Republicans Want To Leave You Voicemail -- Without Ever Ringing Your Cellphone (recode.net) 443
bricko quotes a report from Recode: The GOP's leading campaign and fundraising arm, the Republican National Committee, has quietly thrown its support behind a proposal at the Federal Communications Commission that would pave the way for marketers to auto-dial consumers' cellphones and leave them prerecorded voicemail messages -- all without ever causing their devices to ring. Under current federal law, telemarketers and others, like political groups, aren't allowed to launch robocall campaigns targeting cellphones unless they first obtain a consumer's written consent. But businesses stress that it's a different story when it comes to "ringless voicemail" -- because it technically doesn't qualify as a phone call in the first place. In their eyes, that means they shouldn't need a customer or voter's permission if they want to auto-dial mobile voicemail inboxes in bulk pre-made messages about a political candidate, product or cause. And they want the FCC to rule, once and for all, that they're in the clear. Their argument, however, has drawn immense opposition from consumer advocates.
Counter-argument (Score:5, Informative)
People want to leave politicians and marketers a big turd on their front door - without ever ringing their doorbell.
Re:Counter-argument (Score:5, Funny)
In this case, I believe the 3 AM Vuvuzela Orchestra in D-minor outside their bedroom window is more appropriate.
Re:Counter-argument (Score:5, Interesting)
In this case, I believe the 3 AM Vuvuzela Orchestra in D-minor outside their bedroom window is more appropriate.
Surely A-major would be better. Politicians being older have poorer hearing in the higher frequencies.
Personally I'd prefer the 1812 Overture be played outside their homes... preferably with a full cannon fusillade of live ammo.
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What confuses me... (Score:4, Insightful)
What I don't get is... why the fuck they think somehow I'd listen to such a voicemail.
"Huh. I have a voicemail... that's odd, I don't have any missed calls..."
"You have THREE new messages. First message. Hi, this is Ted Cruz, and I'm runni BEEEEP... message deleted. Next message." (moody, scary, minor-key music) "The President is taking Amer BEEEP... message deleted. Next message." (Soaring, upbeat music begi) "BEEEEP. message deleted. You have no more messages."
Politicians... you're wasting your fucking time.
Re:What confuses me... (Score:5, Informative)
Politicians... you're wasting your fucking time.
They're betting that enough bored idiots will listen to enough of them to make it worth while, and they're probably right.
Re:What confuses me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Politicians... you're wasting your fucking time.
No, they're wasting your time.
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http://media.ifunny.com/result... [ifunny.com]
New Revenue Stream! (Score:5, Insightful)
...and AT&T can charge $20/month to automatically remove it!
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Of ALL the political parties....
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Have you tried sharpening the top first? If not, don't. Just push harder next time.
Is that you, Vlad [wikipedia.org]?
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Actually, to go all Stephen Colbert. . . . they're being cock-holsters. . . (evil grin)
call (202) 226-8000 (Score:2)
and fill up the voice mail.
I'm starting a web site (Score:5, Interesting)
to document every politician who does this, how often, and about what. It will offer no commentary on whether it is good or bad, whether the politician should be thrown out of office or given a medal. Just that they did it, how often, and about what.
Who is willing to help me post bail when I'm arrested for it?
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Just make sure you're recording the ones that are doing this, not the ones the ads are supporting. They aren't always the same people precisely because of people like you.
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There are already a plethora of websites where users can document obnoxious phone calls (and other users can look up numbers to see who is this unknown caller calling you, and read those complaints about it). Seriously just search the web for any random unknown caller's number and you'll find tons of them.
Unless these prerecorded ringless voicemails don't have a callback number associated with them somehow, those existing sites would serve that function just fine.
Re: I'm starting a web site (Score:2, Informative)
Try http://800notes.com/
They have been collecting data for over six years.
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And they'll only censor the entries about politicians they agree with. You know, like they do now.
Let them (Score:3, Insightful)
Let them.
