Ep. 27 - Robocalls: SHAKEN or STIRed?

Nebraska Governance and Technology Center Author

07/08/2021 Added

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Have you stopped answering your cell phone because most of the calls are scams or ads? As of June 30th, 2021, every telephone carrier in the United States is required to have a plan in place to deal with robocalls. In this episode Richard Shockey joins Gus to break down why we get so many of these calls and whether these new plans will help address them.

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[00:00:07.880]Gus Hurwitz: This is tech refactored.
[00:00:09.140]I'm your host, Gus Hurwitz, the Menard director of the Nebraska
[00:00:11.870]governance and technology center at the university of Nebraska.
[00:00:15.230]For those of you who like acronyms, we've got a lot of them for you today.
[00:00:18.560]We're talking about robots.
[00:00:20.625]As of June 30th, 2021, all telephone companies in the United States
[00:00:24.884]are required to use something called the stir shaken framework.
[00:00:28.424]Basically a secure caller ID that should help combat unwanted robot.
[00:00:33.074]I'm joined today by Richard Shaki, a telecommunications consultant, chairman
[00:00:37.155]of the board of directors at the sip forum, the session initiation protocol
[00:00:41.205]forum, and a member of the north American numbering council at the FCC,
[00:00:45.195]all of which have helped to design the star shaken and framework to talk
[00:00:48.735]about what it means for the future of robocalls and the telephone network.
[00:00:52.665]Richard, thank you for joining me.
[00:00:54.765]Richard Shockey: Well, it's a pleasure to be here because we see each
[00:00:56.535]other quite often on social media.
[00:00:58.964]So I'm happy to do this.
[00:01:01.364]I hate to admit that I'm an expert on robocalls.
[00:01:04.394]I've been involved with trying to do robo call and now increasingly robo text
[00:01:10.335]remediation for four, almost five years.
[00:01:14.145]And previous to that, you know, I was deeply involved in local and
[00:01:19.245]the portability and, you know, we're marching down this right.
[00:01:23.595]And it's, it's not simple.
[00:01:26.505]It is complicated.
[00:01:28.545]And you have to be very, very careful in dealing with the phone
[00:01:31.785]network because of its critical relationship to public safety.
[00:01:37.275]Oddly enough, you know, phone calls have not gone away.
[00:01:40.485]If you look at the FCC, the commission.
[00:01:42.975]Yeah.
[00:01:43.755]Reporting on total number of minutes within system Alena voice
[00:01:48.405]has held up very, very well.
[00:01:50.715]It's just that we do all kinds of communications now, text, email, but
[00:01:56.414]the actual number of phone calls, the actual number of minutes of
[00:01:59.025]usage has not precipitously dropped.
[00:02:02.205]We now.
[00:02:04.350]Both in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
[00:02:08.549]We about 70% of all phone calls, originate or terminate
[00:02:14.850]on the mobile access networks.
[00:02:16.920]So obviously we've already figured out it's a complicated problem.
[00:02:23.375]Gus Hurwitz: So you, uh, you introduced yourself there saying
[00:02:26.525]that you're a robocall expert.
[00:02:27.905]I'm not sure if this is a more or less a glamorous way of introducing you.
[00:02:32.195]I actually think that you are the world's best plumber.
[00:02:35.075]You are in the deep end, the network, the telephone network, understanding
[00:02:38.975]how it works for most people.
[00:02:40.805]The phone network is.
[00:02:42.665]Thing on your desk or in your hand, you enter a number and magically
[00:02:46.025]you're connected to someone else.
[00:02:48.245]It's a whole lot more complicated than that.
[00:02:51.005]So I I'd like to get into a little bit of that and what you and the
[00:02:55.445]SIPP forum and Nancy do, because these are invisible things.
[00:02:59.705]Most people don't even have any understanding exists.
[00:03:02.435]But first I want to just start by asking why is the robocall problem?
[00:03:07.484]So bad.
[00:03:08.475]And I could even take a step back and just ask why is there
[00:03:11.805]a robocall problem to start?
[00:03:13.745]Richard Shockey: That's actually an excellent question and the reason for
[00:03:16.984]that, and, and when I give presentations on this, the reason we have a robocall
[00:03:21.845]problem is because of the 1996.
[00:03:26.684]The communications act and we wanted competitive markets
[00:03:31.665]for voice communications.
[00:03:33.674]And by the way, we got bubble.
[00:03:35.744]Just think no one ever thinks about the cost of a long distance phone call.
[00:03:41.295]In fact, what is a long distance phone call?
[00:03:43.545]Nobody knows what that is any longer.
[00:03:45.515]I
[00:03:45.785]Gus Hurwitz: literally saw on a Twitter, someone the other day
[00:03:49.535]asking long distance what's that, and this was a, someone with a PhD.
[00:03:54.720]So not someone who's a teenager and this is a adult who's been well-educated
[00:04:01.350]and has never encountered the concept of a long distance phone call.
[00:04:03.960]So yes, the 96 act has been a great success.
[00:04:07.079]Don't even
[00:04:07.370]Richard Shockey: think about international calls, all that much.
[00:04:09.470]I mean, you'd call somebody in the UK or in Canada and
[00:04:12.470]you don't even think about it.
