Technology

Can Phone Companies Do More to Block Robocalls?

Published

10 years ago

April 8, 2015

In this photo taken April 3, 2015, Jeri Vargas takes a phone call at her mother’s home in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. Jeri Vargas put her elderly mother on the Do Not Call list years ago. So why is the 88-year-old woman with Alzheimers disease still getting several recorded phone calls a day pitching her everything from vacation cruises to medical alert devices and fire extinguishers? (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tired of those annoying, sometimes costly, robocalls favored by scammers?

The Federal Communications Commission is being asked to consider whether more can be done to block the automated phone calls, but the options appear to be limited.

The convergence of Internet and phone lines has made it easier to blast out hundreds of thousands of calls in a matter of minutes to see who takes the bait. The question of whether these calls can be blocked has never been more pressing than around tax season, when many pretend to come from the IRS.

The phone companies say they worry that automatic call-blocking might run afoul of laws requiring them to connect phone calls and have asked the FCC to clarify that it doesn’t. Many carriers offer call-blocking services to consumers, sometimes for a fee. But they also don’t want regulators to create any hard-and-fast rules, which they say could be difficult to implement.

Consumer groups counter that the phone companies are dragging their feet for no good reason and that, once given the green light from the FCC, could block most robocalls if they wanted.

“It is time for AT&T to provide free, effective solutions to this problem immediately, so that unwanted robocalls are stopped before they reach us,” wrote Tim Marvin with Consumers Union in a recent letter to AT&T. The group, which has organized an online petition at EndRobocalls.com, sent similar letters to Verizon and Century Link.

AT&T says it’s not as easy as it sounds. Robocallers can easily “spoof” their identity and location by pretending to be from a legitimate source or by altering the caller ID. So blocking robocalls is “a bit like a game of Whac-A-Mole: just as numbers are identified for blocking, the robocaller spoofs another number,” the company said in an FCC filing.

The U.S. passed the widely popular “Do Not Call” legislation in 2003. Commercial telemarketers are not allowed to call you if you’ve put your number in the registry unless they have “an established business relationship” with you. But unsolicited phone calls remain a top consumer complaint. The Federal Trade Commission, which goes after businesses for deceptive business practices, say it receives on average of 150,000 complaints a month on robocalls and has filed more than 100 lawsuits against violators of the Do Not Call rules.

Still, regulators and phone companies say they remain stumped on how to fix the problem for good.

“For every company we can shut down, there are probably 10 to 100 companies that can pop up in its place,” said Patty Hsue, an FTC staff attorney who leads the agency’s technical initiatives against robocalls.

A common example is “Rachel from Cardholder Services.” The automated voice recording encourages listeners to press a number, which connects them with someone who promised to lower their interest rates in exchange for an upfront fee. The FTC was able to trace the calls back to multiple people inside the U.S. and demand refund checks, but copycat scams continue.

Jeri Vargas says she put her mother on the “Do Not Call” list several years ago, but the 88-year-old woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease still gets several recorded phone calls a day pitching her on everything from vacation cruises to medical alert devices and fire extinguishers.

Aggressive telemarketing calls tipped Vargas off to her mother’s failing health, she says. Yachting equipment arrived at the house one day, followed by magazines, books and light bulbs her mom didn’t need. Vargas hid her mom’s credit cards, only to find out later that a man claiming to sell fire extinguishers had her mom search through old statements to provide him a credit card number. Vargas says she thinks that robocalls were an easy way of identifying her mother as a vulnerable target. Now the phone rings all day long, but Vargas is reluctant to get rid of the line in case of an emergency.

“I don’t mind if someone calls me because I can say, ‘No thank you,'” said Vargas. “But it’s hard for someone like my mom.”

The problem has gotten so bad nationwide that the FTC in 2012 began offering cash prizes for technical solutions. Among the winners is Nomorobo, which hangs up on robocallers for you. But it only was built to work on certain phone lines, namely Voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

Consumers groups say that the emergence of Nomorobo and other anti-robocalling technologies suggest the phone companies have the technical ability to spot obviously fraudulent calls.

