Five or six years have passed since I stopped answering my phone. With the exception of the family or the work calls, of which they expect, everyone now goes directly to the voice mail, where my iPhone Dutifflify software transcribes the messages, which are almost always Robocalls or Spam. And my text landscapes are even more a disaster than my unanswered calls.
Apple has promised to help with a couple of new functions in iOS 26. You may not have noticed, even if your iPhone has updated, because the most antigible feature, which uses the screen calls for screen, is out of default. (You will be asked to turn it on when you open the phone application after updating iOS 26, or you can turn it on in the configuration of your phone application by selecting “asking reasons to call.” However, I am never below to try anything.
About 80 percent of Americans are like me and do not respond calls from unknown numbers. That compliance with a PEW 2020 survey, and I suppose that the percentage is higher today, especially after the scam that launched the pandemic. Meanwhile, the text spam is definitely increasing, at least according to an onboing robokiller count, which manufactures spam blocking software. Only last August, the Americans received a head of 19.2 billion spam texts, which is equivalent to 63 spam texts per person who months. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that Americans lose $ 470 billion a year with text -based scams.
Who is to blame for this disaster? The state of responsibility resembles that Spider-Man meme, except that everyone points to scammers and spammers. But really, operators, regulators and technology companies are to blame, and the problem is getting worse.
“This should be a collective and social solution, because this is such a horrible problem in this country, and has one leg for years and years and years,” Teresa Murray told me, a consumer control body of the United States PIRG Education Fund. “Most of the people I know, older people, young people, medium -sized people, professionals, students, regardless of what they do, all with whom I speak have a certain amount of skepticism that responds to their phone, and that is unfortunate.”
Apple receives more serious detection calls
The new Apple characteristics improve and complicate the situation. Once you have activated the new call projection functions of the iPhone, Siri receives the people who call strangers instead or your voice email. Siri asks them to indicate their name and the reason for their call before your phone sounds, your answer is transcribed in real time and a notification is sent to your iPhone. If you ignore it, the call goes directly to voice mail. If you play the alert, you will see the transcription, and from there, you can write an answer to the person who calls, answer the call or simply press stop to disconnect. If it is someone with whom you want to talk in the future, then you can mark it as “acquaintances” so that they do not have to go through the detection process again.
These are many steps, just to decide if you want to answer a phone call. You are also giving you much more agency on the situation, which is out of control. Call identification is falsified so easily that even the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommends that you do not respond calls from unknown numbers. If you pick up, there is a chans scammer a scammer who uses widely available AI tools to clone the voice of a loved one, you can find their voice in video clips on social networks, and convince you to send you. At least, collecting a call will make scammers and spammers know that their number is active and will answer it, two information that could lead to even more scams and spam.
The new call detection function in iPhones protects it from a couple of these problems, but not all. By forcing the bad actor to interact with Siri and try to convince him that they are legitimate, the software gives him an additional defense line. Of course, scammers will also get new tricks for this. When Siri asks them to identify that the person at the other extreme can say what he wants, including: “Hey, it’s me and I’m in trouble.” There is also no option to know that recording and confirming that it is your loved one or even a human. Nor is it clear if Siri also responds to the call also the bad actors who have reached an active telephone number, configuring it for more false calls.
Other technological companies have their own solutions to unwanted calls. A few months ago, Google launched a set of call detection functions with AI for its Pixel phones, some of which work a lot like Apple now has for iPhones. According to reports, a similar call detection option is reaching Samsung Galaxy phones in the future as well. But regardless of the type of phone you have, the Google Voice application has offered an immediate way to detect calls: it only asks people who call strangers to indicate their names, and then reproduce that the recording for you connected the call has acted. It is very similar to what Apple, Google and Samsung are doing now, but with real human interaction instead of AI flowering.
Text messages begin to look more like email
And then there are unwanted text messages. One would think that blocking unwanted text messages would be as easy as sending all its spam emails to a garbage folder. However, text messages infrastructure is fundamental than that of email, and it is more difficult to build in certain filters. The FCC finished its first EVESA rules about fraud texts last year, but as you surely know, unwanted texts continue to arrive.
Apple is addressing this problem with new text messages detection options in iOS 26. They are confused, so have patience with me. First, since 2019, he has been able to alternate in the “filtering of unknown senders” in the configuration of the iPhones application. If I did, the messages of anyone who was in their contacts or who had never sent a text message would reach a different entry tray, which was a child or difficult to find.
In iOS 26, if you turn on “Screen ignoring senders”, those messages are two reduced from your main input tray: just look for the three lines in the upper right corner of the messages. You can also administer if you receive notifications when these messages arrive, and you can mark the senders as “known” if you do not want them and fear in the input tray of “unknown servers” again, or eliminate all the conversation and mark it as spam.
Then it is the new “spam filter” function, which uses spam detection software on the device constantly updated to keep the garbage out of its main message entry tray. This is activated by default, and you can find the messages in a “spam” folder just below the “unknown servers” folder in the menu that it accesses when playing the three lines (you cannot respond to the messages in the “spam” brochure and the tea rate). In addition, you can activate even more filters activating the “Apple standard” text filter, which creates folders for “transactions” and “promotions” and automatically sends children or messages there (these years of option). You also have the option of adding a third -party filter of the applications, such as Hiya, Nomorobo and Robokiller, which promise to help you tame the chaos of your text message (they can also handle spam phone calls).
If all these text text leagues begin to sound a lot like their email input tray, it is probably by design. Over the years, we have advanced to tame the spam email torrent, so why not try to bring text messages along a similar path? Even so, once I activated all the various Apple text messages, filters and entrance trays, I discovered that it was easier to miss the messages that I otherwise wanted to see, as the invitation to a party that I found only after the party ended.
There is no silver bullet to remove all spam text calls and messages. In fact, a bit of passing is the best option for most people. If you see a new doctor, for example, you will want to know what they called, even if their specific extension is not in their contacts or is recognized as a frequent contact. And if you spend money on a sophisticated filtering application and take the time to obtain all the correct configuration, you are forced to lose something important. I talked to some recently whose spam filter continued to block the phone call from passport agencies. He ended up having to cancel a vacation because that.
Even so, the big problem with the scammers is that they scam. About 70 percent of Americans say they know some who are a victim or an online fraud, and 30 percent say they have fallen for a moment, according to McAfee’s consumer investigation. I almost fell in love with a sophisticated IRS telephone scam All scammers need to start with you is a cup of data, something that could make the phone collect or respond to a text message for more information.
“By reaping that information about the fly, they are capable of cheating it in the spot, or they can enrich their database so that next time he can attack him in a more directed way,” said Abhishek Karnik, director of Menazch and Menazchch and Menazchch and threat and threatening and threatening and threatening and threatening and threatening and threatening and Fra.
In other words, each scam attempt feeds on the next, and attempts are never. It is good that technology companies are giving us more tools to defend themselves. But it is not enough.
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