[00:04:13.610]It's just like, oh, I'll call Toronto, you know?
[00:04:17.090]The reason we have an issue with robo calls and robo text is an
[00:04:23.030]Axiom of technology, which is no good deed goes on punished.
[00:04:29.210]Okay.
[00:04:30.080]So we'd want to competitive markets we got.
[00:04:32.990]And so we've driven the cost.
[00:04:36.625]Down to zero, like email and we've had problems of course,
[00:04:42.025]with spam and email tax.
[00:04:43.855]And now we're getting them with voice and to try and peel
[00:04:47.245]back the onion of remediating.
[00:04:49.255]That problem has proven to be remarkably complicated and it is compounded.
[00:04:55.435]And we can get into this later by the fact that we have a mixed network.
[00:04:59.545]Okay.
[00:05:00.205]On the one hand.
[00:05:02.105]We have the classic voice servers based on time division multiplexing
[00:05:08.495]and signaling system seven.
[00:05:10.625]Gus Hurwitz: And w and those are technologies developed even in the 1980s
[00:05:15.745]signaling system seven and TDM before then, that's how the traditional phone
[00:05:20.545]network would complete phone calls.
[00:05:22.315]So I dial in number, it's how it signals across all the switches so that
[00:05:26.815]my phone gets connected to whomever.
[00:05:29.909]Richard Shockey: Correct.
[00:05:30.300]And we w we still maintain that antiquated system in part now
[00:05:36.030]that itself or IMS and it's, uh, variant now dominates the market.
[00:05:42.450]It's basically all of mobile calls.
[00:05:44.460]It's mostly in the enterprise.
[00:05:48.359]If you have advanced fiber optic residential servers, like, uh, I have
[00:05:54.330]here in Northern Virginia, like hose, you're basically using sip as well.
[00:05:58.950]One of the things that I had certainly been suggesting to the commission is if
[00:06:02.549]we really wanted to stamp out robo calls, we need to get rid of the classic time
[00:06:09.120]division multiplexing because the trot.
[00:06:16.500]What happens is the existing TDM network and the existing system
[00:06:23.010]of tedium interconnection has actually been called the attacker.
[00:06:27.090]All right.
[00:06:27.930]For your lawyer friends, it's section 2 51, 2 52, uh, the communications act.
[00:06:34.349]And this is classic title two stuff.
[00:06:38.760]Where without getting into any discussion about net neutrality,
[00:06:42.479]voice communications is PR principle.
[00:06:47.655]Portion of the communications act under title two, uh, and the 1996 act,
[00:06:55.905]as some of us know, was antiquated.
[00:06:58.155]The moment the president signed the act and try to, you know,
[00:07:04.125]back out, um, well, whether it's significant and so where we're at
[00:07:10.295]right now, we have the tray stack.
[00:07:14.585]Yeah.
[00:07:15.400]Is a remarkable grant of authority to the federal communications
[00:07:20.669]commission to deal with robocalls
[00:07:23.000]Gus Hurwitz: there.
[00:07:23.179]The trace stack that the telephone robocall abuse, criminal enforcement
[00:07:27.169]and deterrence act that was enacted what, three years ago, too.
[00:07:31.460]Richard Shockey: Right.
[00:07:32.179]And, you know, president Trump signed it and it passed the Senate by 97 to one.
[00:07:39.559]Okay.
[00:07:40.520]And we won't be people.
[00:07:43.755]Go well, who would vote for robocalls?
[00:07:47.265]Well, I, I don't think we need to necessarily go there, but you can look
[00:07:51.164]up the legislative history here, but it was a grant of authority, actually.
[00:07:55.815]One of the most significant grants of authority to the
[00:07:59.234]FCCS since the 1996 act itself.
[00:08:04.215]And that gave them remarkable powers and the commission has chosen to their
[00:08:10.245]eternal credit to actually use them.
[00:08:12.585]And so yesterday was a significant milestone in the sense that
[00:08:17.355]the first phase of enforced.
[00:08:21.810]Were had to be done yesterday, the 30th of June, uh, which is that
[00:08:28.170]every single solitary carrier in the United States had to file with the
[00:08:32.880]FCC a robo call remediation plan.
[00:08:37.980]What is the plan is the obvious question.
[00:08:41.490]And they're all over the place to a certain extent, but they haven't yet.
[00:08:46.230]Carriers had to make a declarative statement to the commission that they
[00:08:50.370]were going to fix the problem using the stir shaken, which was actually mandated.
[00:08:57.270]Trey stack itself, which I'm an engineer by trade.
[00:09:00.600]And that is incredibly unusual for the Congress to basically mandate a specific
[00:09:08.220]technology to be deployed without.
[00:09:13.790]I was involved in local, over portability as part of the 1996 act.
[00:09:18.680]And the act was the 96 act was actually quite explicit in saying, well, if I
[00:09:24.590]have to do number portability, but we're not going to tell you how to do it.
[00:09:27.680]Okay.
[00:09:28.700]Yeah.
[00:09:29.985]That made a lot of money for companies that I've worked for.
[00:09:32.805]Namely Neustar, the, the fact that star shaken, which was developed by the ITF
[00:09:40.965]and was a forum in conjunction with our partners at us, that they would be spelled
[00:09:47.025]out so deliberately was something unique.
