System for blocking spam phone calls on the Internet

Research lead | Development opportunity

Researchers at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) have developed a new system for filtering spam telephone calls. With free Internet-based telephony, such as Skype, rapidly gaining popularity over traditional charged calls, the risk of spam calls is increasing. HIIT researchers Joakim Koskela, Juho Heikkilä and Andrei Gurtov have created a system for filtering calls on peer-to-peer networks in a more flexible way than before.

In the new system, users can accept calls from people who they don’t know, but who are among the contacts of friends, or even friends of contacts. Before the user answers the phone, the system will give a warning if he/she does not know the caller.

In technical terms the goal is to implement an application integrating the Host Identity Protocol with the Peer-to-peer Session Initiation Protocol. The application provides Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and instant messaging capabilities, using trust chains to prevent spam calls.

The researchers are part of the Future Internet programme at HIIT, which is a joint research institute of Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Helsinki.

www.hiit.fi