Linux Caller ID / Call Screening solution?

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Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2001
Messages
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Okay, so, here's the context:

My parents get a good 6-7 telemarketer calls a day, despite being on the Do Not Call list. They pretty much just never answer the phone anymore, and let it go right to their answering machine to screen the call. They aren't the most technologically savvy of people, and getting them to convert over to cell phones, or to switch to a new number, is out of the cards.

Now, what I was hoping to do, was find some way of screening their calls. Basically, I'd like to be able to take the Caller ID of the person calling, and automatically either have the phone keep ringing so they can pick up, forward the caller straight to voice mail, or just block the call (hang up immediately, for example, or play a prerecorded message saying the call has been blocked).

I've found 3rd-party products like this: http://www.privacycorps.com/products/?id=20. However, I have a perfectly good MicroATX P3 computer lying around their house somewhere, that I'm fairly certain still works. What I was hoping to do, was get a low-profile modem that supports Caller ID functions, and turn it into a linux call screening device.

The problem is, I have no idea how to go about this. I've read about Asterisk, but it's such a big, complicated piece of software that I'm having trouble finding any good how-to's for home use on how to do something that I thought would be relatively simple. Maybe my google-fu just isn't as good as it used to be.

So I guess what I'm wondering, was if anyone had any links for any good, simple how-to's on setting up something like this, using asterisk or whatever, for home use, or any good distros that might accomplish something like this.
 
If they have internet I'd sign them up for a free voip solution so you can redirect the unwanted analog call through the free voip line to Chechnya or Guam. :)

Some easier web based Asterisk solutions:
FreePBX http://www.freepbx.org/
Trixbox http://www.trixbox.org/

You will need more than a computer. You will need a card to connect the analog phone line to the computer, and then some analog to IP converters to convert the analog phones to work over IP. Or you'll need IP phones and get rid of the analog phones.

Aastra makes great IP phones and has wireless IP phones as well.
http://www.aastra.com/cps/rde/xchg/SID-3D8CCB6A-B7939C7B/04/hs.xsl/19700.htm

Take the time to learn it, and it will literally pay you back a hundred times in terms of being able to get paid for doing it. In this economy having extra skills is always worthwhile.

this is a great resource: http://www.voip-info.org/

Here is a video on setting up trixbox http://www.videotutorialzone.com/vo...asic-trixbox-ce-system-for-asterisk-voip.html
 
Ahh thanks for the info. I'm not opposed to learning the whole thing, it's just getting started that seemed so daunting- since I only wanted a small setup, it was hard to find good links on how to get it all setup. I'll have to try out FreePBX and Trixbox on some VMs later. Although I'm starting to think this may be overkill for what they need- but I'll keep doing research.
 
I'm not too sure that Asterisk is actually what you want here. It should allow you to do what you're looking to do, but it's rather a blunt instrument for the task I think, but it gets you lots of other capabilities as well so maybe it is worth it. You probably have to reconfigure their setup so that Asterisk handles the incoming call on its FXO interface and then if it's accepted, presents the call a separate FXS that all the phones connect to. By the time you get this far, it almost makes sense to just port the number over to a dedicated VOIP service and set Asterisk up as a proper SIP PBX. Deaing with the analog POTS has lots of limitations that get annoying fast when you're working with this stuff. Caller ID doesn't arrive for a couple rings, you can only have one active call per interface & line (so forwarding needs two, etc.), rates are higher and so on, but it will work in an emergency.

If you've got a bit of scripting skill, the easiest way to tackle this is probably with something like Python and a serial port library. The commands to enable CID are simple, and the modem will report the CID information as the phone is ringing, you can then choose to send it the command to pick up and hang up the call or let it ring. I doubt there's a way to transfer to voicemail, but this would at least let you terminate or forward the call after a couple rings.

The Asterisk solution gets you the whole shebang, since you'd be running a separate phone system controlling all the local phones, you can get full control over when they start to ring, run local voicemail so you can transfer calls there, or forward to NAMBLA's phone number or whatever. If you want to go this route you'll need an FXO, an FXS (a SIP ATA can work for this) and you'll need to learn how call routing in Asterisk works. Definitely go with FreePBX, configuring it by hand is daunting to say the least, even getting a basic setup going takes a lot of learning.
 
setting up a PBX is far beyond what you soley want to do and seems like overkill! But if you want to learn, it could be fun, you could end up setting up entire phone systems for families.
 
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