1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 3 4 5 ROBOCALLS: ALL THE RAGE 6 AN FTC SUMMIT 7 8 9 Thursday, October 18, 2012 10 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 11 United States Federal Trade Commission 12 Conference Center 13 600 New Jersey Avenue, Northwest 14 Washington, D.C. 20001 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Welcome: 3 Jon Leibowitz, Chairman.................4 4 5 The Network: 6 Steven Bellovin.........................12 7 Henning Schulzrinne.....................17 8 9 The Industry: 10 Roberto Anguizola, Moderator............43 11 12 The Law: 13 Lois Greisman, Moderator................75 14 15 Caller ID Spoofing And Call Authentication Technology: 16 Kati Daffan, Moderator.................119 17 18 Data Mining and Anomaly Detection: 19 David Belanger.........................181 20 21 Call-Blocking Technology: 22 Bikram Bandy, Moderator ...............199 23 24 Announcement: 25 David Vladeck..........................249 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 - - - - - 3 WELCOME 4 MS. DAFFAN: We can get started now. Thank 5 you all for your patience. I am thrilled to be kicking 6 off this meeting today. Sorry it took us a little 7 while to get going, but we are all very excited that 8 you're here and that you're listening on the Webcast, 9 if that's where you are. 10 I have to start off, unfortunately, with a 11 few administrative things. For those of you who are 12 here in person, you got a nametag when you came in. 13 You should keep that on you at all times because that's 14 what indicates to security that you're authorized to be 15 here. 16 If you leave the building, when you come back 17 in you'll have to go through security again, just so 18 you know. And the other thing that we always have to 19 say is that if there's some issue and the building is 20 evacuated, we all go across New Jersey Avenue together 21 to the Georgetown Law School campus and we stand there. 22 Okay. So the other thing is questions. 23 Everyone who is here in the room with us, if you picked 24 up a folder when you came in, there are little cards in 25 there where you can write your questions. When you 4 1 have a question for a particular panel member -- and 2 all of our panels will be open to questions afterwards 3 -- then you just hold up the card and someone will come 4 and pick it from you and bring it up to the moderator. 5 You should know that this whole event is 6 being live-Tweeted, and you can submit your questions 7 by Tweet or by Facebook, or by email. And all the 8 instructions for that are on the Webcast page. 9 So finally, without further ado, I am very 10 excited to be introducing the chairman of the Federal 11 Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz. The bios for all of 12 our speakers are in your materials. So we’re not going 13 to spend a lot of time on introductions. But suffice 14 it to say, the Chairman is an absolutely tireless 15 advocate for the rights of consumers, including all of 16 us who have received illegal robocalls. Thank you 17 very much for being here. 18 CHAIRMAN LEIBOWITZ: Thank you for doing the 19 housekeeping this morning, Kati. Let me just thank all 20 of you for being here. It is a terrific crowd. This 21 is the first annual FTC Summit Meeting on Robocalls. 22 We're exceedingly glad that all of you are here, 23 whether in person or via the web or via phone dial-in 24 now, right? Yes. 25 At the FTC, we pride ourselves on the fact 5 1 that we take a multi-faceted approach to consumer 2 protection issues that includes enforcement, education, 3 policy, and advocacy. Today's summit is a living 4 example of what we mean. Here you are, distinguished 5 technologists, telecommunications experts, and law 6 enforcers, all sitting together in one room to help 7 brainstorm on ways to stop the onslaught, and it is an 8 onslaught, of the wave of robocalls. 9 Now, everyone here knows that robocalls are 10 intrusive and disruptive because probably all of us in 11 this room have experienced it. That's bad enough. But 12 by deceptively pitching phony products and services 13 such as debt reduction programs and mortgage 14 modification scams, these bottom feeders are not only 15 disturbing our peace, our homes and violating what 16 Justice Louis Brandeis called our right to be let alone 17 -- Louis Brandeis, by the way, along with Woodrow 18 Wilson, were to be the architects of the creation of 19 the Commission -- but they are also stealing our money. 