Edge Rewrite
// HTMLRewriter · presentation

This page was redesigned at the edge.

Cloudflare fetched the original article and streamed it through HTMLRewriter to apply an entirely new visual system without rebuilding the source page.

// request.cf · coarse context

A page that knows where it met you.

Only coarse request metadata is shown. This demo does not display or persist visitor IP addresses.

Country
US
Cloudflare location
CMH
Connection
HTTP/2
Language
Not provided

Ray ID: a27af20f3e4190c0

Jump to content

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2018 March 8

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Computing desk
< March 7 << Feb | March | Apr >> March 9 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


March 8

[edit]

Yes?

[edit]

The phone rang, I picked it up, and after a few seconds a voice asked, "Hello, Hal?" I answered, "Yes," and the caller hung up.

I read that this could be a scam, where all they need to do me some harm is to get a recording of my voice saying, "Yes." Is this what likely happened? How would they use this? I don't suppose there is anything I can do about it now? --Halcatalyst (talk) 02:47, 8 March 2018 (UTC)reply

See here for a warning about this sort of call. DuncanHill (talk) 02:52, 8 March 2018 (UTC)reply
It's difficult to see how a recording of you saying yes could be of any use to scammers. According to Snopes there is no evidence that this is a scam. Probably just some troll.--Shantavira|feed me 09:16, 8 March 2018 (UTC)reply
My relative in Poland got a similar call some three days ago, luckily did not answer the call and it fell into a voicemail. The calling number was quite strange, it was about normal length of 9 digits, but it was starting from digits 1234... --CiaPan (talk) 12:11, 8 March 2018 (UTC)reply
Not their real number. See caller ID spoofing. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 22:03, 8 March 2018 (UTC)reply

I appreciate your responses. Yes, I had wondered how much traction they would get with just "yes." Snopes calls the claim unproven, and I'm content to let it go at that. --Halcatalyst (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2018 (UTC)reply

messing with robocallers

[edit]

On a loosely related note: When I pick up the phone I say "Good day/evening" rather than "Hello", and very often there's a few seconds of silence before a puzzled voice says "Hello??". Is it plausible to suppose that the robo-dialer doesn't alert the human operator of a 'hit' unless it hears "Hello"? —Tamfang (talk) 05:42, 10 March 2018 (UTC)reply

Probably the robocaller calls up the human operator after it hears a human voice, and it takes a little while for them to pick up the phone. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:20, 14 March 2018 (UTC)reply

can't block number on Android

[edit]

I'm getting a recurring spam call on my Android 7.0 phone that displays as coming from some weird international number. When I try to block the number in the standard phone app, it says the number is invalid. Seems pretty dumb to be unable to block a number based on how it will be displayed on the screen, but there we are. Any suggestions? Thanks. 73.71.213.123 (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)reply

This is not a new problem. See or . Ruslik_Zero 19:41, 9 March 2018 (UTC)reply