Contain Robocalls by heuristics

Contain Robocalls by imposing human interaction prior to connect

    Anthony L. Aragon   (sole innovator)

Have telephone provider provide a provisional block on all in-coming calls.

The block is by-passed by demanding a “simple” heuristic response, which a computer cannot easily detect and defeat. Examples: • Telemarketers please hang up, others press the current year in 4 digits to connect. • Telemarketers please hang up, others press digit 2 for three times. • Telemarketers please hang up, others press family’s secret code. • Telemarketers please hang up, others press the sum of 2+3 • Telemarketers please hang up, others press number of total letters in the phrase “cow dog”.

Secondarily, the telephone provider should be able to detect robo-callers incurring large large numbers of denied-calls, which can be used to identify and possibly penalize the caller.

Thirdly, legal robo-calls could conditionally be allowed by telephone providers (given that their customers do not object)) by registering with the providers.

Lastly, the subscriber could provide a list of callers (e.g. school bulletin line, family, etc…), which do not use the block.