I tried to look but could not find a discussion on this. Sorry if this is already been discussed.
I find that the FCC data gets too big and delayed. Many new scams and phone calls are getting in and not yet in the FCC database.
Is there a hook that allows one to run a script to check if a number is good or not? Example, I can create a separate app which consulted centrally stored numbers and the script can be setup to check the app if the number is good or not.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
The attached hangup-fcc.zip archive contains the hangup-fcc extension for using the ncid-FCC blacklist file created by a modified FCC2ncid script. It also has a README for installing and setting it up.
The hangup-fcc extension is a simple shell script that is mostly comments. Modify it to add your check for a good number.
I wrote the extension but did not test it. You may need to fix typos or my grep line. Hopefully you can provide feedback to it and the README.
@John, thanks for your suggestion. I will check it out.
@Todd, I am running my nccid on RaspberryPi 1 which is also running other stuff controlling my home automation.(garage, lights, watering plants, temperature, notification service, pihole - for blocking ads, bad sites, etc) I know I am pushing the pi but i think it is capable of doing things if I use it efficiently. I am treating the Pi as a super computer as if today is 1980. :)
No, I have not seen the RAM error yet but I have noticed that many calls that are not blocked because they are not in the FCC file. When I look at the missed numbers, I found that many of them are already registered online as bad numbers. So I am trying to see if I can utilize the online resources on demand instead of downloading them locally. I want to avoid issue because FCC file will keep growing and it worries me one day it will cause problem.
-hanz
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
If you are using the list of numbers on the Wiki rather than generating
your own, please note the list on the Wiki has not be updated for months.
It seemed like a good idea for everyone to retrieve the FCC data whenever
they wanted, even every hour, although once a week works for me.
The Wiki has updated scripts to grab the FCC data, filter it, and update
the blacklist appropriately.
When I have some time I will work on making it an external add on as
messing with the blacklist could conceivably cause problems.
@John, thanks for your suggestion. I will check it out.
@Todd, I am running my nccid on RaspberryPi 1 which is also running other
stuff controlling my home automation.(garage, lights, watering plants,
temperature, notification service, pihole - for blocking ads, bad sites,
etc) I know I am pushing the pi but i think it is capable of doing things
if I use it efficiently. I am treating the Pi as a super computer as if
today is 1980. :)
No, I have not seen the RAM error yet but I have noticed that many calls
that are not blocked because they are not in the FCC file. When I look at
the missed numbers, I found that many of them are already registered online
as bad numbers. So I am trying to see if I can utilize the online resources
on demand instead of downloading them locally. I want to avoid issue
because FCC file will keep growing and it worries me one day it will cause
problem.
-hanz
Until there's another alternative, querying a local copy of the FCC data seems to be the best option today. There are the scripts Mike wrote, and the hangup-fcc.zip script John posted above.
I'm so glad the FCC list is available. For me, it is fairly common for NCID to hangup calls using the list so I don't have to spend as much time manually updating ncidd.blacklist. I haven't had a chance to implement John's script yet.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I think I misunderstood you originally -- I interpreted the post above as possibly saying that the FCC list is "too big" 1) for your RPi to load into memory and/or 2) NCID was taking a long time to match phone numbers against the list in memory thereby "delaying" the hangup action.
It's certainly possible to write a Hangup Extension that will perform an on-demand website lookup of a number, but the problem that several of us have run into is finding a free service with a usable Application Programming Interface (API) to do this with NCID.
So far I've heard of two that seem the most promising:
1) NCID user nospam found a site called http://calleridtest.com. See this NCID post for the discussion. The site is maintained by Jared Stenquist and I've contacted Jared but so far I haven't received API details. The site is still working, though.
2) Who Called Us is a free service but the info on the API specification appears to have been removed. David LaPorte created a circa 2013 script to query whocalled.us with NCID running on Macs but I haven't tried it yet. The main problem I've seen with whocalled.us is that the majority of the spam numbers I've tried to lookup manually are not in the whocalled.us database.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
@Todd, I found I need to check a combination of multiple sites to be more accurate but this will take a long time even if query programmatically. If a site takes 1 second to query, 4-5 sites will take 4-5 seconds, which delay the hangup and not to mention, as you wrote, they don't have APIs.
To add to your list of a place where one can check a callerID, here are a few that I found to have many numbers that called me that were missed by my FCC data: shouldianswer.com, www.whocalledme.com, no-more-calls.com, everycaller.com, badnumbers.com.
@Mike, I believe I have recent FCC2ncid which gets its data from http://opendata.fcc.gov/. I am now using hangup-fcc.zip script which I tested and seems to work nicely.
I think i know what to do now. The hangup-fcc is key. I will do some playing around to see if I can consult some of the sites listed above progammatically.
Thank you all for your help.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I've been having some exchanges with the owner of whocalled.us (you can read the public thread here) and unfortunately it doesn't sound like it's being updated by users like it used to.
Last edit: Todd Andrews 2016-11-24
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
It sounds like you're making a manual judgement call after checking multiple sites. I get what you mean by the delays in doing queries programmatically, so maybe a different approach is needed. Suppose you could design the ultimate aggregator of the info from the various sites. If the sky was the limit, what would the ideal presentation of that data look like to you?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I've been toying with the idea of creating a website to upload all the confirmed spam callers to a text based database. No java/javascript/any kind of scripting just a text list thats tiny and fast to load/update and a seperate web page for NCID users to upload their spam lists. The fcc site is interesting but I find its slow and has too much fluff and scripting going on to make it useful.
