227. Jim McEachern on how the telecom industry is fighting robocalls
Episode description
Our guest today is Jim McEachern, an independent consultant who has been working with the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (or ATIS) on developing technology to cut down on robocalls.
For years I’ve been wondering why telecommunications companies haven’t done more to eliminate robocalls, so when I saw Jim quoted in a New York Times article about this work, I reached out to him.
I was so pleased that he agreed to be on the show to talk about his work and explain to me how spoofing works and why the existing technology has made it hard to fight robocalls.
I also learned a practical tip: whenever I get a robocall, I have been blocking that phone number on my phone. Jim explained to me that I’m probably just wasting my time, since robocallers often use a different spoofed number on each outbound call.
In the show notes, you will find a link to the NYT article where I first heard of Jim’s work, a link to the ATIS website that has more info on the protocols Jim discusses on this show, and Jim’s LinkedIn profile
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/technology/personaltech/robocalls-call-blocking.html