So you've probably gotten a call like this.

你可能接到過這樣的電話。

These are most of the phone calls I get at this point.

我現在接到的電話大部分都是這樣。

And if someone tries to actually call me, I usually assume it's a robocall and don't pick up.

如果有人真的想打電話給我，我通常會認為是自動語音電話而不接。

Consumer Reports estimated that Americans received 48 billion robocalls in 2018.

《消費者報告》估計，美國人在 2018 年接到了 480 億通的自動語音電話。

There's so many robots in the system that there's no room left for humans.

系統裡有那麼多的機器語音電話，以至於沒有空間給人類打電話了。

It's a huge problem and a huge regulatory failure, given how controlled the phone system is.

這是一個嚴重的問題，也是一個嚴重的的監管失敗，有鑑於電話系統是受到嚴格控管的。

But fixing that problem is a lot harder than it looks.

但解決這個問題比看起來要難得多。

You only understand why, when you look at the big picture.

你只有從大局看才會明白為什麼。

So there's sort of two separate issues here.

這裡分別有兩個問題。

There's a technological issue that created the problem and a legal issue that kept us from fixing it.

一個是造成問題的技術問題和讓我們無法去處理這個問題的法律問題。

But let's start with the tech problem.

但我們先從技術問題說起。

Of course, no one was gonna bother calling 10,000 people with a rotary phone routed by human switchboard operators, just to find one person who would fall for their car insurance scam.

當然，沒有人會費心請人工總機接線員打電話給一萬個人，就只為了找到一個會因為他們的汽車保險而受騙上當的人。

Once you get into the 1960s, you start to see autodialers which are physical machines that would run through numbers automatically, and telemarketers became a problem pretty quickly.

進到 1960 年代後，自動撥號器出現，它們是可以自動撥號的機器，而電話推銷很快就成了一個問題。

But the closed nature of the phone system made it hard to mount a full-scale spam operation.

但是電話系統的封閉性使得很難進行全面的封鎖垃圾電話。

The phone company controlled the whole network from the switches to the phone numbers to the wires themselves.

電信公司控制了整個網絡，從電話號碼之間的流動到到電線本身。

So if they really wanted to find you, there was nowhere you could hide.

所以，如果他們真的想找你，你無處可藏。

The important change for robocallers didn't come from the hardware but (from) the network itself, the actual physical material that was carrying the information.

自動語音電話的重大改變不是來自硬件，而是網絡本身，即承載信息的實質材料。

The original phone system was built with copper wire, which is fine for voice calls,

原來的電話系統是用銅線建造的，很適合語音通話，

but when the internet happened, suddenly most residential homes were using that same copper to dial onto the internet.

但是當互聯網出現時，突然間大多數住宅都使用相同的銅線撥號上網。

It was really slow, and we only got faster speeds by laying new connections with fiber optic cable.

上網的速度真的很慢，我們只能架設新的光謙來獲得更快的上網速度。

That's the modern broadband network we use today.

這就是我們現今使用的寬頻網絡。

Once they laid that fiber, it was easier just to use fiber for everything, especially since the companies selling you phone service were often the same companies selling you cable and internet.

一旦他們架設了光纖，就更容易用光纖執行所有事情，特別是因為提供你電話服務的公司通常也會提供你有線電視和網路的服務。

But that fiber didn't get laid everywhere.

但光纖並不是到處都可以架設的。

So now you've got a strange mash-up of copper networks and fiber networks mixing phone traffic and internet traffic with lots of places to jump from one network to the other.

所以現在你有一個銅線網絡和光纖網絡的奇怪混搭，混合了電話流量和網路流量，有很多地方可以從一個網絡跳轉到另一個網絡。

The weird overlap of the two networks work like a border town.

兩個網絡的奇怪重疊就像一個邊境小鎮。

Anytime spammers got in trouble on the phone system, they could switch back to the internet and disappear.

每當垃圾郵件發送者在電話系統上搞出麻煩時，他們都可以切換回網路並消失。

There were IP phone systems that could be hacked, anonymous online call services and dozens of other tricks that robocallers took full advantage of.

駭客入侵 IP 電話系統、匿名的網路撥號以及其他許多被自動語音電話利用的方式。

The basic rule here is that if you're on the internet, you get spam.

基本上，如果你使用網路，就會收到垃圾電話。

They are just as many spam emails as there are robocalls and they're running a lot of the same scams.

它們和很多垃圾郵件一樣，有自動語音電話，也在進行很多相同的騙局。

But we've gotten pretty good at dealing with it in email.