My experience is that google is nothing but a SPAM engine when it comes to trying to identify callers and google just shows tons of fake search results claiming to show caller id info.
How many users here would be interested in me creating a lightweight/fast spam number tracking site?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I tried to look but could not find a discussion on this. Sorry if this is already been discussed.
I find that the FCC data gets too big and delayed. Many new scams and phone calls are getting in and not yet in the FCC database.
Is there a hook that allows one to run a script to check if a number is good or not? Example, I can create a separate app which consulted centrally stored numbers and the script can be setup to check the app if the number is good or not.
Hi Hanz,
You can definitely use a script to check if a number is good or not. To do that, you need to use a hangup extension instead of the internal hangup.
Review the Hangup Extension section in the NCID-UserManual for more information.
The attached hangup-fcc.zip archive contains the hangup-fcc extension for using the ncid-FCC blacklist file created by a modified FCC2ncid script. It also has a README for installing and setting it up.
The hangup-fcc extension is a simple shell script that is mostly comments. Modify it to add your check for a good number.
I wrote the extension but did not test it. You may need to fix typos or my grep line. Hopefully you can provide feedback to it and the README.
Hi Hanz,
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "gets too big"? For example, are you running into an error saying you have run out of RAM?
Likewise, what do you mean by "delayed"?
@John, thanks for your suggestion. I will check it out.
@Todd, I am running my nccid on RaspberryPi 1 which is also running other stuff controlling my home automation.(garage, lights, watering plants, temperature, notification service, pihole - for blocking ads, bad sites, etc) I know I am pushing the pi but i think it is capable of doing things if I use it efficiently. I am treating the Pi as a super computer as if today is 1980. :)
No, I have not seen the RAM error yet but I have noticed that many calls that are not blocked because they are not in the FCC file. When I look at the missed numbers, I found that many of them are already registered online as bad numbers. So I am trying to see if I can utilize the online resources on demand instead of downloading them locally. I want to avoid issue because FCC file will keep growing and it worries me one day it will cause problem.
-hanz
Hi Hanz,
If you are using the list of numbers on the Wiki rather than generating
your own, please note the list on the Wiki has not be updated for months.
It seemed like a good idea for everyone to retrieve the FCC data whenever
they wanted, even every hour, although once a week works for me.
The Wiki has updated scripts to grab the FCC data, filter it, and update
the blacklist appropriately.
When I have some time I will work on making it an external add on as
messing with the blacklist could conceivably cause problems.
Mike
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Hanz Makmur makmur@users.sf.net wrote:
Until there's another alternative, querying a local copy of the FCC data seems to be the best option today. There are the scripts Mike wrote, and the hangup-fcc.zip script John posted above.
I'm so glad the FCC list is available. For me, it is fairly common for NCID to hangup calls using the list so I don't have to spend as much time manually updating ncidd.blacklist. I haven't had a chance to implement John's script yet.
Hi Hanz,
I think I misunderstood you originally -- I interpreted the post above as possibly saying that the FCC list is "too big" 1) for your RPi to load into memory and/or 2) NCID was taking a long time to match phone numbers against the list in memory thereby "delaying" the hangup action.
It's certainly possible to write a Hangup Extension that will perform an on-demand website lookup of a number, but the problem that several of us have run into is finding a free service with a usable Application Programming Interface (API) to do this with NCID.
So far I've heard of two that seem the most promising:
1) NCID user nospam found a site called http://calleridtest.com. See this NCID post for the discussion. The site is maintained by Jared Stenquist and I've contacted Jared but so far I haven't received API details. The site is still working, though.
2) Who Called Us is a free service but the info on the API specification appears to have been removed. David LaPorte created a circa 2013 script to query whocalled.us with NCID running on Macs but I haven't tried it yet. The main problem I've seen with whocalled.us is that the majority of the spam numbers I've tried to lookup manually are not in the whocalled.us database.
@Todd, I found I need to check a combination of multiple sites to be more accurate but this will take a long time even if query programmatically. If a site takes 1 second to query, 4-5 sites will take 4-5 seconds, which delay the hangup and not to mention, as you wrote, they don't have APIs.
To add to your list of a place where one can check a callerID, here are a few that I found to have many numbers that called me that were missed by my FCC data: shouldianswer.com, www.whocalledme.com, no-more-calls.com, everycaller.com, badnumbers.com.
@Mike, I believe I have recent FCC2ncid which gets its data from http://opendata.fcc.gov/. I am now using hangup-fcc.zip script which I tested and seems to work nicely.
I think i know what to do now. The hangup-fcc is key. I will do some playing around to see if I can consult some of the sites listed above progammatically.
Thank you all for your help.
I've been having some exchanges with the owner of whocalled.us (you can read the public thread here) and unfortunately it doesn't sound like it's being updated by users like it used to.
Last edit: Todd Andrews 2016-11-24
Hi Hanz,
It sounds like you're making a manual judgement call after checking multiple sites. I get what you mean by the delays in doing queries programmatically, so maybe a different approach is needed. Suppose you could design the ultimate aggregator of the info from the various sites. If the sky was the limit, what would the ideal presentation of that data look like to you?
I've been toying with the idea of creating a website to upload all the confirmed spam callers to a text based database. No java/javascript/any kind of scripting just a text list thats tiny and fast to load/update and a seperate web page for NCID users to upload their spam lists. The fcc site is interesting but I find its slow and has too much fluff and scripting going on to make it useful.
My experience is that google is nothing but a SPAM engine when it comes to trying to identify callers and google just shows tons of fake search results claiming to show caller id info.
How many users here would be interested in me creating a lightweight/fast spam number tracking site?