[00:09:49.665]And there's a long way to go.
[00:09:51.525]There's a lot of issues that are need to be peeled back because when you deploy.
[00:09:58.785]A complicated technology like this, there are bound to be glitches.
[00:10:03.975]It's just inevitable.
[00:10:06.345]You know, number portability took almost 10 years to finally sort out
[00:10:12.885]and, you know, I would warn your list.
[00:10:17.295]Oh, absolutely matter of fact, I chaired a Nanci committee on the idea
[00:10:22.575]of national number portability, which is you could basically keep your
[00:10:25.695]phone number, uh, anywhere on the United States, essentially for life.
[00:10:31.095]And we still haven't sorted that out yet.
[00:10:33.525]There's complications to that.
[00:10:35.865]Yeah.
[00:10:36.840]Very serious political issues involving that people liked their
[00:10:41.640]phone numbers and they don't like change it, but without that's another
[00:10:46.680]podcast in and of itself, believe me.
[00:10:49.590]So the we're five years down a road to mitigating robo
[00:10:55.560]calls, it will probably take.
[00:10:58.720]Another five years, I have to admit to sort out all of the ramifications.
[00:11:05.319]And of course this is going international.
[00:11:07.290]Okay.
[00:11:07.680]Let's
[00:11:08.040]Gus Hurwitz: actually, I want to come back to actually just about everything
[00:11:11.490]that you've been saying, we should explain what stir shaken is and how it's
[00:11:17.040]different from the previous way that phone calls were established and why it may
[00:11:22.319]or may not help with robocall scourge.
[00:11:25.410]Richard Shockey: Okay.
[00:11:25.680]Well, remember.
[00:11:27.020]I actually have the gray beard to demonstrate that once upon a time
[00:11:32.120]there was a thing called 18 T okay.
[00:11:36.020]In a world long gone, we had a single monopolistic phone system
[00:11:41.480]and because every phone call had to have transfers at T and T law.
[00:11:46.800]Then authentication was quite easy.
[00:11:49.860]Okay.
[00:11:50.910]So when the bell system broke up and then ultimately we have the 1996 act,
[00:11:56.940]you have a much more complicated.
[00:12:00.270]All right.
[00:12:01.050]And part of that was driven by number portability, which created the abstraction
[00:12:07.290]between a name, namely the phone number and the underlying routing address, which
[00:12:13.590]is known as an LRA local routing number.
[00:12:16.860]So we, we, we inserted abstraction into the system the way we
[00:12:22.680]have done in the internet.
[00:12:24.885]So you have a domain name, the brassica.edu, and then you have
[00:12:30.195]an underlying routing address.
[00:12:32.715]They would have the IP address as well.
[00:12:35.325]So, We, when we designed star-shaped we started lifting ideas from the internet
[00:12:44.490]that we know, and basically grafted them.
[00:12:48.000]All of the phone system, the principle was authenticating IP addresses.
[00:12:53.730]There's a thing in the internet known as the BGP border gateway protocol.
[00:12:59.040]And what happens is networks announced.
[00:13:03.765]To the rest of the network that you can route information to these addresses.
[00:13:10.365]And they do that through PKI, public key infrastructure, my friends at
[00:13:15.345]Aaron and ripe, and you know, all the people who give out IP addresses versus
[00:13:20.235]phone numbers adopted this public key infrastructure to be able to secure it.
[00:13:26.850]The routing on the internet itself and still to this day, there are what are
[00:13:32.340]known as route flaps, where somebody pushes a button it's fat thumb day on the
[00:13:37.620]internet, and all of this traffic gets trombone to South Korea inadvertently.
[00:13:44.610]So we grafted the idea that we would put public key infrastru.
[00:13:51.915]In between the phone number and the phone network itself.
[00:13:56.865]So that a network essentially announces yes, this is my phone number.
[00:14:02.775]I gave it to this customer and I am going to attest to the fact
[00:14:09.285]that the phone number is really.
[00:14:12.420]And valid and you should trust the transaction that is associated with it.
[00:14:18.960]So this is how we got started.
[00:14:22.370]Gus Hurwitz: It's just important to emphasize for listeners,
[00:14:26.000]caller ID, as it's historically existed is completely insecure.
[00:14:31.085]I basically, the way that caller ID works is the caller.
[00:14:36.305]They send some signals on the phone line and that's interpreted by
[00:14:40.505]the receiver as the phone number.
[00:14:41.825]And you can display whatever you want with very little
[00:14:44.525]control, which is why with robot.
[00:14:47.785]The, the robocallers two things are going on first, they're forging their numbers.
[00:14:52.605]So you don't know who's calling and they make up numbers that
[00:14:55.605]try and trick you into answering.
[00:14:57.405]And also there's very little, if any ability for the phone networks to
[00:15:02.595]identify who the bad callers are or who the callers using these forge
[00:15:06.944]numbers are because as you're saying.
[00:15:10.234]There isn't a protocol built in the, to the network for the
[00:15:13.625]networks to say, yes, this is a valid number coming from my network.
[00:15:17.824]So it's easy for the fraud starts to engage in the fraud.
[00:15:21.334]And it's hard for us to figure out when a specific call is a fraud call.