The backlash to ghost Republican voicemail spam will be so severe Reagan, Nixon, and Lincoln will all posthumously switch to the Democratic Party.
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Even if the voicemails initially appear to support Democrats?
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Voicemail spam could support unicorns, puppydogs and world peace and it would STILL be considered harassment.
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It's still harassment, but if you blame the wrong people for the harassment and as a result vote for the people they really want you to vote for, the campaign is a success.
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Reagan at least was a Democrat for quite a while. Back in the early 1970's, he said that he didn't leave the Democrat party; the Democrat party left him. And if you read the party platforms and public statements of most Dems in the 1950s through the mid-70's, they sound VERY Republican.
Today's Democrats used to be called "Communists", and today's Republicans used to be solidly Democrat. Last century's Republicans are now Libertarians, or Anarchists.
Re:Let them (Score:5, Insightful)
Today's Democrats used to be called "Communists"
Completely the opposite. Eisenhower was further to the left of any politician in recent memory. Reagan and Nixon were further to the left than most Democrats today. The whole spectrum has moved to the right in absolute terms -- but both left and right have moved further from their common center, so from a parochial point of view ignorant of history and the wider world, it looks like the left has moved left, relative to the current center, which is far right of where it used to be.
See the many sourced answers here for more details:
https://www.quora.com/The-Left... [quora.com]
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Re:Let them (Score:4, Insightful)
How can you call a party that is "hard on crime" and has created a "department of homeland security", that clearly wants to decide what people do in private anything less than hard-authoritarian? Fanboy much?
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Please. From over here in Europe, what your political system looks like is one religious nutjob party that hates everything non-white and one non-religious nutjob party that hates everything white.
I can't really see anything resembling a political platform in either of them. Mostly because they have pretty much identical stances on everything but religion and whether or not white males are the devil.
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Greece is as similar to Germany as Hawaii is to Texas.
They're both broke but Texas is staying afloat by leeching Hawaii dry while pretending to "save" them?
Aftermath of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Score:5, Informative)
Reagan at least was a Democrat for quite a while. Back in the early 1970's, he said that he didn't leave the Democrat party; the Democrat party left him.
Yes Reagan claimed that exact quote but it was bullshit then as it is now. Basically his brand of politics was more conservative than the bulk of the democrats. Reagan's politics drifted right [wikipedia.org] long before he ever switched parties. His claim is exactly backwards for the most part.
And if you read the party platforms and public statements of most Dems in the 1950s through the mid-70's, they sound VERY Republican.
That's because many of them were what we think of republicans to be today. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 caused a huge number of democrats (particularly in the south) to switch party affiliations over the next decade. The south used to vote solidly democrat [wikipedia.org] up until 1964. It was Nixon in 1968 that appealed to scared white voters in the south and started the transition to the solidly republican south we see today.
Today's Democrats used to be called "Communists", and today's Republicans used to be solidly Democrat.
SOME of today's republicans used to be democrats. Most democrats were politically to the left of those individuals long before they switched parties, largely over what is clearly racial bias after 1964.
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Those guys all switched already. Back on January 20, 2017, to be exact.
No, they switched on June 5, 2004, April 22, 1994, and April 15th, 1865, respectively. That's how the Democrats roll..
HLR codes on any Standard GSM network (Score:5, Informative)
*#61# (call) - Shows if Voice Mail (voice forwarding) is enabled and your Voice Mail number.
#004# (call) - Disable all Voice Mail forwards.
If your network is non-standard (or your network operator is a prick) those don't work, call customer support and ask them to disable Voice Mail completely and remove your Voice Mail mailbox from the HLR.
VoiceMail is useless anyways. If someone really needs to get hold of you, they will call again.
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It's not useless. If your number is set to "private" or "withheld", then I'm not going to pick up - ever. You need to leave me a message if you want me to contact you.
How much does it cost for a 1-900 number? Or whatever the automatic reverse-charge service is.
