Robocaller hit with large fine

The FCC yesterday levied a large fine against a robocaller for using caller ID spoofing. The number of calls made by this perpetrator is astounding.

The Washington Post reported that Philip Roesel made over 21 million robocalls during a three-month period in 2016. His North Carolina-based company, Wilmington Insurance Quotes, was trying to sell health insurance.

The FCC levied a fine against Roesel for $82 million, or about $3.90 per call.

Current robocall remedies

There are several remedies to block or divert unwanted robocalls. Many draw on crowdsourced databases of caller ID numbers reported by subscribers who received the call. This approach can provide some relief.

But because robocallers can change to a new fake caller ID quickly and easily, such approaches can never shut down unwanted robocalls completely.

And since these fake caller IDs are sometimes legitimate numbers assigned to real subscribers, innocent people can find their number on a reported-robocallers list.

SHAKEN can stop this

The best remedy to block unwanted robocalls is a method called SHAKEN. With this method, the originating carrier (or another carrier providing gateway attestation service for the originating carrier) authenticates caller ID and signs the call.