Can’t Some Nice Hacker Release the Personal Numbers of Folks Who Own the Robocall Companies?

Robocalls are making me contemplate violence. Can't some nice hacker release the personal numbers of the folks who own the robocall companies, so we could offer them timeshares, back braces and used underwear 300,000 times in one night? —Bubba

Your robocall-doxxing fantasy is hardly unique, Bubba. It's worth noting, however, that information obtained illegally—say, through hacking—is also illegal to publish. And if you publish it with the intent to harass, intimidate, expose, spindle or mutilate your victim, you could face charges. (You probably won't, though, especially if you remember not to use the phrase "my victim.")

In your too-long-to-publish-in-its-entirety letter (don't worry, everyone does this), you describe waiting on the line for a live person and taking out your aggressions on them by asking "inappropriate and rude" questions. Unfortunately, I can't condone this practice.

Not because I sympathize with the hapless, strictly-from-hunger telemarketers, mind you (if they're that desperate for work, armed robbery is an honorable trade), but because abusing them is a waste of your time. It's the 21st century—let robots do the abusing, so you can get back to organically human activities like dipping things in ranch dressing and popping bubble wrap.

A slough of apps with names like "RoboKiller" and "Jolly Roger" will connect the caller to a randomly chosen recorded message of someone intermittently saying non-committal things like "Uh-huh" and "OK." (Plus occasional wa-wa-wacky digressions!) This can keep the other party busy for a surprisingly long time—they'll even email you a sound file of the resulting conversation for extra schadenfreude.

Of course, this won't actually solve your problem—you may annoy one worker, but from the database's point of view, all you've done is verify that they've reached a working number that's worth calling again and again and again.

The best way to stop robocalls—or at least slow them down—is also the most boring: Register your number with the FTC at donotcall.gov, then tell every caller, "Please put me on your do not call list." You have to say this to each caller to put yourself legally out of their reach; just hanging up or not answering won't cut it.

While unabashedly criminal scammers ignore such lists, most of the folks who bug you actually fancy themselves legitimate businesses and will comply—grudgingly—with the law.