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If i get ANY call with "private" or "withheld" i reject the call right away. 99% chance it's a telemarketer or scammer, 1% chance is a bozo friend that discovered how to hide his caller-id and wants to prank you. Why lose your time listening to the messages ? And also paying for that (listening to VMs is usually not free)
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Not true. I get voicemail from family all the time. Since it's on the phone they assume I will see it eventually. The phone calls don't get through because I won't answer the phone all the time, I may be in meetings, drivings, at the store, etc. That's the whole purpose of voice mail so that the phone stops becoming your master and demanding that you respond NOW or else!
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The phone is not your master - your family is now - they know you will waste your time listening to whatever idea they have at any moment.
If you cannot respond NOW, you reject the call. If they call again, then it's something important and you answer. Or they can send a text. Or they can respect you and wait until you have time to call them back.
Re:HLR codes on any Standard GSM network (Score:5, Interesting)
VoiceMail is useless anyways. If someone really needs to get hold of you, they will call again.
While probably true, it's also true that if someone really needs to get hold of you, they will leave a voicemail. This makes ignoring all calls and only checking voicemail a good way to screen out pointless time-wasting calls. If it's important there will be a voicemail, if there's no voicemail it obviously wasn't that important (or they messages you another way instead).
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I personally almost never leave voicemails. I will call again later if i really need to talk to that person.
I find-it degrading to basically be told: "yeah - we don't feel like talking to you, speak to this machine instead and maybe we'll consider listening later". I'm calling a person because i want to speak at that moment with that person. Else i would send a text message or email.
Re:HLR codes on any Standard GSM network (Score:4, Interesting)
And I find it degrading to be expected to drop everything else I'm juggling and give my undivided attention to a task I don't yet know warrants that treatment. So please go ahead and send a text or email, or leave a short voicemail, saying what it is you want to talk about -- you don't have to talk at length to the machine, just give me an informative subject line basically -- and I will try to find the time to give you that undivided attention at the appropriate level priority. But I can't afford to let just everyone force their conversation to the top of my never-empty queue of things I'm always having to spend my time on. It's my precious limited time and I'll decide how much to spend on what and when... and mystery conversations about I-know-not-what-yet can stay perpetually at the bottom of that list.
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Letting it ring to voicemail is a way to screen that kind of garbage.
okay (Score:2)
the cellphone providers should be allowed to give customers the choice to have the unsolicited voicemails deleted automatically as soon as it is recorded, perhaps a whitelist so your voicemail will only accept voicemail from authorized callers like those in your contacts in your phone
New Record (Score:5, Interesting)
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Political parties are all about, at their heart, marketing. The only difference from your average telemarketer is the lack of quality of the product they are selling.
Re: New Record (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ask Bernie.
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Re:New Record (Score:4, Informative)
And if a Democratic candidate did it regardless of the rules? I'd expect them to get slapped and fined for it.
But let's be brutally honest, the two parties are NOT equally bad right now. That's not to give the Dems a pass, it's just that the Republicans have gone totally unhinged. Go look at what their agenda is, and tell me that they give two sh*ts about anyone but the tiny fraction of billionaire donors. They're not even pretending anymore. Go tell me that Ajit Pai really does mean to help us all by sticking a shiv in Net Neutrality and letting Comcast/Verizon/etc free to do whatever they want. Go tell me that the GOP majority really is going to act as a check on Trump's attempt at doing a speedrun of the Nixon presidency.
And I think it sucks, because we need two sane, reasonable, yet generally opposing parties to make our current system of government work. That's not the case though, at present, and I say that as someone who was once Republican.
Only one thing to say (Score:2)
How? (Score:2)
How do you leave a voicemail without ringing the phone?
Re:How? (Score:4, Informative)
The typical way companies do this is to issue two call simultaneously, and disconnect whichever call connects to the switch first (under a second). The telco will roue the remaining call to voicemail, and this usually happens before the call notification worms its way through the cellular network to the handset.
The student loan scammers are already doing this. One company was calling-not-calling my phone five times an hour? Not a distraction? It certainly is! My phone still goes vrrt-vrrt, and I still look up from what I'm doing.