[00:15:26.045]So we can't just block them.
[00:15:28.074]Richard Shockey: Correct.
[00:15:28.824]The it's even more complicated than that because interconnection.
[00:15:33.680]Among most networks is still done via TDM.
[00:15:37.760]And what we call detail records between service providers are so
[00:15:42.080]useless that it, it it's, you know, you can't really do anything with them.
[00:15:48.650]And so the trying to do a trace.
[00:15:51.885]Wish my friends had us telecom run a consortium for doing so is an extremely
[00:15:58.245]difficult and time consuming process.
[00:16:01.905]And then of course we know where a lot of them are coming from it's overseas.
[00:16:07.130]And trying to actually shut them down is a problem.
[00:16:12.800]However, that is going to be re remediated in some respects, based on the plans
[00:16:21.469]that the FCC put in place yesterday.
[00:16:25.040]Namely, if you have not filed a robocall remediation plan with the FCC, other
[00:16:32.180]networks will simply block your time.
[00:16:34.605]Okay.
[00:16:35.115]It, namely is what I call excommunication the famous scene from the movie backup.
[00:16:41.175]Okay.
[00:16:42.074]Where are the, the high priests of the FCC?
[00:16:45.735]Basically, we're just going to cut you off is what it boils down
[00:16:49.095]to, which is about as severe, a threat as you can possibly get.
[00:16:56.960]Gus Hurwitz: So we are speaking with Richard Shockey, a telecommunications
[00:17:00.890]consultant, a chairman of the board of the directors of the sip forum and
[00:17:05.359]member of the north American numbering council at the federal communications
[00:17:08.810]commission about the scourge of robocalls and the implementation of the stir shaken
[00:17:14.569]framework, which hopefully will help us address this problem of robocalls.
[00:17:18.680]Richard, we'll be back with you in just a month.
[00:17:25.935]Elsbeth: I'm Ellis Beth Mitchell,
[00:17:27.135]the executive producer of tech refactored.
[00:17:29.435]I hope you're enjoying this episode of our show.
[00:17:31.534]And Hey, do you have an idea for tech refactored?
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[00:17:57.360]Gus Hurwitz: And we are back with Richard Shaki talking about robocalls and Richard.
[00:18:02.460]You were just explaining how, as of yesterday, June 30th,
[00:18:06.900]2021, the FCC is requiring all telecommunications carriers to have
[00:18:12.870]a robocall remediation plan in place.
[00:18:15.180]And if you don't have one, uh, you are being ex-communicated.
[00:18:18.990]You can no longer interconnect with the telephone network.
[00:18:22.380]Is this going to get rid of robocalls?
[00:18:28.685]Richard Shockey: Okay.
[00:18:29.885]Gus Hurwitz: Oh, I was hoping for a different answer.
[00:18:31.865]What is it going to do and what comes next?
[00:18:34.925]It's
[00:18:36.445]Richard Shockey: um, as I often point out to folks, there's no silver bullet.
[00:18:40.525]Okay.
[00:18:41.305]It is a complicated problem.
[00:18:42.895]And, you know, even with the email service, we still have spam emails that
[00:18:48.415]are Basie and filters simply cannot deal with at some particular point.
[00:18:53.095]The idea.
[00:18:54.195]From Wistar shake.
[00:18:55.574]It was you can't ultimately eliminate robocall, but you can suppress the
[00:19:01.425]problem to a point where you are restoring trust in the phone network itself.
[00:19:08.085]And because.
[00:19:09.435]The absolutely critical nature of the phone, that, or to public
[00:19:13.455]safety, for instance, vital one, the government will and the FCC and
[00:19:19.125]the CRTC and my friends that off com in the UK will basically take every
[00:19:23.985]conceivable task to basically do that.
[00:19:28.275]But some are going to slip through, except that we will
[00:19:30.555]think about it as much anymore.
[00:19:32.595]And there are some complications, which is yes.
[00:19:36.465]We're already beginning to squeeze.
[00:19:38.145]The world will call namely.
[00:19:40.485]There are significant call blocking rules already in place that allows
[00:19:45.825]a phone company, a cable, the majors, the CLX to block a call.
[00:19:52.035]If in fact they have reasonable data analytics to indicate
[00:19:56.235]that the call is being spooked.
[00:19:58.215]Okay.
[00:19:58.905]And this would have involved say for instance, a malformed phone.
[00:20:03.764]Okay.
[00:20:04.665]Or one that has not been issued as part of the north American
[00:20:08.264]numbering plan or one that is in the process of being reassigned.
[00:20:13.754]So the phone companies have given blanket immunity, basically safe Harbor
[00:20:21.135]from a blocking call based on a set of criteria that the network can now.
[00:20:29.715]All right.
[00:20:29.895]That's one.
[00:20:31.335]So the robocallers have now gone into the allocated portion of the numbers,
[00:20:35.475]namely your personal phone number, my personal phone number and stuff like that.
[00:20:40.035]And that's harder to deal with, but start shaking over time,
[00:20:45.045]begins to block those out.
[00:20:46.815]And again, what we've seen is as we've squeezed the balloon.
[00:20:52.485]It's starting to come out in the tax, in the SMS service as well.