Enter the National Association of Attorneys General. The group of state lawyers last fall, led by Missouri and Indiana, asked the FCC to clarify whether blocking robocalls might violate any telecommunications statutes. The major carriers say they agree that some legal guidance would be useful, but they also say they don’t want to become beholden to any new regulation. USTelecom, an industry group, said in a statement that “complex technological and legal issues” remain.

The FCC confirmed this month that it is reviewing the NAAG petition, as it’s required to do with any petition, but declined to comment further. There’s no deadline for the agency to respond.

___

Follow Anne Flaherty at http://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty

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Feds: California Will Be Home to New National Semiconductor Technology Center

California was chosen by the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) and Natcast, the operator of the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) to be home to the headquarters for the National Semiconductor Technology Center – as part of the Biden-Harris Admin’s CHIPS and Science Act. The CHIPS for America Design and Collaboration Facility (DCF) will be one of three CHIPS for America research and design (R&D) facilities and will also operate as the headquarters for the NTSC and Natcast.

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November 6, 2024

Oakland Post

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By Antonio Ray Harvey

The CHIPS for America Design and Collaboration Facility (DCF) will be one of three CHIPS for America research and design (R&D) facilities and will also operate as the headquarters for the NTSC and Natcast.

“We are thrilled that the Department of Commerce and Natcast chose to locate this critically important facility in Sunnyvale, the heart of the Silicon Valley, alongside the world’s largest concentration of semiconductor businesses, talent, intellectual property, and investment activity,” said Dee Dee Myers, Senior Economic Advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz). “The Newsom Administration and our partners across the industry know how important it is to shorten the timeframe from R&D to commercialization.”

According to GO-Biz, the DCF is expected to direct over $1 billion in research funding and create more than 200 employees in the next decade. The facility will serve as the center for advanced semiconductor research in chip design, electronic design automation, chip and system architecture, and hardware security. The CHF will be essential to the country’s semiconductor workforce development efforts.

As detailed in the released NSTC Strategic Plan, the DCF will suppress the obstacles to “semiconductor prototyping, experimentation,” and other R&D activities that will enhance the country’s global power and leadership in design, materials, and process innovation while enabling a vigorous domestic industr“Establishing the NSTC headquarters and design hub in California will capitalize on our state’s unparalleled assets to grow a highly skilled workforce and develop next-generation advancements,” stated U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). “This CHIPS Act funding will propel emerging technologies and protect America’s global semiconductor leadership, all while bringing good-paying jobs to our state.”

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Community

Advanced Conductors Provide Path for Grid Expansion

Utility companies in the United States could double electric transmission capacity by 2035 by replacing existing transmission lines with those made from advanced materials, according to a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Published

3 weeks ago

October 29, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy UC Berkeley News.

By Matthew Burciaga

UC Berkeley News

Led by Duncan Callaway, professor and chair of the Energy and Resources Group (ERG), and Amol Phadke, an affiliate and senior scientist at the Goldman School of Public Policy, the first-of-its-kind study details a faster and more cost-effective way to expand the grid and connect the more than 1,200 gigawatts of renewable energy projects awaiting approval. The analysis was first published last December as a working paper by the Energy Institute at Haas and has been covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Heatmap News, and other news outlets.

“Expanding transmission capacity is critical to decarbonization, and we sought to study ways to build it faster and cheaper,” said Callaway.

It currently takes 10 to 15 years to build a new power line and the U.S. is building transmission lines at a lower rate than it was in the past decade. Without sufficient capacity, renewable energy projects often sit in limbo for years as transmission operators study what upgrades—if any—are needed to accommodate the increased loads.

The authors modeled various scenarios to determine if replacing existing transmission conductors with those made with advanced composite-core materials—a process known as reconductoring—could provide a pathway to faster grid expansion.

