A Call to Action: Stop the FCC's KYC Regime

We really just need telcos to stop allowing caller id spoofing. Doesn’t even need your name, but with a real number we could actually report these scams.

You can still allow people to hide it, but then by default every non-business phone should block calls with hidden numbers.

It's even worse: Since cell phones broadcast your location at all times, this means telling hundreds of companies (and a number of governments) your location at basically all times.

That's already an issue with most cell phones. Making this apply to prepaid phones is even worse.

> Note: By checking this box, I acknowledge that I am filing a document into an official FCC proceeding. All information submitted, including names and addresses, will be publicly available via the web.

Is there really not a way to submit an express FCC comment that avoids all my personal info being publicly published to the web? Yeesh.

We just need a new phone system where 'phone numbers' are designed to be disposable.

Phone numbers were designed with the idea that they need to be easily memorizable in your head but I don't think that's really needed today.

At any moment I should be able to discard my contact and redistribute it on my own.

The idea that old numbers get recycled is completely ridiculous as well.

They would do well to make a better CTA for their call to action. Here's the link from the article:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/26/2026-10...

I think that gets you most of the way to a link that somebody on HN dropped a few days ago:

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express

It requires the docket-id to complete:

Docket No: 17-59

You can double check that Docket Number here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-seeks-comment-enhanced-know...

In my opinion, the real fix to scam, spam, and robocalls is to pass along the REAL(TM) Caller ID information not just the caller ID but the actual billed Caller ID information and allow the recipient easy ways to drop the calls when those two don't match. I don't know exactly the technical details of Stir/Shaken but someone somewhere is paying / getting paid for each call and this information should be transparently available to the call or message recipient. For "legitimate" reasons like doctors or call centers, they should already provide a separate work phone and not make them use their personal line. For leaky carriers, those should be blocked entirely. Nothing good comes from them. Basically what I am suggesting is if the full attestation level ("A-level") is not available, drop those calls and text messages by default unless the customer opts in (I have no idea why anyone would)

Well, I tried to file an FCC comment using the link in the article but reCAPCHA doesn't think I'm a real person. I gave up after about completing about 20 puzzles successfully.

Our democracy in action.

Im USA based use prepaid service because I dont want to provide information for a credit check to obtain postpay service. Theres absolutely no reason for a US based telephony provider to retain the most sensitive PII on their customers. Every large provider has a history of breaches and selling customer data. The telephone companies are already tracking, storing, selling; so many data points on their customers. They cant be trusted with any information.

"Call to Action" is a needlessly impotent threat. Like high school students walking out of their own lunch period to protest the loss of salisbury steak on the menu.

Most major telcos worldwide outside the US have strict KYC rules, this is not a battle you are going to win, because there are very few legitimate reasons in support.

How about instead we do "know your company" and consumers get intel about the ones doing the calls?

Any particular reason yall can't just argue in court that by creating opportunities for your PII to be stolen your governments (state or federal or both) are actively harming you economically?

Sure, not much money to be had by fighting that fight but basically any PAC should have the means to do this and by claiming money is at stake and not people's actual safety you do have a better chance at this not being dismissed because of how your justice system /is/.

And how exactly are they going/hoping to do that with GV?

Honestly I'm at the point where I'm like lets just kill the POTS. It makes little sense to me that it's become a sort of user ID for many things, that we have better alternatives (WebRTC, FaceTime et al) that we should push. Like where it currently says "Telephone number" i should be able to put in a URL like "webrtc://<a pseudonym for my IMEI>" (which itself could be a dropdown box for "This device" on the phone itself...)

For example, why isn't it the default that when a telemarketer calls me it's not a video call? And why can't I preview their video stream prior to answering?

I get its "impossible" to make everyone change, but i do think we should push forwards...

KYC and AML are the most blatant attempts at subverting due process I’ve ever seen.

Instead of the government actually trying to catch money laundering, they just make 3rd parties like banks and payment processors judge, jury, executioner. Effectively giving them the power to decide who can do business. And if they decide you can’t, you have no recourse. If the government didn’t give this power to private companies, they would have to prove in court that you are doing something unsavory. And to people saying KYC/AML works, sure. HSBC was laundering billions and these guys know how to get around KYC. You’re just screwing over common people at this point and giving banks and financial institutions power to skirt due process.

Parents need to parent. Full stop.

This means the parents of adult scammers too. Every scammer has a mother and father who are failing them. If they were doing their jobs, this wouldn't be happening.

KYC == ''Know Your Customer''

For background on KYC in the banking context @patio11's podcasts and essays are worth consuming:

  Patrick: Yes, so "Know Your Customer" (KYC) and "Anti-Money Laundering" (AML) 
  are mandatory elements of the international compliance regime that have been 
  in place in the United States since the early 1980s. Over time, this regime 
  spread globally, largely fueled by the U.S. leveraging the dollar as a tool 
  of foreign policy—a point where I find myself agreeing with critiques from 
  the crypto community. Their complaints about this are largely accurate. You 
  can see this clearly in the documents as these laws were passed and as 
  supranational bodies increasingly tightened regulations on banking secrecy 
  havens.
  

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/true-crime-ba...

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/kyc-and-aml-beyond-th...

Yeah if US mail is as spam compromised as it is, you can forget about phone calls ever being cleaned up.

In the era of Target specialized AI that can mimic voices, writing styles, communication is now fundamentally compromised without some sort of actual reform

Let me give you an analogy: Someone keeps blaring an airhorn outside your window at 4am. It's making it difficult for you to sleep. The government, in their bountiful wisdom, decides to hold an emergency meeting, and agrees to pass a law that people need to show an ID to buy an airhorn. You're appalled. This is an invasion of privacy! You protest outside of city hall. You try to get some of your neighbors onboard, but find that they're already protesting! Their protest is demanding that the government do something about the annoying airhorns.

Honestly, stop the KYC regime everywhere else.

We're making our law enforcement's job marginally easier, by making the criminals' job infinitely easier by creating millions of juicy PII honeypots.

No, you don't need my phone #, real name, captcha.. if you think you do, realign your incentives, and rethink what else can be used for your real need instead.

Stopped reading at the slop image

Phone numbers are just a liability:

- It is kind of expensive,

- You are forced to provide it to many official institutions,

- It is the default or mandatory insecure 2FA for many institutions,

- It always get leaked somewhere and is one of the most common/reliable identifier.

We still have them around governments and telcos love it and old people and scammers are its last users.

Will this KYC reduce spam and scam calls?

I will not be called to action by a page with a big slop image at the top.

Leave it to the Trump administration to implement mass surveillance as the solution to spam.

>open link

>AI slop art right at the start

Instant close

"force phone providers to collect identity information from ordinary people before they can acquire or renew service with a phone carrier."

don't see the harm in this? isn't this already the case for 99.9% of phoneline havers already?