Techniques to protect users from unwanted phone calls

Abstract

Procedure to protect users from unwanted telephone calls, the procedure comprising the following steps: • Provision of a control unit in a DECT base station or as a module integrated in a smartphone on a telephone channel leading to the user's telephone connection; • Recording an identification of an incoming call from a foreign telephone connection; • Transfer of the identification to a control algorithm; • Determination by the control algorithm on the basis of the identification in conjunction with stored historical data in connection with the identification as to whether it is an unwanted third-party telephone connection, whereby an unwanted third-party telephone connection is identified if a number of calls within a certain time interval exceeds a specified threshold; • Blocking the unwanted foreign telephone connection for a period of time T by means of the control unit.

Description

[0001] The invention relates to techniques for protecting users from unwanted telephone calls.

[0002] Unfortunately, telephone fraud or unwanted calls from fraudsters are becoming increasingly popular, especially due to flat-rate tariffs and certain automation processes.

[0003] These types of calls have gained a certain infamous notoriety under the term "grandparent scam." In this case, the scammers call victims in such a way that they are virtually flooded with information, leaving older people in particular with no time to think or to contact the police or relatives for help and advice. However, it is particularly important for older people to remain reachable by phone, so blocking all phone calls, which would prevent calls from scammers, would also detrimentally prevent important calls from family.

[0004] EP 3 629 567 A1 relates to a method and a system for the automated identification and defense against unwanted telephone calls, comprising the following steps: registration of a telephone connection of a caller to a party being called by a telephone exchange during a call, starting an algorithm in the telephone exchange before the call is put through to the party being called, - wherein the algorithm accesses a database which contains information, in particular spam identification data, about telephone connections, - wherein the algorithm uses the information stored in the database to analyze the telephone connection of the caller with regard to a possible unwanted call and, if a threshold value is exceeded, marks it as an unwanted call, initiation of technical defense measures by the telephone exchange if the call is an unwanted call, wherein the defense measures protect the party being called from the unwanted call.

[0005] DE 10 2019 118 175 A1 concerns a protective device that recognizes the intention of a conversation participant during a telecommunication. Using automatic speech recognition, the conversation sequence is recorded and compared with a predefined model that defines which combination of speech signals corresponds to a specific intention. Based on this comparison, the respective intention is identified, and an associated protective measure is implemented.

[0006] It is therefore the object of the invention to provide techniques that specifically prevent unwanted calls from being received by a user.

[0007] This task is solved with the features of the independent claims.

[0008] The features of the various aspects of the invention or the various embodiments described below can be combined with one another unless this is explicitly excluded or technically mandatory.