Several reconductoring projects have been initiated in Belgium and the Netherlands, and utility companies in the U.S. have used the material to string transmission lines across wide spans like river crossings. That technology, however, has not made its way to the majority of overhead power lines that feed residential and commercial customers.

“As we learned more about the technology, we realized that no one had done the detailed modeling needed to understand the technology’s potential for large-scale transmission capacity increases,” said Phadke.

Based on the authors’ projections, it is cheaper—and quicker—for utility companies to replace the 53,000 existing transmission lines with advanced composite-core materials than it is to build entirely new transmission lines.

They assert that doing so would reduce wholesale electricity costs by 3% to 4% on average—translating to $85 billion in system cost savings by 2035 and $180 billion by 2050.

“The level of interest we’ve received from federal and state agencies, transmission companies and utilities is extremely encouraging, and since our initial report, the Department of Energy has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to reconductoring projects,” said co-author Emilia Chojkiewicz, a PhD student in ERG and an affiliate of the Goldman School of Public Policy. “We are looking forward to learning about these projects as they unfold.”

Additional co-authors include Nikit Abhyankar and Umed Paliwal, affiliates at the Goldman School of Public Policy; and Casey Baker and Ric O’Connell of GridLab, a nonprofit that provides comprehensive technical grid expertise to policy makers and advocates.

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Black History

A Life of Inventions: Engineer and Physicist George Alcorn

George Edward Alcorn Jr. was born on March 22, 1940, in Indianapolis. Growing up in a family that valued education, Alcorn developed an early love for science and mathematics. He excelled in school, and attended Occidental College in California, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1962. He received a master’s degree in nuclear physics in 1963 and a Ph.D. in atomic and molecular physics in 1967 at Howard University.

Published

3 weeks ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Portrait of George Edward Alcorn Jr. Debbie McCallum, Public domain.

By Tamara Shiloh

George Edward Alcorn Jr. was born on March 22, 1940, in Indianapolis.

Growing up in a family that valued education, Alcorn developed an early love for science and mathematics. He excelled in school, and attended Occidental College in California, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1962. He received a master’s degree in nuclear physics in 1963 and a Ph.D. in atomic and molecular physics in 1967 at Howard University.

Alcorn began his career in developing scientific technology in private industries, starting a career as a physicist for IBM. His career took off when he joined several prestigious companies and research institutions, such as the Aerospace Corporation, where he developed important technologies for spacecraft. In 1978, he accepted a position at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where he worked for the remainder of his career. There, he developed technologies for space stations and private institutions across the nation, becoming a key figure in the field of physics and space exploration.

Alcorn is well known for his groundbreaking work on X-ray spectrometers. An X-ray spectrometer is a device used to identify different elements in materials by analyzing the X-ray wavelengths they emit. His improvements allowed the instrument to detect X-rays with greater accuracy and efficiency. This invention has been critical for NASA’s space missions, aiding in the analysis of planetary atmospheres and surfaces, including Mars and other planets in our solar system.

He also contributed to the development of plasma etching, a process used in manufacturing microchips for computers and electronics. His work in this area advanced semiconductor technology, which powers everything from smartphones to satellites.

Another accomplishment was the development of new technologies used in the Freedom space station in partnership with space agencies in Japan, Canada and Europe, though their projects never made it to space.

Throughout his career, Alcorn received several awards and honors, including NASA’s Inventor of the Year Award in 1984. In 2010, he received the highest honor from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2015, Alcorn was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of the imaging X-ray spectrometer.

In addition to his work in the lab, Alcorn dedicated much of his time to teaching and mentoring young scientists. As one of the few African American scientists working in advanced fields like physics and space exploration, he has been an inspiration to young people, especially those from underrepresented groups in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). He taught at Howard University and worked to encourage more African Americans to pursue careers in science and engineering.

George is quoted as stating, “The big thing about being in science and engineering is that if you have a good, interesting project going, work is not coming to work, it’s coming to an adventure.”

George Edward Alcorn passed away June 19, 2024.