20 (Whereupon, a phone rings.) 21 CHAIRMAN LEIBOWITZ: Who's calling? 22 (Whereupon, an audio was played.) 23 CHAIRMAN LEIBOWITZ: Does that voice sound 24 familiar to any of you in the audience? 25 Raise your hands, actually, if you've got the 6 1 call from Rachel. Yeah, I have too. 2 Well, let me tell you this Rachel, as the 3 subject of more than 200,000 complaints to the FTC 4 every month, it is a major source of anger and 5 irritation across the country. You are now Public 6 Enemy Number 1. We can't see her face, but we know 7 she's a bad human being. 8 And just look at some of these tweets. Can 9 we scroll some of the tweets? You'll understand why 10 this summit is called Robocalls: All the Rage. I'll 11 just read a few of them. 12 "There is a special place in hell for Rachel 13 from Cardholder Services." Would I really go to jail 14 if I found and murdered Rachel from Cardholder 15 Services?" I'm not so sure about this because in the 16 United States we have something called laws. 17 We even get old school U.S. Postal mail 18 complaining about robocalls, and we get a lot of it. I 19 got a letter from a man in Michigan who called 20 robocalls, and I quote, "Malevolent predators" that are 21 "clearly prowling among the unsuspecting for 22 opportunities to trick them out of money." He closed 23 his letter by asking us to, "please put your best 24 investigators on this and protect the American people 25 from such evil-doers." And that's exactly what we have 7 1 been trying to do here at the FTC. 2 We sue Rachel multiple times, as well as her 3 chipper co-workers, like Heather from Cardholder 4 Services, Stacey from Cardholder Services. In fact, we 5 have brought more than a dozen cases targeting either 6 robocalls, taking action against 42 companies and 24 7 individuals. And we have stopped billions, literally 8 billions of illegal robocalls. 9 Spoiler alert: We have more cases in the 10 pipeline, just stay tuned for the next couple of weeks. 11 You can look forward to continued aggressive law 12 enforcement from the FTC, as well as from our state and 13 federal agencies that are here today. 14 With that said, we know law enforcement alone 15 can’t stop the robocalls. And that's why all of us are 16 here today to take a deeper look. We'll start with 17 some history. What is it about the infrastructure of 18 the telecommunications system that has enabled the 19 growth of illegal robocalls in such a short time? 20 With the experts as our guides, we'll see the 21 technological changes that have boosted the bandwidth 22 for VoIP, exponentially, bringing, of course, 23 tremendous benefits to consumers. At the same time, 24 they've been able to have voice blasting technology to 25 flourish at bargain basement prices. 8 1 We'll talk about the dramatically growing 2 problem of back office violations from India. You 3 know, it has been nearly 10 years since the FTC 4 spearheaded and implemented the National Do Not Call 5 Registry. Today, there are more than 217 million -- 6 217 million phone numbers that are on the registry 7 today. And there is no question that our efforts have 8 significantly reduced the number of unwanted 9 telemarketing calls people are getting from legitimate 10 marketers who honor the system and recognize the 11 importance of respecting consumer choice. 12 We also know how much American consumers 13 value the Do Not Call system, as well as how much is 14 valued by Dave Barry, the American humorist who called 15 Do Not Call the most effective government program since 16 the Elvis stamp. I'm not going to laugh at my jokes. 17 But let’s be honest, the telecommunications 18 infrastructure, like so many other core ecosystems, was 19 not developed with an eye towards fighting crime. 20 Alexander Graham Bell did not especially focus on 21 telemarketing fraud, let alone caller ID spoofing, when 22 he invented the phone. Still, we are sure the 23 technology, used creatively and thoughtfully, can help 24 us stem the tide of telemarketing abuse and misuse. 25 Today's agenda is ambitious. It is engaging 9 1 and it is provocative. Robocallers are becoming 2 increasingly creative in perpetuating their scams and 3 we need your help; that is, the help of everyone here 4 in the room today, to develop creative solutions to 5 catch and outwit the perpetrators.