And tap into the genius of american consumers. I think it was enormously successful. There were three winners. It is not just those three brothers who submitted proposals. There are others out there. You would be other in courage to when you hear from the second panel. Mr. Bash, i was wondering if you have the numbers as to whether these robocalls are coming from domestic sources or foreign sources. I do not want to go out on a limb for that. It is fair to say they are coming from both both places. Ms. Greisman, you talked about abolishing the common carrier regulations. My question to you is, is there any evidence or allegations that these common carriers are a source for these calls . That this way. Ss thinkhere we sent, we common carriers can be more proactive in looking at what is going across their transom and flagging what are red flags. We have some concerns that there may be some carriers of their there is a blurred distinction given conversions and technology, what is a telemarketer and what is a carrier. We think there is some conduct that may be engaged in that report to be carriers that would more than raise an eyebrow. Next panel thehe same question. Act on thatd subject, as i have mentioned in my written testimony, we have worked with the federal trade commission in the court may Law Enforcement. That onlast week various coordination issues with respect to carriers that she is aware of. We are certainly going to be looking at some of the information that was shared with us. Thank you for your time. Chairman, thank you very much. Conduct aus about the raises the eyebrows. It is too soon to get into at this point. Ok. I will be waiting. If the next panel can come for. I want to thank this panel. Rupy, mr. Kevin michael altschul, mr. Matthew stein. Welcome and thank you for being here. , let softwarefoss developer from nomorobo. We will begin with your testimony, mr. Rupy. Think you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. I served as senior director of law and policy at the United States telecom association. Our Member Companies shared the subcommittee also concerns about the problems associated with illegal robocalls. We understand the consumer frustration they cause and we have long worked and coordinating with relevant private and government stakeholders to address this issue. In addition to be harmed because consumers, robocalls impact u. S. Telecoms own members. Ofrepresent the first line defense on this issue and they must be well versed in explaining to customers the difference between legal and illegal robocalls, providing them with information on how to file a complaint, and pointing them to tools to help to mitigate these calls. Robocalls can also adversely impact our companys networks. Last calling defense are typically highly localized, highvolume, extremely brief, lasting only a matter of minutes. Carriers receive notes advanced warning of these calls. A severe mask calling events can result in disruption to phone mass call events can result in disruption to phone carriers. Given these impacts on our customers and our networks, we can sympathize with the frustration you must feel at the apparent growth of this problem over the last few decades in spite of repeated legislative efforts. Those efforts illustrate the difficulty of keeping a lot ahead of the lawbreakers and ahead of technology. This is not to say that Network Operators are passive observers. As mentioned earlier, we serve on the front lines of defense and worked in many other ways to monitor, medicaid, and respond to this problem. Many u. S. Monitor, mitigate, and respond to this problem. Trafficbers conduct forensics and the initiate mass calling investigations. Our members provide and will continue to develop various services, such as anonymous Call Blocking and other functionality to help mitigate the problem. They work with standardsetting groups to address issues related to bill to robocalls. Coordinate with state and federal Law Enforcement agencies during ongoing investigations and Enforcement Actions. Looked at through the lens of history, the explanation for this is simple. The original phone network was a closed system. Voice service was provided by local Exchange Carriers and longdistance companies through only the public switched telephone network, providing plain old telephone service. Todays Communications Services are provided not by the pspn, but bylosed close to networks. Areas of the vulnerability exist throughout the network and cannot be realistically addressed by any single stakeholder. U. S. Telecom supports possible Technological Solutions to the robocall problem by stakeholders throughout the internet ecosystems, most of whom cannot face significant legal limitations outlined in my written statement that constrain our Member Companies. It is unlikely that any single technological Silver Bullet and permanently entrench the robocall problem. Todays solution could turn could have adverse consequences, some examples of which i outlined in my written testimony. The same appears to be the case for legislative and regulatory solutions, which do not seem capable of keeping pace of the evil genius of scammers, who continually invent new ways to evade capture, prosecution, and punishment. Let me thank the subcommittee for holding this time the hearing. We shared the subcommittees and consumers frustration and look forward to working together in a matter that provides flexibility in addressing this constantly evolve in a challenge. We have been joined by senator prior. This is a subcommittee that has overlapping jurisdiction to his subcommittee on to mentations. I would like to refer to him for his comments. Thank you for joining us today. Between Consumer Protection and your committee you with the former chairman of the subcommittee, so i appreciate you cooperating with us and allowing us to have this hearing although we could argue about the jurisdiction. I am thrilled that