It's an utter waste of the recipient's time and fails the "What if some large number of people did this?" test.
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Slydial
(267) 759-3425
(267) sly-dial
"Immense opposition from consumer advocates" (Score:2, Insightful)
ought to include tarring, feathering, and dragging those responsible out of town on a rail - first in effigy, then on the living, breathing offenders themselves if the measures applied to their effigies don't convince them to do the right thing. It's time for beleaguered citizens to hand these fuckers their asses - literally if necessary.
They do this in Australia (Score:5, Informative)
And they send you SMS messages. The best way to describe it is *FUCKING ANNOYING*. You listen to you messages and then you hear some shit "Did you know that such and such is a dick and therefore has no business in politics: Vote Asshole - We're full of shit".
I did the best I could to familiarize myself with the VM controls so I could delete those messages immediately without listening to them. The worst this is you can't leave a message for them telling them to fuck off.
Yeah, it's *that* annoying.
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In the UK you can get a premium rate number that redirects to your phone. You can then give that to everyone except your trusted friends, so that at least if they do spam you they have to pay you for the privilege.
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Trump's messages were at least entertaining.
But then again, I'm a fan of the Three Stooges and their antics, so YMMV.
Re:They do this in Australia (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it also commercial advertising, or just political ads?
There's a difference nowadays?
What the Hell, I got karma to burn (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm saying is this: both sides aren't the same. One is objectively worse. And every year we fail to call them on it they get a little bit worse as they realize they can get away with everything while people shout: "But both sides are bad!".
Re:What the Hell, I got karma to burn (Score:5, Interesting)
Technical countermeasures (Score:2)
1. Auto delete any voice mail from numbers that are not in my address book.
2. Access code required to leave a voice mail message. Unauthenticated senders need not apply.
3. Voice recognition software screens each voice mail, comparing new messages to a centralized database of spam messages.
I will do whatever it takes to make sure these crap calls fail. At worst, I'll ditch voice mail altogether.
There is something to be said for putting the telephone out of its misery. With so many illegal telemarketers ig
Look at the flip side (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, it's not a phone call (Score:2)
But how is voice message spam any different than text message spam?
Apart from some people having to pay to check their voice mail and you don't even get the opportunity to know who it is before incurring the charge?
Unless the carrier sends you a message saying who sent you a voice message. In that case it's both voice and text message spam.
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Do cellphone carriers still charge by the minute? I thought it was all unlimited calls now.
If its not technically a phone call ... (Score:2)
ISPs are positively salivating about the impending death of net neutrality and the possibility of 'pay to play' for fundraisers' e-mails and web sites. I'm sure the phone companies will jump at the chance to connect GOP candidates with their constituencies .... for a fee.
Kill them (Score:2, Interesting)
Kill anyone who approves or promotes this. Kill them, and make it painful.
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Fail, fail, fail. I'm not a millennial, not by a long shot. Try again, troll.
Re:Kill them (Score:4, Insightful)
But I do have one quick question: Is it illegal futt-buck a duly elected representative or appointed official until their eyeballs bleed?
Depends mostly on the size of your campaign contribution.
How do they know who I am? (Score:2)
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heh its creepy, I followed a forum link to a NES classic wanna be knock off cheap shit chineese famiclone, and everything else on the page was dildo's
now ebay thinks all I want to look at is dildo's, never mind the FUCKING DECADE of NOT looking at dildo's on EBAY (shit that's what amazon is for)
Voicemail... (Score:2)
How quaint. I disabled voicemail on my cell phone around five years ago and I've not missed it at all.
The only people who leave voicemail are either advertising pricks trying to annoy you or your boss wanting to harass you outside of hours.
If it's important they'll email or text.
No, what they really want (Score:3)
Re: No, what they really want (Score:2)
Ineffective (Score:2)
Under current federal law, telemarketers and others, like political groups, aren't allowed to launch robocall campaigns targeting cellphones unless they first obtain a consumer's written consent.
