Canadian Do-Not-Call List Now In Effect!

The Digital Rag is at the interface between the general, not-so-technical public and the technology that surrounds us.

Even a technology that has been around since being patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1870 is not all that well understood in its most basic form, and with today's electronic exchanges, call forwarding, caller-id, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and such is even more blackmagic than before.

This is especially true of the technologies that are used to generate those oh-so ever annoying dinner-time calls from Florida travel companies and other of what today I and many others call "Voice spammers"

Well, today is the day that the Canadian public finally gets what may be at least a little respite from the seemingly unending deluge of unrequested interruptions of their lives by uninvited phone calls. Today the Canadian Do Not Call List goes into effect - except it seems to be offline at this point (8:28AM PDT September 30, 2008)

While we're all waiting for Bell Canada to get their multi-million dollar solution up and running and able to handle the expected load you might take a look at the backgrounder I put together called Canadian Telephone spam.

I've seen estimates from a low of 64% to a high of 72 % of Canada's approximately 23 million phone lines will be registered some time in the next while. I certainly will be registering my 5 lines (3 land lines and the 2 cell phones, althought they're not supposed to be calling the cell phones anyway)

Ahhh the site is up.

I click on "Register My Number" and after about 15 seconds get a screen with a single field for the phone number - xxx-xxx-xxxx  - I'll put in the house number first.

Hmmm... it seems their web may be not quite working correctly - I can't see their "confirmation code" in the "box" (does not show a box, let alone a code) and it likely is a graphic that is created "on the fly" requiring a bit more CPU horsepower than they have for the load on the machines. Something is likely timing out and failing.

OK - let's try the phone: 1-866-580-3625

several tries later I finally get through on my 2nd line. Apparently I can only register the line I'm calling from, so I do so.

Back to trying to get through - and I'm still trying again on line 2 as it would not let me both register and register a complaint - like I can't use the web interface.

I get through on line 3 but they say they think my caller ID is blocked - not by me, but since it is a new line from Shaw digital, I may just not have done the setup correctly. Strange thing is that line 2 is from the same people at the same time and it is fine.

OK maybe the problem is Firefox on Linux - my main desktop - so I crank up my Windows machine - kept around for just such emergencies. I also have Firefox 3.0.3 on it, so let's see what happens on it.

Again, temporarily unavailable.

Back to the Linux machine and see if I can at least leave them the message "what box" inside the confirmation answer space - but lo... the session not only doesn't complete, but my Linux box no longer can even talk to their server. They have some pretty sophisticated security on the link seemingly limiting the number of browser sessions to one from each IP address.

That ought to really slow down the scammers who try to get in and disrupt such useful facilities as this list will prove to be. Nice to know Bell and our government are taking the latest roBOT tactics into consideration in their deployment of this facility.

On the other hand it is troubling that they may have not tested it on what is becoming a significant fraction of the browser population - Firefox on Linux.

Same problem in Windows; and now my IE session is sitting waiting for the server at the other end.

I'll try to write an ending to this some time soon. In the mean time you should make a date with either your phone or your computer to get yourself and your line(s) onto the do not call list.

Now if only we can do something about the calls from across the border. The latest ones I've been getting are from some Florida travel company and start with a ship's whistle. At least they have a "get off the list" button I've discovered. If you press the NINE key while the message is playing their message says that your number has been removed. Note that there are other problems with pressing the NINE key on some PBX systems so don't do this if you're at the office and your system uses NINE to grant an outside line to an incoming caller - the company can lose BIG $$$ that way.