FTC splits $50,000 robocall killing tech prize

I hope the explanations given aren't what these things really are

A black/white list. Yes, that's great. The robocalls I get sometimes originate from a specific number (anyone in the US familiar with calls from "CARD SERVICES"?) but sometimes use a different number every time. That's trivial to do since it is trivial to spoof caller ID.

If a lot of people start using blacklists they'll all spoof their numbers. If people start using whitelists, they better know the numbers of everyone they want calling them, and never get a call from an unknown number, like their credit card company telling them they've suspended your account for security reasons because you did something unexpected, like use it. Spoofing ANI is much harder than spoofing caller ID, but end consumers don't have access to ANI and never will.

Now if it was done in the cloud, as in the second suggestion, then maybe ANI could be used. But somehow I'll bet the phone companies will figure out a way to charge us a lot of money for the privilege, and doing so would risk unmasking callers who wish to and need to remain anonymous (women's shelters etc.)

The captcha thing is great, except if the automated systems I get stuck in voicemail hell with can (theoretically) understand what I say, then why can't they understand what buttons the captcha is telling them to push? If the captcha says "what is 37x134?" then hook it to Wolfram Alpha, and answering the question would have a better chance of proving one is NOT human given the poor state of arithmetic ability in the public.

Every once in a while I register for a new forum somewhere and have to do a captcha. I find I have to refresh it a half dozen times on average before I get one I know I'll be able to handle. They've been forced to make them so hard that humans can barely manage them. I don't know how they'll do that over the phone....have someone with a really thick foreign accent tell you what buttons to push, and you can hit '*' to have it repeated in a different accent until you get one you can understand? Too bad I guess if someone from London gets instructions in a Cajun accent, or a guy from Chicago gets instructions in a Welsh accent!

So my idea of just shooting the feckers was rejected? Bummer....

Only in America

Or you could just require the fixed line carriers to enforce the CallerID of any calls originating from their network, and then enforce legislation banning robocalls, with a regulator - say, like Ofcom but a bit less shit - to fine abuses.

Or would that upset the free market purists?