Free Republic

After a telemarketer swore at his son nearly 10 years ago, Roger Anderson set out to cause robocallers, telephone fraudsters and scammers as many problems as possible. His solution was to create an artificial intelligence call-deflection system that puts incoming spam calls on the line with a ChatGPT-powered personality, keeping fraudsters talking in circles as they attempt to extract financial information from a chatbot. "This is really an incredibly silly idea," Anderson, who founded the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, told Fox News. "But in a way, I think it's the only way to combat unsolicited telemarketing because we just can't...

Historian J. Evetts Haley noted that the XIT Ranch was probably the largest fenced range in the world, and its barbed wire enclosed more than 3 million acres. The huge enclosure helped manage enormous cattle herds and deterred rustlers but also gave rise to the creative use of a new technology: the telephone. Consider these reports from other parts of the West. In 1897, The Electrical Review reported that “on a ranch in California, telephone communication had been established between the various camps … by means of barbed wire fences.” Also in 1897, the New England Journal of Agriculture observed...

ox News host Tucker Carlson was mocked on social media this week for stating that he had been told that the National Security Agency was reading his private emails and spying on him. The usual suspects called Carlson paranoid, because there are so many checks and balances to assure the feds would never illegally target a vexatious Biden critic. However, on Tuesday, a dissent by Travis LeBlanc, a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, revealed that one of the NSA’s most intrusive surveillance engines, XKeyscore, may be violating federal law and Americans’ rights and privacy. In...

The days of the old black phone connected to the wall, or sitting on table connected by a cord are almost over. Even if you still have a dial up phone, it's probably working off a main station with a cordless phone. I would guess that 99% of Americans today have cell phones. Those of us old enough to remember those days may be able to relate to this story.When I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung...

In the Spring of 1963, President John F. Kennedy sat down at his desk in the oval office. With cameras clicking, he picked up the handset of a telephone and pressed the numbers “1964”. The connection activated a countdown clock for the New York World’s Fair, set to open the following year. The photo opportunity was noteworthy, however, because Kennedy’s call showcased an amazing new technology – the push-button dial telephone. Later that year, on November 18, 1963, Bell Telephone officially rolled out push-button telephones to the public. A push-button interface meant customers no longer had to wind a rotary...

Those scammers are sneakier than you’d think, but you need to protect your money and information.

The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans’ domestic calls and texts, according to a senior Republican congressional aide, halting a program that has touched off disputes about privacy and the rule of law since the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency has not used the system in months, and the Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of the year, according to the aide, Luke Murry, the House minority leader’s national security adviser. “Technical irregularities” had contaminated the agency’s database with...

My first thought was that this was staged. Nobody is that clueless. But on consideration, I think this is legit.

With phone spam on the rise, a plucky band is fighting back with practical jokes, air horns and inane conversations about spaghetti When he gets a robocall, Robert B. Eckhardt doesn’t necessarily hang up. If he isn’t too busy, Dr. Eckhardt, a professor of developmental genetics at Pennsylvania State University, stays on the line and asks random questions, such as, “Do your parents know what you’re doing?” If he can string the caller along for 10 minutes, Dr. Eckhardt considers it a minor victory in the war against telephone spam. Most people get annoyed by calls from telemarketers or scam...

Where is the List of Senators and Telephone Numbers to Call to Urge Them to Confirm Kavanaugh NOW? Freepers Do Your BEST! Repost on all social media

For the first time, the nation's largest wireless provider is losing customers faster than it can replace them. It's a major milestone for Verizon, which on Thursday reported a net decline of 289,000 cellphone subscribers over the past four months. Even though Verizon usually loses some cellular customers every quarter, it has historically lured enough back to be able to report growth in that part of its business. But recent months have seen hundreds of thousands of customers defect to competitors such as T-Mobile and Sprint, analysts say. Things could have been even worse if Verizon hadn't suddenly reintroduced unlimited...

A few months ago I wrote about how you can encrypt your entire life in less than an hour. Well, all the security in the world can’t save you if someone has physical possession of your phone or laptop, and can intimidate you into giving up your password. And a few weeks ago, that’s precisely what happened to a US citizen returning home from abroad. On January 30th, Sidd Bikkannavar, a US-born scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory flew back to Houston, Texas from Santiago, Chile. On his way through the airport, Customs and Border Patrol agents pulled him aside....

I have seen Freepers discuss different cell phone plans, my son is in search of a new plan and when I searched for past articles, nothing was found. I was hoping if you would share positive experiences with your cell phone carrier and plan. I'm not super excited about mine. My sone have Republic Wireless now and is thinking of switching to Cricket. Thank you in advance.

Phone Scam ‘Onslaught’ Has Authorities Scrambling 5/27/2016 Telephone scammers posing as tech support, lottery reps or even government officials are inundating U.S. homes as cheap technology and the rapid rise in Internet access globally makes it easier to set up ..

That's the promise of G.Fast. It's a new technology that can deliver blazing fast internet over the wires (phone lines) you already have in your home. For many, it will be the first time they'll have more than one choice for broadband.

Have any Freepers used nomorobo to block robo calls? Can it be trusted when used with simultaneous ring from my home phone? Ringing has gone berserker today for some reason.

Since the Pennsylvania police arrested Anthony Kofalt last March for walking out of a Walmart with 21 boxes of Crest White Strips he had not paid for, his wife, Heather, has spent $3,000 — about $60 a week — on phone calls to the prisons and jails where he has been held. The cost of a 15-minute call is $12.95, although Mr. Kofalt is in a prison only a few hours’ drive from his wife’s home in Franklin, Pa. The cost for a similar non-prison call would be about 60 cents. And every time Ms. Kofalt deposits $25 into the...

Need advice. I have been receiving robocalls from a research frim called WHERE AMERICA STANDS RESEARCH - Telephone 847-250-1400. I do not answer the calls, but learned from a Google search what the caller is identified as. Has anyone else received calls from this research company? I found this from a Google search: "Bert Peal‎The Telegraph & macon.com Yesterday at 7:57pm · I would like to let everyone know that "Where America Stands Research" Has called me 8 times today in four hours on behalf of Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. I wonder if he is aware that he are...

Like many [ultra-secure phones], the CryptoPhone 500...features high-powered encryption. Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, says the phone also runs a customized or "hardened" version of Android that removes 468 vulnerabilities that his engineering team team found in the stock installation of the OS. His mobile security team also found that the [standard] Samsung Galaxy SIII leaks data to parts unknown 80-90 times every hour. [snip] To show what the CryptoPhone can do that less expensive competitors cannot, he points me to a map that he and his customers have created, indicating 17 different phony cell towers known as...

Video Linky Here