Communications of the ACM
Ftc Pits Humans Against Robocalls in New Contest
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is launching two contests to get the public's help in developing solutions to block, forward, and analyze automated calls.
Credit: Rashevskyi Viacheslav/Shutterstock.com
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is launching two contests asking the public to develop solutions for blocking, forwarding, and analyzing automated calls.
The open competitions engage communities that have not previously examined this problem, according to FTC attorney Patricia Hsue.
The U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology last week approved a bill to support federally funded challenge contests, such as those sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The FTC's first contest asks participants to build a system that can identify incoming robocalls, block them, and then forward them to a honeypot, a system the government can use to analyze the calls.
The second competition asks contestants to analyze real data from an existing honeypot by developing an algorithm that can identify which calls are likely to be robocalls. Hsue says submissions could help design better honeypots to lure more robocallers, enabling law enforcement and academics to collect more data on robocalling patterns.
Although the FTC tries to combat robocalls, the people who design those systems are constantly changing their strategies. "The reality is, as we refine our tactics, they refine their tactics," Hsue says. "It's just going to be a constant battle between the two."
From NextGov.com
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2015 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found