thread on their site from 2018 that talks about it not being available to pre-paid users:

https://community.t-mobile.com/thread/146574