[00:20:57.765]So we're all beginning to sort of see that there were a lot of
[00:21:01.065]other things in the future that we're, that we're thinking about.
[00:21:05.265]Okay.
[00:21:05.685]The one is, and we still don't have consensus one, which is what
[00:21:10.965]do we display to the consumer?
[00:21:12.825]What do you see on your phone?
[00:21:14.775]When a call is authenticated by storage?
[00:21:18.960]Is it a little green check mark, is it ALK or something like that?
[00:21:25.430]Gus Hurwitz: So just to make sure listeners understand the
[00:21:29.040]star shaken in many ways is like with your web browser is HTTPS.
[00:21:33.680]It's using encryption, this public key encryption to authenticate
[00:21:37.820]and you likely are familiar.
[00:21:40.520]From your web browser.
[00:21:41.630]If you go to a webpage that is properly authenticated, you'll get
[00:21:46.160]a green lock or you'll get some visible visual indicator that this
[00:21:50.660]has been successfully authenticated.
[00:21:52.700]You can trust that the URL is going to the right place.
[00:21:56.300]If you, uh, if there's a problem, you might get a red lock.
[00:21:59.960]That's broken.
[00:22:00.740]That's saying, Hey, there's a problem here.
[00:22:03.020]And if you're going to a normal webpage, you won't see any lock.
[00:22:07.070]So there are these visual indicators.
[00:22:09.320]That are really important for consumers.
[00:22:11.390]Consumers need to understand them in order to, for them to
[00:22:13.850]be effective and standardization will help with that as well.
[00:22:18.560]So that this is kind of a next stage of, we have the technology
[00:22:22.580]now, how do we implement it in a way that's useful to consumers?
[00:22:27.475]Richard Shockey: That's exactly.
[00:22:28.185]That's an excellent analogy that, you know, we're trying to come up with
[00:22:32.565]different kinds of potential indicator and there there's, we're starting to
[00:22:36.855]see on our mobile devices, the data analytics companies hire TNS for Sariah
[00:22:43.695]that worked with the three majors are, are also saying, putting in another
[00:22:49.815]acronym, CNM, call our display.
[00:22:53.490]There's a possible spam, maybe spam one way or the other.
[00:22:57.720]The probably CNM is very limited in scope and the Europeans for
[00:23:02.970]instance, have never deployed.
[00:23:04.680]Okay.
[00:23:05.820]So one of the things we're looking at is this concept called rich
[00:23:09.510]called data, which takes the original idea of CNM and just basically
[00:23:16.650]takes it to its logical limit.
[00:23:18.510]Namely, we could display logos.
[00:23:20.955]Theme song addresses photos.
[00:23:24.915]I mean, basically anything that would give the consumer an authenticated
[00:23:30.014]indicator that the person is calling you is in fact who they say they are.
[00:23:35.595]And this is a very, very big deal for a lot of, um, financial Institute.
[00:23:42.930]I mean, I personally have spoken with, you know, the voice team at bank of America.
[00:23:48.720]I know a bunch of people at mutual of Omaha, by the way, who
[00:23:52.110]are deeply concerned about this.
[00:23:55.080]And if they detect possible fraud in your account, they want to be able to tell you.
[00:24:01.050]They want to get you on the phone and they want you to answer the phone.
[00:24:04.260]Cause call completion rates have fallen off Niagara falls.
[00:24:07.680]I can guarantee you that this is very prevalent in healthcare, by the way,
[00:24:12.690]namely your healthcare institutes.
[00:24:16.625]Are deeply concerned that they can't get a hold of you via voice,
[00:24:22.085]because they think everybody thinks that every call is a robocall.
[00:24:24.935]So your doctor has got your test results and they want to tell you, you know,
[00:24:30.155]get in here and now, and it becomes telephone tag is what it boils down to.
[00:24:35.735]And so healthcare institutions, I mean, I've talked to hospital
[00:24:39.635]corporation of America about, and it's, it's very expensive.
[00:24:44.775]Also, you know, public safety folks.
[00:24:47.415]They're deeply concerned about all of this as well.
[00:24:50.725]You're hitting
[00:24:51.195]Gus Hurwitz: on such an important point.
[00:24:52.245]People don't trust their phones.
[00:24:54.045]If I get a phone call, I don't answer it unless I recognize the number.
[00:24:57.525]And even then sometimes they don't, my voicemail I've turned
[00:25:01.005]into a text-based handshake.
[00:25:02.805]So in my email, I say, send me a text and I'll call back.
[00:25:06.585]And what you're describing is a more sophisticated version of the
[00:25:10.365]caller can embed some information.
[00:25:12.645]Here's my company logo.
[00:25:13.995]Here's I don't know, three lines.
[00:25:15.835]Splaining, what I'm calling about.
[00:25:17.635]Do you want to answer this call and it's, it makes a lot of sense.
[00:25:21.745]It would be much more consumer friendly, but also to this
[00:25:24.265]public safety perspective.
[00:25:26.365]Um, I don't know if I were to get a text message popping up on my phone
[00:25:30.985]saying emergency alert, take shelter.
[00:25:33.955]Now.
[00:25:35.005]I don't know if I believe it.