但我們對於處理垃圾郵件問題已經得心應手了。

Those filters aren't perfect but they mostly work.

這些垃圾郵件過濾軟件並不完美，但大部分都有用。

So, why can't we do that with robocalls?

那我們為什麼不能也用在垃圾電話上呢？

This is where the legal problem comes in.

這裡就出現法律問題了。

It turns out there's a specific law that has stopped phone companies from treating robocalls like spam, passed before computers even existed.

結果是，有一項特定的法律阻止了電信公司將自動語音電話視為垃圾電話，甚至在電腦出現之前就通過了。

The Communications Act of 1934 was passed after the government realized that Bell Telephone was gonna be the only phone company in the country.

在政府意識到貝爾電話將成為該國唯一的電信公司後，在 1934 年通過了《通信法》。

And without some kind of regulation, there was nothing to stop them from jacking up prices or manipulating service.

如果沒有某種監管下，就無法阻止他們抬高價格或操縱電信服務。

So a law was written to keep the company in line.

因此制定了一項法律使電信公司保持一致。

In particular, the Communications Act made it illegal to subject any particular person, class of persons or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.

特別是，《通信法》規定，使任何特定的人、個人或地區受到任何不正當或不合理的偏見或不利影響是非法的。

In other words, they had to provide the same phone service to everyone at a fair price.

換句話說，他們必須以公平的價格提供同樣的電信服務給大家。

So, that rule's really important.

所以，這個法律真的很重要。

Without that regulation, the phone company could decide that every call to a certain town was gonna count as long-distance,

如果沒有這個規定，電信公司可以決定每次打到某個城鎮的電話都算作長途電話，

or refuse phone service to people if they thought they were gonna use them for something the company didn't like.

或者如果認為使用者會將電信服務用於該公司不喜歡的事情上，則拒絕為他們提供電信服務。

But carriers also took the rule to mean they had to deliver every call, even the ones that look sketchy.

但運營商也認為這條規則意味著他們必須接聽每一個電話，即使是那些看起來很假的電話。

If they got it wrong and blocked a real person, it could look an awful lot like unreasonable prejudice.

如果他們弄錯了並封鎖了一個真實的使用者，那事情會看起來像不合理的偏見。

That meant that for years, the best you could do to fight robocalls was installing a third-party app on your phone.

這意味著多年來，對抗自動語音電話的最好辦法就是在手機上安裝第三方應用程式。

As long as carriers were still delivering the call, they didn't mind if an app blocked it for you.

只要運營商仍接撥電話，他們就不介意應用程式是否為你阻擋垃圾電話。

But you still had to deal with calls as they came in, some of the apps cost money and it was hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones.

但是你仍然必須處理打進來的電話，有一些應用程式要花錢，而且很難區分真的電話跟假的電話。

This summer, the FCC finally stepped in.

今年夏天，FCC 終於出手了。

On June 6, 2019 the Commission voted to affirm robocall blocking by default.

在 2019 年 6 月 6 日，委員會投票確認默認阻止自動語音電話。

Basically promising that they wouldn't sue carriers for blocking robocalls before they're delivered.

基本上承諾不會起訴運營商在垃圾電話撥通之前阻擋它們。

Most carriers are already offering services that will block the calls up front, although the options vary from company to company, and sometimes you still have to opt-in.

儘管選擇因公司而異，而且有時你然必須手動設定，但大多數運營商已經提供了可以預先阻止自動語音電話的服務。

Now it's too early to say that we've solved the robocall problem.

現在說我們已經解決了垃圾電話的問題還為時過早。

Carriers are actively blocking calls now which is great, but it means robocallers are getting more serious about evading the filters,

運營商現在主動屏蔽垃圾電話，這很好，但這意味著自動語音電話對於繞過過濾軟件也越來越認真了，

which also means filters have to get better just to keep pace.

這也意味著過濾軟件必須跟上時代進步。

It's a whole new arms race and with the FCC out of the way, it's just getting started.

這是一場全新的競賽，隨著 FCC 的退出，一切才剛剛開始。

So, if you want a little more information about what you can do to get robocalls off your phone, my friend, Jake, did a step-by-step guide of exactly what you need to be looking for.

如果你想了解更多有關如何從手機中屏蔽自動語音電話的資訊，我的朋友 Jake 提供了一份關於你需要尋找的內容的步驟指南。

Otherwise, thanks for watching!

謝謝你的觀看！