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From fake social security calls to scammers impersonating Apple or Amazon, anyone with a cellphone or landline is no stranger to robocalls.

For decades, robocall scammers have graced phones and voicemails across the nation. Between June 2020 and 2021 these scams affected more than 59 million people who lost a combined $29.8 billion, according to phone number identification app Trucaller. Some robocallers look to sell legal products like a car warranty or new roof through illegal means, while others will steal your social security number or credit card.

In an effort to curb this longstanding problem, the Federal Communications Commission is requiring voice service providers to implement caller ID authentication standards via a set of industry rules known as STIR/SHAKEN. The FCC required large carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to implement the standards by June 30, though smaller carriers, with under 100,000 customers, have an extension.

Simultaneously, voice service providers must submit a plan highlighting their robocall mitigation efforts in a recently launched database. If the plan isn’t in the database beginning Sept. 28, carriers will have to stop accepting calls from those providers.

STIR/SHAKEN is a good start to ending this ever-evolving issue of robocalls, and, while the updates will slow scammers down, experts say they won’t disappear.

“It’s a game of Whac-A-Mole,” said Paul Schmitt, a research computer scientist at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute. “Robocallers will find other ways to do what they want to do.”

What is STIR/SHAKEN?

STIR/SHAKEN refers to the set of industry rules requiring voice providers to authenticate that the call people receive is from the number displayed.

Attestation is the framework used for determining the legitimacy of the caller. It acts as a virtual signature indicating how confident a provider is that a caller is allowed to use a specific phone number. It’s broken down into three levels based on how much information the providers know about the caller, with the lowest level meaning the provider can verify where the call came from, but not the caller ID.

STIR/SHAKEN puts pressure on domestic carriers to increase their protected technology, create a database and will likely push illegal domestic robocalls out of the country, said Scott White, director of George Washington University’s cybersecurity program and cyber academy.

While it makes it harder to spoof or use false caller ID information to scam you, it’s not foolproof. The technology verifies that the original number is what shows up for the consumer, but scammers can falsify the number from the get-go. The system does not work on landlines.

When signing a call, some providers use the highest attestation without proper due diligence, said Josh Bercu, vice president of policy and advocacy at USTelecom, a trade group representing telecom companies. If the industry gets evidence of that, the provider could lose their ability to sign or attest.

“The industry hates these calls,” said Bercu. “We want to protect our subscribers, we’re doing everything we can and the impact is starting to really show itself.”

Fighting evolving robocalls

While STIR/SHAKEN can help crack down at home, the FCC has little jurisdiction abroad where many calls originate. The agency can work with international partners to catch scammers, but some countries won’t cooperate. Robocalls reel in billions of dollars in profits every year and many have found ways to use artificial intelligence or data to create targeted lists for scamming.

Some overseas scammers will purchase a block of numbers to make calls and disappear. Domestic scammers may use recent changes as an opportunity to move operations abroad where there’s less oversight, White added. Gateway carriers serve as the main form of entry into the U.S. for foreign calls but many operate outside the U.S.

The biggest issue is that robocalls are evolving faster than legislation can keep up, said White.

Next steps to ending robocalls

Robocalls are decreasing. In August, Americans received roughly 4.1 billion robocalls, down 4.4% from July, which decreased 4.8% from June, according to data from YouMail, a company that creates robocall blocking software.

YouMail is one of several third-party companies like Truecaller, RoboKiller and Hiya that offer spam-blocking software. YouMail’s CEO Alex Quilici, said the company can match audio to find repeat offenders, but only when they leave a voicemail.

Large telecom companies offer customers their own robocall blocking apps, with features like caller ID identification, personal blocklists and a number change. Some of these features cost customers an additional fee depending on their plan and provider.

A Verizon spokesperson said the company recently launched a social media campaign with a tech influencer to help consumers spot robocalls. Efforts to mitigate robocalls have led to 500 million fewer calls per month, they added. An AT&T spokesperson said the company labels 1 billion robocalls a month. T-Mobile verifies more than 300 million calls every weekday, a spokesperson said.

Bercu, the USTelecom VP, is working with both providers and the government on tracing back suspicious calls to shut down scammers. Another step is getting other countries to sign onto STIR/SHAKEN, said Eric Burger, a research professor of computer science at Georgetown University.

Despite concerns about its effectiveness, STIR/SHAKEN is not worthless legislation, said White. The process can help companies and the government do better analytics and gather information to use for the next attack.

“The people complained, and the government responded,” he said. “That’s what you want to see in a democracy.”

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.

The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.

Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.

The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.

Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.

Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”

Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.

Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at $2.4 billion valuation

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at .4 billion valuation

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.

Reuters

Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.

Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.

Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.

The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.

The news comes days after OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the AI startup to better compete with search engines like GoogleMicrosoft‘s Bing and Perplexity. Last month, OpenAI also closed its latest funding round at a valuation of $157 billion.

Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.

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Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post’s non-endorsement a ‘blunder’

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Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post's non-endorsement a 'blunder'

Watch CNBC's full interview with IAC and Expedia chairman Barry Diller

To Barry Diller, a friend of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the decision for The Washington Post not to endorse a candidate in tomorrow’s presidential election was “absolutely principled” — and poorly timed, he said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“They made a blunder — it should’ve happened months before, and it didn’t, and that’s the issue with it,” Diller said.

Diller is chairperson of both online travel company Expedia and IAC, which owns media platforms and websites like Dotdash Meredith and Care.com. He and Bezos appear to have been close friends for years, with Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, hosting Bezos’s engagement party to fiancee Lauren Sanchez.

The decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race or for future presidential races came directly from Bezos, the paper’s owner, according to an article published by two of the Post’s own reporters.

The move prompted public condemnation from several staff writers, a flood of at least 250,000 digital subscription cancellations and the resignations of at least three editorial board members.

Bezos defended his position in his own op-ed late last month, calling the move a “meaningful step in the right direction” to restore low public trust in media and journalism.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos wrote, emphasizing that the decision to not endorse a candidate was made “entirely internally” and without consulting either campaign. “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it.”

Diller said he spoke to Bezos following the decision.

“I think it was absolutely principled,” Diller said. “The mistake they made — and it was a mistake admitted by him — was timing.”

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