[00:25:36.750]Light
[00:25:37.100]Richard Shockey: just, God, I just got one, you know, 60 minutes ago because
[00:25:41.550]we're going to get a story over here.
[00:25:42.930]Anytime.
[00:25:43.500]Now it looks like a Northern Virginia, but there are systems that are
[00:25:49.170]authenticated that allow you to do that.
[00:25:51.450]And of course this rich called data concept is going to be
[00:25:54.750]authenticated exactly the way we do the phone number itself.
[00:26:01.680]It is going to use.
[00:26:03.840]It's going to use the same certificate authentication along
[00:26:08.790]those lines one way or the other.
[00:26:10.710]We were already looking at how to extend it, but there is something else
[00:26:15.150]that is driving service providers.
[00:26:17.010]Well crazy.
[00:26:18.300]It's actually driving.
[00:26:20.940]Financial institutions, which is if your call actually has been
[00:26:25.320]blocked, how do you get notified?
[00:26:28.440]Okay.
[00:26:29.460]Because nothing is perfect, but you have emails in your spam box.
[00:26:36.870]That have been your Basie and filter has not been able to judge it correctly.
[00:26:42.510]And then you, and you know, you send another email going
[00:26:46.200]well, did you get that email?
[00:26:47.550]I sent you to go, oh God, it was in my spam box and all this other sort of stuff.
[00:26:52.220]Gus Hurwitz: And sometimes your follow up email gets caught in their spam box.
[00:26:57.735]Richard Shockey: Exactly.
[00:26:58.635]Exactly.
[00:26:59.235]So there's and the sip error message suite are two, two things.
[00:27:04.935]One is called 6 0 8 and 6 0 7, which is called blocked by consumer.
[00:27:10.845]Okay.
[00:27:11.175]It's 6 0 7 hall blocked by the network is 6 0 8.
[00:27:16.125]Okay.
[00:27:17.055]And the bank.
[00:27:19.185]The loan processors are adamant that they want it.
[00:27:23.475]If they think their call has been blocked by the network, or even by the
[00:27:28.064]consumer itself, in the case of loan processes, they want to be notified.
[00:27:32.534]And this is driving the.
[00:27:36.030]Service provider is a little crazy.
[00:27:38.129]So the problem with unfunded mandates like robocall remediation, because
[00:27:43.260]remember we paid for number portability.
[00:27:45.840]There was 50 cents on the bill for a decade to pay for that.
[00:27:49.739]Right.
[00:27:50.850]But they're basically going well, wait a second.
[00:27:53.370]Now we're all trying to find robocalls, but I can only do so much
[00:27:57.630]in a quarter because you're, you, you don't want to destabilize the
[00:28:02.970]phone network while you're trying to.
[00:28:06.090]Is, is what it boils down to.
[00:28:07.950]So software, software upgrades in a phone network is not like getting
[00:28:13.020]a software upgrade on your laptop.
[00:28:15.120]Okay.
[00:28:16.350]It's a complicated process.
[00:28:18.060]You have to have requirements and then the requirements need to be coded it.
[00:28:22.680]Once it's coded, asked to go back to the service providers for regression
[00:28:26.310]testing and all this sort of stuff, and then somebody has to pay for the
[00:28:30.180]bill and then maybe an 18 to 24 months.
[00:28:34.830]Deployed within the network itself.
[00:28:37.230]This is the same thing with the internet.
[00:28:39.990]It's the problem of what I call persistence of protocol.
[00:28:44.460]We've been trying to do IPV six for 20 years.
[00:28:48.284]We're trying to do DNS SAC for 15 years.
[00:28:51.824]We've been trying to do all kinds of things, even in the data side
[00:28:56.145]of the network, that it just takes an awful long time to do that.
[00:29:01.115]Gus Hurwitz: And you, uh, you mentioned this, th this is such an important issue.
[00:29:05.254]Um, you, you mentioned that the stuff.
[00:29:08.095]Specifically says you start shaking it, it gives a lot of power, but also
[00:29:12.985]it imposes that constraint there.
[00:29:14.695]And that's really important.
[00:29:16.075]Otherwise, you're going to have some idiot lawyer listen like me or some
[00:29:21.835]idiot law professor like me talking to some regulator who just thinks, oh,
[00:29:26.275]this is a good change to your protocol.
[00:29:28.405]And they're going to say.
[00:29:30.135]We're going to require industry to change this protocol, to work this
[00:29:34.875]way that I think it should work.
[00:29:36.524]And I was just reading yesterday.
[00:29:38.865]Um, IBM apparently they've been working for eight, 18 months to,
[00:29:43.715]um, update to their internal system.
[00:29:46.895]18 months.
[00:29:48.065]It just went live the other day.
[00:29:49.835]And apparently for the last several days internally, no one has been
[00:29:54.125]able to use email because there are.
[00:29:57.390]And IBM you think they know what they're doing with this sort of thing.
[00:30:01.680]It's really hard to design these complex systems, make sure that all
[00:30:05.700]the components work and when you hit go, when you make them turn them live,
[00:30:10.470]you never know what's going to happen.
[00:30:13.110]Even if you're making a small change.
[00:30:14.880]So you really don't want.
[00:30:16.900]Some regulators saying, well, you know what to do would be great.
[00:30:20.650]This is how started and works, but let let's change it.