[0009] According to the invention, a method is provided for protecting users from unwanted telephone calls, the method comprising the following steps: • Providing a control unit on a telephone channel leading to the user’s telephone connection; ◯ In this case, the telephone channel can, for example, be routed through the control unit, whereby the control unit is at least arranged on the telephone channel in such a way that it can intercept data from incoming calls, in particular data identifying a third-party subscriber line, and / or selectively block calls from such third-party subscriber lines. It may be expedient to arrange the control unit logically upstream of the user's subscriber line, so that virtually no bypass is offered to the incoming call. In the context of this invention, a called party is referred to as the user. • Recording an identification of an incoming call from a foreign telephone connection; ◯ This identification can be, for example, the telephone number, but also other characteristics that can be captured despite number suppression. For example, the line ID and / or IP addresses of the third-party telephone connection could serve as such identifiers to characterize the third-party telephone connection. • Transfer of the identification to a control algorithm; • Determination by the control algorithm on the basis of the identification in conjunction with stored historical data in connection with the identification as to whether it is an unwanted third-party telephone connection; ◯ The control algorithm can also access stored historical data to determine whether a particular phone number is being used. For example, if the control algorithm detects that calls with the same identification have occurred too frequently within a certain period of time—i.e., if they exceed a specified threshold—the control algorithm identifies unwanted calling behavior and marks the phone number associated with the identification as an unwanted phone number. In the case of the grandchild scam, for example, experience shows that at least 20-30 calls are made to victims within a period of 1-2 hours. ◯ It is useful if the history data contains at least the identifiers along with the timestamps of the incoming calls in one row of a table. Other parameters that can enable the detection of unwanted calls – and which can also preferably be entered in the row of the table – are: ▪ the length of the calls: the shorter the duration of a call, the higher the probability that it is an unwanted call; ▪ Characteristics of the number and / or IP address of the foreign telephone connection: this can be used to determine the distance between the foreign telephone connection and the user. The greater the distance, the greater the likelihood that the call is an unwanted call. • Blocking the unwanted foreign telephone connection, which is identified in particular by its identifier, for a period of time T by means of the control unit. ◯ This can be implemented in a similar way to the timeouts that are widespread today when an incorrect password is entered when logging on to websites. In this case, a timeout is triggered when an incorrect password is entered in order to effectively prevent repeated attacks by scripts and automated processes. If the calling behavior deviates from a call pattern defined as normal, the telephone connection for this identification is temporarily blocked. Preferably, the user can be offered various predefined call patterns that they can select as a normal call pattern that is typical for them. This takes into account the fact that one user is called more frequently than another. Instead of entering an incorrect password, the invention now determines that the call is unwanted and then blocks it.This offers the advantage that it is usually not worthwhile for fraudsters to wait for the time period T and then call again, whereas family members, for example, are still able to reach the user after the time period T. One advantage of this "non-rigid" blocking is that the inconvenience for a caller who is mistakenly blocked as unwanted calls is minimal, but this minimal inconvenience simultaneously effectively protects against fraudsters.

[0010] Preferably, data from incoming calls will be stored in a database of the control unit as historical data. In particular, this data is automatically stored in the database and retained for a predefined period of time, for example, one week, after which it can be deleted.

[0011] This offers the advantage that the control algorithm can effectively access the data it needs to detect an unwanted call pattern.

[0012] In a preferred embodiment, the time period T becomes longer if the unwanted telephone connection calls again within the time period T.

[0013] This offers the advantage that unwanted calls, in particular, can be dynamically blocked for a longer period of time T, thus protecting the user even more effectively from unwanted calls. The blocking period is thus successively extended for further call attempts from the same originating number until the call behavior returns to normal, i.e., until the call frequency falls below a predefined value.

[0014] Certain numbers or identifiers can be made known to the control unit as a white list, whereby the control unit exempts these numbers from blocking.

[0015] This offers the advantage that the user can, for example, make phone numbers of acquaintances accessible to the control unit, so that these are never blocked by the control algorithm. Preferably, these numbers are also stored in the database.

[0016] Advantageously, information about the unwanted call, particularly its identification, is forwarded to a network operator. This offers the advantage that a network operator can determine whether corresponding telephone numbers and / or identifiers assigned to a certain subscriber connection are being forwarded or reported frequently. This enables the network operator to block the corresponding subscriber connection virtually independently, in addition to the blocking by the control unit, in order to proactively protect against further callers in advance.

[0017] In one embodiment, the user blocks the call, which places the foreign telephone number on a blacklist. By entering a provider-defined DTMF code during an accepted call, which is only recognized as unwanted during the call, the call number can be directly added to the user's individual blacklist.

[0018] According to a second aspect of the invention, a control unit is provided to protect the user from unwanted telephone calls, the control unit comprising: • an interface to a telephone connection of the user, wherein the control unit is set up to retrieve data, in particular an identification, of incoming third-party calls to the telephone connection of the user; • a blocking module, wherein the blocking module is configured to block unwanted calls towards the user; • a computing module, wherein a control algorithm is implemented on the computing module, wherein the control algorithm is configured to carry out the steps of the method described above.

[0019] With such a control unit, analogous advantages can be achieved that have already been described above in connection with the method.

[0020] Preferably, the control unit is integrated into a DECT base station, an IP telephone switching backbone and / or as a module in a smartphone.

[0021] This offers the advantage that the control unit is integrated into devices that are already required to establish the telephone connection, whereby these devices also have access to the telephone channel and can therefore query the corresponding data, and can also be conveniently set up to block the call.

