Can I black-list an entire area code?

[lbmofo]

Bobby B, thank you. Great news. I tested it and it works great.

Can you tell us if the rest of the related stuff is in the works? /viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14441&start=10#p104475

For example, treatment being on the entry level..... One might choose to block the entire 206 area code and put it right through to VM but then later finds out that a number keeps calling and leaves blank VMs...then one might choose to block that specific number to get "continuous ring" or "number disconnected" message to supercede the wildcard entry.

[holmes4]

Yay!

[holmes4]

I entered a blacklist number as *000* trying to catch the robocallers that supply an invalid 000 exchange. It got entered as 000*. Will this do what I want? I'm not sure it will - I then entered 899* to block the 899 area code (invalid), and it shows as 899*. One of these is going to be wrong.

[lbmofo]

The way Ooma implemented wildcard blacklist, the * can only be at the end. So if you want to block the whole area code, you'd specify the area code and the * at the end. Example: 206* and 714*

[holmes4]

It does look that way. I added a block for 89* and 99*, but I can't block xxx-0nn-xxxx or xxx-1nn-xxxx, which robocallers often use in their spoofed caller ID. I wonder why Ooma did such a limited implementation. It isn't any harder, programatically, to have allowed more powerful patterns. (I am a software engineer.)

[MLXXXp]

It would have been nice to have a character, such as "?" or ".", to wildcard a single digit. That way blocking an exchange, as holmes4 wants, could be done like ???000* or ???000????.

I you wanted to go further, supporting a subset of standard regular expressions, with only digits for text, may be beneficial. For instance, the expression [156] would be a single 1 or 5 or 6 at a specific location. [2-5] would mean any digit from 2 to 5 at that location. Then, additionally supporting a boolean "or" using the "|" character and grouping with parentheses "()" would probably be enough for full wildcard flexibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression

[holmes4]

I'd never go so far as to suggest regular expressions, but a single-character wildcard ( ?or %) would be simple enough for customers to understand how to use.

[Bobby B]

Can you tell us if the rest of the related stuff is in the works? /viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14441&start=10#p104475.

The items in the above thread are on the enhancement list, but I don't expect any will be actively worked on this quarter.

I you wanted to go further, supporting a subset of standard regular expressions, with only digits for text, may be beneficial.

A regular expression engine is more computationally expensive and may "clog the pipe". When the server is trying to match the number against one or more blacklist entries, this matching process needs to be as fast as possible, especially when there's many other calls waiting to be processed.

[mobile-ed]

Re: Can I black-list an entire area code?

Postby Bobby B » Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:22 am
We're happy to announce that you can add blacklist entries with a wildcard now! To add an entry, goto https://my.ooma.com/blacklists and enter the set of digits followed by a "*". For example, to block numbers that start with "408-555", you'd enter "408555*".

I assume the 3 numbers that a number starts with are the area code? I have added 5 wild card entries this way and are still getting calls from all those area codes that are now "blacklisted*".

[lbmofo]

I assume the 3 numbers that a number starts with are the area code? I have added 5 wild card entries this way and are still getting calls from all those area codes that are now "blacklisted*".

Are you adding the * at the end? Is your personal blacklist enabled?