[00:30:23.850]So that the size of the image in the average call data a specification, let's
[00:30:29.250]say there's a 256 by 256 pixel image.
[00:30:33.060]And they decide, you know what?
[00:30:34.710]It should be 300 by 300.
[00:30:36.420]Let's enact that in a rule.
[00:30:38.460]You could've just crashed the entire network.
[00:30:41.580]Trying
[00:30:41.909]Richard Shockey: to implement that.
[00:30:42.909]That's true.
[00:30:43.740]Um, and I will give staff at wireline competition bureau
[00:30:48.510]and governmental affairs.
[00:30:50.100]I mean, they've laid this thing out reasonably well.
[00:30:53.220]I mean, there are things that I can, I think they need to do and we'll, we will
[00:30:57.750]cross that Rubicon when we get to it.
[00:31:00.419]And I think that the biggest thing is we need to turn off TDM and assets.
[00:31:05.610]You know, we need the all IP voice network.
[00:31:09.360]Existing system, you can't buy the equipment any longer.
[00:31:13.199]Uh, it's impossible to upgrade, but there needs to be, you know, some
[00:31:18.719]consensus agreement among all of the various operators, you know, not just
[00:31:24.719]the majors, but the CLX and the rural carriers on how to do this under 2
[00:31:31.574]51, 2 52, because we still have these Tanem access, which is out there.
[00:31:36.360]There are problems.
[00:31:37.860]Even now with drop-in calls to TDM because of carriers can actually make money
[00:31:46.830]on data access charges, and you got to reform this stuff over time and it's not
[00:31:53.130]easy, but to ultimately do we all know what a proceeding at the FCC looks like?
[00:31:58.940]It's inner carrier compensation has been going.
[00:32:02.340]The docket is still open.
[00:32:03.880]It's been open for 20 years.
[00:32:06.015]And, you know, the technology transitions, docket, which deals
[00:32:09.885]with set-up and the PSTN issue.
[00:32:12.915]It's still.
[00:32:14.595]Still going on the one way other, so the advantage of the way we did the
[00:32:20.055]train stack was we cut some of the lawyers out of it and allowed some
[00:32:27.315]engineering consultants actually don't make a few bucks, but I'll
[00:32:30.165]tell you one thing I I've heard.
[00:32:32.950]You know, my friends with the federal communications bar association
[00:32:36.400]now for the last six weeks.
[00:32:38.410]And they haven't had, they're all shopping for new boats because of
[00:32:41.800]the robocall remediation program.
[00:32:44.260]Okay.
[00:32:45.070]They're getting calls, not just from domestic carriers, but from Canadian
[00:32:49.510]carrier and from foreign case.
[00:32:53.265]There's there's a pro basically just France, telecom, telecom, Italia,
[00:32:58.305]Deutsche, Telekom, but real don't you actually have to file a robocall
[00:33:02.445]remediation report with the FCC.
[00:33:05.175]And what is the legality of that
[00:33:07.595]Gus Hurwitz: factor is one of the that's my, probably my penultimate question.
[00:33:11.795]W what's the international dimension of this?
[00:33:13.865]I know a lot of robocalls originate overseas.
[00:33:17.435]And is that still a loophole that the call.
[00:33:21.905]Can avail themselves of, or will implementation of star shaken.
[00:33:25.595]And the remediation plans will bet cut off international origination.
[00:33:30.835]Richard Shockey: We hope so.
[00:33:32.875]We hope again, this is a work in progress.
[00:33:36.085]So the international implications of this are, again, robocalls are
[00:33:41.275]the number one complaint, the FC.
[00:33:44.280]The number one complaint to the, to the CRTC.
[00:33:48.120]A lot of it's the number one complaint to off com in the UK.
[00:33:54.150]Now the virus has spread.
[00:33:57.540]I personally had conversations with our PSAP, the French regulator,
[00:34:02.550]because the United States tends to get its robocalls from the Philippines.
[00:34:07.830]For instance, The British, get them from Pakistan and India.
[00:34:12.660]But now the robocallers have set up shop in the former French colonies
[00:34:19.020]of north Africa, Algeria and Morocco.
[00:34:22.380]And ARCEP the regulator is living.
[00:34:25.980]I mean, apple elect.
[00:34:27.180]They just don't know what to do there.
[00:34:28.950]And what I was told actually as well is that they've got authority to act.
[00:34:34.080]They've actually got to go to the French national assembly to do their
[00:34:38.219]own version of the Trice stack before they could take the master of all
[00:34:41.069]action, Canada and the UK is different because of the way their acts one way,
[00:34:47.909]but it's spreading and we're hearing it spreading even into the network.
[00:34:54.315]Okay.
[00:34:55.275]And so the Dutch regulator is taking fairly aggressive action about this,
[00:35:01.694]but there's some problems by the way, if you actually read the tracer.
[00:35:05.475]One of the things that we were concerned about was that the
[00:35:09.254]penalties were insufficient.
[00:35:13.035]Namely, the sec likes to tackle.
[00:35:17.145]They collect a lot of fines for robo call.
[00:35:20.325]What they will tell you is, did they actually get the money?
[00:35:23.025]Okay.