you are chairing the subcommittee. It is a great team of people here. Have a greatay we leader in chairwoman the pasco mccaskill. We may have overlapping jurisdiction, but i do not care. Your coin to handle this hearing just great. You are going to handle this hearing just great. Looking at the numbers, it is clear that the bill got call registry has been a success. I am please the ftc is working with states to crackown on robocalls and other illegal activities. If everybody is working together, we can solve this. I did not want to interrupt, but thank you. Michael altschul . Good morning. Thank you forctia, the opportunity to participate in this morning plus a hearing to protect consumers from unlawful robocalls and Text Messages. We were proud to support additional initial adoption of the Consumer Protection act in 1991. I had just joined the association and it was one of the first legislative issues i worked on. Like our customers, wireless carriers are also victims of illegal text message fishing scams. G that is why we have called upon the fcc to change the way it reports complaint. As you may know, they are divided into wireless complaints and wire line complaints. These Consumer Complaint are about calls and messages that original outside the carriers network and control. The waythe way they are reported heights the magnitude of the problem. The magnitude of the problem. We want to bring Enforcement Actions against robocallers who violate the law. When they can identify the source of the messages come our members have brought loss lawsuits against the perpetrators. Have heard from other witnesses, it is virtually impossible to trace an interconnected and anconnectedvoip interconnected voip call, especially when the caller was to hide his or her identity. I would like to use a screen shot of the text message i received on monday to illustrate the difficulties we face in trying to solve this problem. By the way, wireless carriers do screen Text Messages and successfully blocked millions of them every day. Voice calls have to be found at the source to cut off. As you can see, this text message appears to be an informational text message about my account at a local Financial Institutions. I have provided my prior consent to the Financial Institution where i have accounts, authorizing them to send me a text message alerts about fraudulent activity, data breeches and other time sensitive account information. Because i do not have an account at this institution, i knew immediately it was a phishing scam. Thoser as, especially outside the United States, are not deterred from violating the caller id act. Audsters scam, the fr local number. This number is not in service. Recordingt and got a that it is not a real phone number. Could spoofery Financial Institutions actual 4 phone numbers randomly. Numbersl phone randomly. Carriers do not know the businesses and agencies the carrier has given prior consent to send informational calls and messages. Even of the carrier did not know this information, rosters can spoof numbers and appear to be a legitimate fosters can spoof numbers and appear to be a legitimate business fraudsters can spruce numbers and appear to be a legitimate business. F legitimate businesses. Any technical solution must be subject to a careful and complete consideration. Ctia, thank you for your consideration of these suggestions. We look forward to working with you to address these related matters. Thank you very much. Thank you, chair, ranking member, and senator prior. And ie is Matthew Stein officer. Hnology i am a chief Technology Officer at primus telecommunications. Service calle a telemarketing guard to our customers in canada. The service was developed in 2007 in response to our discontent in limiting uncontrolled calling. They did not want calls interrupting dinner and family time. The inability to make these calls stopped no matter how many times the customer asked to be taken off of one list and on another. It is important to make clear that we view robocalls as a subset of mass unsolicited calling. For convenience, i will refer to them as telemarketing. There hishave told us view of telemarketing does not change if they are called by a live person or by a recording. When a call is placed by a customer protected by us, the system violates if i was the call before the phone rings. Telemarketer, bacall does not go to our customers. The call does not go to our customers. They are invited to press one to record their names. The customer can accept the call, refuse the call, or send it to voice mail without speaking to a telemarketer. The system is completely neutral to all phone numbers until a report from a customer is received. All calls are unimpeded to our customers initially. If a customer receives an on screen telemarketing call, it is up to them to decide whether or not they choose to report that number, which they can do by dialing a special code. If they choose to report the call and the threshold of other customers also reports that call, the system begins to much of the phone number and scans for a number of the zero characteristics. These can be frequency of calling, number of characteristics. They can be fricassee of calling or other characteristics six that can be scanned for. It can be frequency of calling or other characteristics that can be scanned for. If enough customers accept a call, the number will cease to be a telemarketer by the system. This is accomplished by a system requires no complicated does your calls to be made whether by network providers, parties or government bodies. It just tallys customer votes to determine who is or is not just tallies customer votes to determine who is or is not a telemarketer. Customers who do not bother to participate in reporting still benefit from actions of those who do. This is the defining element of telemarketing guard. This is what led us to happen to the system. The system. It is one of the leading