[0022] In the following, preferred embodiments of the present invention are explained with reference to the accompanying figure: Fig. 1: a communication system comprising the control unit according to the invention for blocking unwanted telephone calls.

[0023] Numerous features of the present invention are explained in detail below using preferred embodiments. The present disclosure is not limited to the specifically mentioned feature combinations. Rather, the features mentioned here can be combined in any desired way to form embodiments of the invention, unless expressly excluded below.

[0024] Fig.1 shows a communication system 100 with a telephone 105 of a user, in particular a smartphone 105 and / or a home telephone 105. A control unit 110 for executing the method according to the invention on a telephone channel 115 is logically connected upstream of the telephone 105.

[0025] By logically connecting the control unit 110 upstream of the telephone 105, the control unit 110 can particularly effectively query information about a subscriber connection of an incoming call, in particular parameters that enable its identification, and also block it.

[0026] The telephone channel 115 runs from the control unit 110 into the communication network 120, wherein the communication network 120 enables telephone channels, in particular landline and / or mobile radio channels, to additional telephones 125. Potentially unwanted calls can be made from these additional telephones 125 to the user's telephone 105.

[0027] And to effectively protect the user of the telephone 105 from unwanted calls, the control unit 110 is configured to carry out the following procedure: Step 130: Capturing an identification of an incoming call from a foreign telephone line of a foreign telephone 125; Step 135: Transferring the identification to a control algorithm, wherein the control algorithm is implemented on the control unit 110; Step 140: Determination by the control algorithm on the basis of the identification in conjunction with stored historical data in connection with the identification, whether the telephone connection is an unwanted third-party telephone connection; Step 145: Blocking the unwanted foreign telephone connection for a period of time T by means of the control unit 110.

[0028] A concrete application example could be as follows: As soon as the control algorithm determines that within a defined period of time, for example, three calls are made within one minute from a specific third-party telephone 125 to telephone 105 - regardless of whether the user answers the call or not - an automatic delay is triggered for the connection of this third-party telephone 125, so that a fraudster attempting to call telephone 105 using the third-party telephone 125 cannot temporarily reach it and is blocked. This call delay can be canceled after 1 minute, for example. If further calls are received from the same telephone 125, or from the subscriber line assigned to telephone 125, a new call delay can be activated, whereby the corresponding subscriber line is delayed or blocked for 5 minutes in this case.This call delay can be gradually extended for subsequent calls until the call behavior returns to normal or a specific fraud attempt is abandoned.

Claims

[1] A method to protect users from unwanted telephone calls, the method comprising the following steps: • Provision of a control unit in a DECT base station or as a module integrated in a smartphone on a telephone channel leading to the user's telephone connection; • Recording an identification of an incoming call from a foreign telephone connection; • Transfer of the identification to a control algorithm; • Determination by the control algorithm on the basis of the identification in conjunction with stored historical data in connection with the identification as to whether it is an unwanted third-party telephone connection, whereby an unwanted third-party telephone connection is identified if a number of calls within a certain time interval exceeds a specified threshold; • Blocking the unwanted foreign telephone connection for a period of time T by means of the control unit. [2] Method according to claim 1, characterized by that data from incoming calls are stored in a database of the control unit as history data. [3] Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized by that the time period T becomes longer if the unwanted telephone connection calls again within the time period T. [4] Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized by that certain numbers are made known to the control unit as a white list, whereby the control unit exempts these numbers from blocking. [5] Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized by that information about the unwanted call, in particular its identification, is forwarded to a network operator. [6] Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized by that the user actively blocks the call, which puts the foreign telephone connection on a blacklist. [7] Control unit to protect users from unwanted telephone calls comprehensively • an interface to a telephone connection of the user, wherein the control unit is set up to retrieve data, in particular an identification, of incoming third-party calls to the telephone connection of the user; • a blocking module, wherein the blocking module is configured to block unwanted calls to the user; • a computing module, wherein a control algorithm is implemented on the computing module, wherein the control algorithm is arranged to carry out the steps of the method according to one of claims 1-6, The control unit is integrated into a DECT base station or as a module in a smartphone.

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