[00:35:23.925]The, there was what we called the hang 'em high committee,
[00:35:27.465]which would be the regulator.
[00:35:30.930]Essentially getting together with the department of justice and the attorney
[00:35:34.050]general to see if the penalties could be strengthened and PRP.
[00:35:41.040]And oddly enough, have a lot better tools than the United States.
[00:35:44.760]Does.
[00:35:45.660]The Germans, for instance, can seize bank accounts on a writ.
[00:35:50.730]Okay.
[00:35:51.930]Even before adjudicate.
[00:35:54.630]So they just walk into the backyard, just lock down these accounts.
[00:35:58.410]I've got a rep and it doesn't have to be signed by a judge.
[00:36:02.160]Okay.
[00:36:03.330]That is something that the federal trade commission or the
[00:36:06.210]FCC would simply they'd love it.
[00:36:10.260]If they could get some of the authority to act has been difficult in the case of
[00:36:16.680]the federal trade commissioner, there's the common care exemption, which causes.
[00:36:22.650]My friends at the FTC know about heartburn, by the way.
[00:36:28.680]And even the FBI, the department of justice has limited powers over some of
[00:36:33.510]this stuff, because there are areas in the TCPA telephone consumer protection
[00:36:39.180]act that basically law enforcement throws up a tan because you've got a proven it.
[00:36:46.655]And, and you're a law professor, you know what it's like to try and
[00:36:49.715]go into a court and prove intent.
[00:36:53.585]And the TCPA itself has caused a lot of problems for folks in trying
[00:37:00.785]to deal with enforcement issue.
[00:37:03.005]So one of the things we may see, hopefully the Biden administration will.
[00:37:10.095]Move on, uh, changing the actual criminal penalties, civil and criminal
[00:37:15.765]penalties for, for doing these kinds of
[00:37:17.895]Gus Hurwitz: claims.
[00:37:18.755]So it, uh, it sounds like I'm going to have to have you back on, uh,
[00:37:23.315]to, uh, and th there's so much more that we, uh, could talk about.
[00:37:29.240]Regrettably.
[00:37:30.110]I was hoping, even though I knew you, weren't going to say this, I was hoping
[00:37:33.590]that you would say that as of yesterday, the problem of robocalls has been
[00:37:37.550]solved, but unsurprisingly, it's not.
[00:37:40.370]I do have one last question.
[00:37:42.380]It's not a, the most substantive of questions, but we've had a lot of factors.
[00:37:47.275]Uh, in this discussion, of course the, the best one is stir shaken for anyone
[00:37:53.065]curious, a secure telephone, secure Telephany identity, revisited that stir
[00:37:58.495]and signature based handling of asserted information using tokens that's shaken,
[00:38:03.565]but stir shaken is much catchier.
[00:38:06.295]Mike, my question.
[00:38:07.375]Very non-substantive.
[00:38:08.485]Yeah.
[00:38:09.345]Who comes up with these acronyms?
[00:38:11.505]Richard Shockey: Well, we all drank martinis.
[00:38:13.185]Okay.
[00:38:14.955]That's how we start.
[00:38:17.055]We start with, what acronym do we want?
[00:38:19.665]Oh, wow.
[00:38:20.924]Again, it's it's when you have idle engineering minds put to pour usage in
[00:38:28.455]a bar, for those of you who actually want more information about started
[00:38:32.685]shaking, uh, you can go to Google.
[00:38:35.180]And type in stars, shaken virtual summit, which will be beginning on July 19th.
[00:38:42.800]It is totally free.
[00:38:45.010]You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about
[00:38:48.710]robocalls and started shaking.
[00:38:50.660]And we've had wonderful sponsorship.
[00:38:52.670]We'll die while we other, but look it up and we'll.
[00:38:57.000]Well, we'll probably end up doing this gas in six months.
[00:39:00.649]Gus Hurwitz: Well, I think idle, uh, engineering minds might be brilliant
[00:39:04.310]marketing minds on that note.
[00:39:06.529]Uh, Richard, it's been a pleasure talking with you and for our listeners.
[00:39:10.970]Thank you for joining us.
[00:39:12.410]I'm your host, Gus Hurwitz.
[00:39:13.730]I hope that you've enjoyed this episode of tech refactored.
[00:39:16.520]If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at the
[00:39:18.770]Nebraska governance and technology.
[00:39:21.000]You can go to our website@ngtcdotunl.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter
[00:39:26.310]at UNL underscore and GTC.
[00:39:29.190]This podcast is part of the Menard governance and technology programming
[00:39:32.250]series hosted by the Nebraska governance and technology center.
[00:39:35.430]The Nebraska governance and technology center is a partnership led by the
[00:39:38.610]Nebraska college of law in collaboration with the colleges of engineering business
[00:39:42.570]and journalism and mass communications at the university of Nevada.
[00:39:46.440]Colin McCarthy produced and recorded our theme music.
[00:39:48.870]Casey Richter provided technical assistance and advice.
[00:39:51.810]ELLs Beth magilton is our executive producer and by Sandra Marquez is our
[00:39:55.290]associate producer until next time.
[00:39:57.960]No, Mr.
[00:39:58.529]Robocaller I expect you to die.

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Ep. 27 - Robocalls: SHAKEN or STIRed?

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