My phone is ringing: the decision tree

If it's a number I know (or one my phone can translate for me), I'll pick up unless something happening in my immediate vicinity makes that unwise or inappropriate. If it's a personal friend I will answer it as a social call, if not I"ll fall back on that script I learned from my elders in the far distance past when latchkey kids roamed the suburbs. This is a nice branch.

If my carrier identifies it as suspicious, it originates in a region from which I'm not expecting calls,¹ or has the originating number blocked I send it to voice mail. They can leave a message. On the rare occasion when this is someone whose communication I actually want to received I will respond in some way promptly. Of course, in most cases the machine on the other end hangs up and mostly when it doesn't the automated transcript of the message is enough to get it deleted out of hand. This is rarely a desired branch but at least mostly an easy one to dispose of.

If it comes from a place where there are people and organization that—in my opinion—might have a message I want to receive promptly there is a more elaborate process. Please note that I'm aware this is insufferably rude by the standards of my day, but I consider it the bare-minimum, security-minded, defensive procedure for here and now.

1. Pick up the call. Do not answer. Do not even breathe into the mike. Do not expose the mike to non-trivial background noise. Wait.
2. In the vast majority of the cases the machine on the other end will hang up. Occasionally the machine will produce noise in which case I hang up. Either is a satisfactory end to the interaction.
3. Occasionally a very confused person will start to speak. Usually asking if anyone is there. In this case I will respond, but unless I recognize the party at the other end (a) my tone of voice will be firmly neutral and clipped and (b) the response is only that there is someone there. No indication of who nor a polite greeting. We still have not established that this interaction has a justification or a future.
4. I'm going to get three pieces of information before we proceed: (a) who they think they are calling, (b) who they are or represent, and (c) what is their business. They way I learned telephone etiquette all these things would be on the tip of their tongue anyway, but that seems to be old fashioned these days. If they refuse to provide those things or if I don't find their answers to justify my time, the interaction ends rather bluntly.²
5. If they've gotten this far we can proceed in a amiable fashion using the business etiquette I grew up with, except that I don't treat them as vetted even now. They're not getting any information from me, I'm merely willing to learn the information they want to relay to me. If I need to provide any information, it will occur on another channel that I've discovered through other means. Not taking their word on telephone numbers, email address, URLs or any other contact information.

And let's be clear: this regime reduces the value of a telephone connection enormously from what it had when I was growing up. But that's just a fact of the current information economy. I can't vet someone over a telephone. I just can't. Which means I can't trust them. It's not my fault and it may not be their fault, but it is the way the world it. Reading recommendation: Bruce Schneier's Liars and Outliers.

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¹ I have a small leg up here insofar as my mobile number lives in an area code where I have not resided for more than fifteen years, have no current friends, and have no active professional contacts. Most of the spam I get comes from there and can be instantly sent to voice mail purgatory.

² People in healthcare and other fields which have strict privacy guidelines are in a bit of a bind here: there's a limit to how much they can reveal, but I am expecting to be convinced that they have a reason to call me. Sorry folks. If you were to get some kind of exception the *$$#*!*$ will use that as their entry.