reasons customers choose to keep their phone service with us. The system is not complicated or expensive to establish or maintain. We provide telemarketing guard to all our customers without charge. The system can be added to existing phone networks. It can work with Traditional Land line phones, voip phones or land or cell phones. Andservice can be adapted configured to address the needs of consumers or legislative and regulatory bodies. In conclusion, besides being a of a consumer tool, it is consistent with the pet to provide consistent with consumers interests. Thank you. I look forward to any questions you may have. I appreciate you being here. Mr. Foss. Thank you senator i appreciate this opportunity to testify. I am here to illustrate that the technology exists right now to block these illegal robocalls. There are challenges, such as caller id spoofing and privacy concerns. There are three main points i want to discuss. I will talk about my winning robocall challenge to entry and i will discuss issues involved in blocking robocalls and i will discuss the commercial viability of roboCall Blocking. The ftc launched a competition to find Creative Solutions to this problem. Solution is called nomorobo. That is a play on no more robo. We got that. I know the rest of the country thinks we are idiots, but we got that. Nomorobol time, analyzes call frequency across multiple phone lines. If it detects a robocall, the call is automatically disconnected. Each call is analyzed. A black list of robocalls is updated. The more calls that come in the system for analysis, the better of the algorithm works. It scales inexpensively to handle millions of calls. Andorks on land lines, voip cell phones and does not require any additional hardware. All it requires is a one time setup. As with all new ideas, there is always skepticism. Industry players have expressed three major concerns. Spoofing caller id, violating consumer privacy, and allowing illegal robocalls. It is easy to spot caller id to show any phone number. You can falsify the call in number, but you cannot falsify the calling pattern. It is a red flag and the same number, whether it is approved or not, has made 5000 calls to different numbers in the same number in the same hour. The scenarios indicate robocalling patterns. It would only work in a limited amount of situations. By providing the caller id with real time calling pattern analysis, robocalls can effectively be detected. No need to monitor or listen in to the phone call, thus insuring consumers privacy. The caller id data along with the date and time is enough of a fingerprint to detect robocallers. The final issue that has been raise is school or Emergency Notification to bypass robocalling. This involves a trusted white list. I have already spoken with legal robocallers. It wants this these illegal robocallers put out of business. There is increased consumer demand and consumer liability. I commissioned a nationwide survey. 17 said they would pay a monthly fee for such a service. When the ftc announced the winner of the competition, 3600 people signed up on the nomorobo mailing list. Based on the feedback i received, robocalls are a serious quality of life issue. Many people on the panel have said consumers feel helpless to stop robocalls. Is if his at a core level. At a core level. Someone is trying to sell them something they do not want and do not need. I hope i have successfully explained how this is a technology that can be implemented without note changes to the current infrastructure. Is large and the problem is so irritating that consumers have shown a willingness to pay for a solution. I am committed to supporting our efforts in any way i can. I appreciate you being here. Stein, you have had experience doing this for years. Foras worked commercially your carrier. Absolutely. Let me just say for the record, the First Company smart enough to do this in the United States, i am is switching carriers to that one. Like mr. Altschul, you to address this. We have heard from two good witnesses that the technology is available. I understand fear of the consequences and the quote for every action there is a reaction. On the other hand, the fear is much less than what the reality is now that people are dealing with. Foss it that mr. Technology is not quickly being adapted in these commercial markets. And why is it that mr. Steins product has not been licensed to an American Carrier . I do not know about the licensing issues with respect to the switch. We still have concerns about overreaching and blocking legitimate calls. Senators, i am sure you are more familiar than you would like to callsh the informational and technology you receive and because you received from airlines when the weather is bad. These calls are unpredictable and they will flood Carrier Networks with identical Text Messages and they will carry a caller id. If that caller id is put on a wide list, it can be spoofed. We all agree how easy it is to split a number. It can have the same fingerprint and pattern as other messages. How does his licensed product if i can get a conversation between the two of youth address the airline is calling with information that a flight has been delayed. In reality, how does that work with your technology. The technology has been deployed for a number of years. The reality is that the telemarketing guard system itself will only begin to monitor and take action once there are reports by enough people that say, this is an unwanted telemarketer. Once that call comes in, the system will not lock the call. Being a carrier, we have viewed it is our responsibility to put the two people on the phone. It is to give a moment of pause and get the other calling party to press one and record their name or so forth. In the event of delayed flights and things like that, these things tend to go right through. There has not been any effect. You have never seen a complaint like that. And say, the