February 07, 2005
I want to shoot people over the phone line
I can deal with email spam. What I cannot deal with are wankers who presume the audacity to waste my lifetime by calling me and attempting to sell me their fraudulent shit. It's rude, intrusive and of course completely illegal (German page). But hey, both we and the spammers know they're organized crime, so why don't we stop pretending that the fight hasn't left that arena long ago.
Let's start by giving me an option to reject any anonymous or redirected calls to my number. "I'm sorry, but the person you are trying to reach has no business with anonymous callers. Press 1 to reveal your number and retry. Press any other key to go fuck yourself.". I'd also like to have previously unknown numbers be greeted with a message that I'd rather die than buy anything over the phone and if they'd really like to have their call put through.
In the real world, of course, telcos are forced to built Uncle Scroogesque money bins to somehow store away all the profit they make through spam-spewing call centers. But dreams are still free.
