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Idea: A button on your phone app that plays a generic "number doesn't exist" recording to confuse spam callers (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Receiving a spam call puts you in a bit of a dilemma, or at least it does for me: How do I deal with this call that doesn't alert the spammers that this is an active number that they can call again? Answering the call is obviously the wrong choice, but I always assume that rejecting the call outright will also be detected as a deliberate action and therefore a person is on the other side. Some people have suggested answering the phone but not talking, so they think it's a dead number, but I want something more definitive.

My idea is to have a "spam" button on the incoming call screen, that answers the call but doesn't connect the microphone. Instead it plays either the standard "the number you're dialing is not assigned, please check your number and try your call again" recording, or a fax/modem sound to make them think the phone number belongs to a machine and not a human.

Would this work? Or would they still be able to determine that the recording is spoofed by the phone itself? Does anything like this already exist?

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[–] irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 22 hours ago

That makes them think you aren't available, but if you have any kind of voicemail it means they know it's a real number so autodialers will probably still try later. I think this request is how can we fool the spammers (automated or otherwise) to think the number is totally invalid so they stop calling it.

That is difficult since there's probably some indication from the phone company other than just a voice message that indicates a number is invalid/unallocated.

That said, muting is the way I do it, but now most autodialer systems are configured to call twice in a row to get around the Do No Disturb settings on most cell phones, so it is more annoying now.