Really? Huh. Then why do I seem to be getting them?
How strange (Score:2)
That's strange, because I want them to NOT leave voice mail, also without calling me. Maybe we can just agree on the "not calling me" part?
Here's an idea.... (Score:2)
Let's not, and say we did.
I don't like my own party anymore, much less the republicans. I don't want to hear from any of the lying scumbags.
Who pays my bill? (Score:2)
And I want... (Score:2)
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Why stop at Republicans? Equality now!
Politicians are minimally responsive (Score:3)
Politicians are minimally responsive to the general concerns of the population. Seems counterintuitive. But they're able to do this because of:
1) Gerrymandered districts.
2) Heavy special interest dollars. [opensecrets.org]
I mean, even when times are rough, incumbency rates are very high. [opensecrets.org]
What we also need are term limits. Yes, they have costs and benefits. But they approved term limits for the president, one of 537 federal politicians (100 senators + 435 representatives + president + vice president). The reason was to prevent an imperial presidency. We should implement the same thing for the other 535 federal politicians for the same reason - to prevent an imperial Congress.
I don't see how politicians would ever be persuaded to limit their power however. The 535 limiting the power of the one (president) - certainly. The 535 limiting their own power - I don't see how it could be done voluntarily.
Once you give politicians more power, it is extraordinarily difficult to take it away.
We need politicians that are less development officers (fundraisers) and more focused on policy and governing.
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When you give politicians the real possibility of having a lifetime career as a politicians, it focuses them on doing everything they possibly can - as a group - to keep their political office. This makes them takes steps to insulate themselves from the electorate, whose whims may not always be kind to them.
If being a lifetime politician is not an option, they would hold their seat less dearly, and perhaps be persuaded to govern more effectively and responsively, instead o
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What we also need are term limits.
We do...we vote for Representatives every, what, two years, and Senators six years. Their terms are limited to how often we re-elect them. We end their term by voting for somebody else.
Alas, but despite the dismally low approval rating of Congress, it's always "my Sentator/Representative is fine, it's the rest of them that are worthless crooks!"
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We also vote for president every four years. And he is term-limited in order to prevent the warping of the system which could occur, as it does in many countries, with long-serving leaders.
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What you're missing is that long term incumbency isn't the problem itself, it's WHY there's so many long term incumbents. Someone who gets r
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I strongly suspect most lobbyists know the the details of their pet issues better than any congresscritter. Lobbyists are professional persuaders. If they have to persuade someone new every few years, they would have a more difficult job, which is good.
People still use voicemail? (Score:2)
Here all plans come with voicemail service by default, but it must have been nearly a decade since anyone left me a voicemail, or since I left one. Nobody uses it. The last voicemails that I ever got were recorded ads - ads that start playing the moment the line is connected, so the voicemail recording starts somewhere midway the message.
I should check my phone to see whether I have voicemail even enabled. It probably is. If ever I get a voicemail, I hope the notification includes instructions on how to lis
Fine with me (Score:2)
I use google voice for voicemail and have the voicemail from my cell carrier disabled.
For my GV setup, all callers except a few direct family and friends get bunted directly to voicemail without it ever ringing anyway. If anyone else wants to get in touch with me, they need to leave a message anyway. If the message doesn't say who they are and what they want, I'll just ignore it. If it does, then I can decide I'm not interested and still ignore it.
For some reason, so far, most don't want to leave me message
Hey, what's the best way... (Score:2)
A: Fill up their call-screening-utility/voice-mail with spam.
Oh PLEASE let this come quickly! (Score:2)
"Sorry, boss, I couldn't get back to you, I didn't get to the voice mail you left me yet"
And he will just nod and mutter because he knows the problem well himself.
Re:We're going to get this sooner or later (Score:5, Interesting)
We haven't reached critical mass yet, but once enough people only use cell phones for communication the floodgates will be opened.
Cellphones were on par with landlines in 2014 [businessinsider.com]. I'm sure they're a healthy majority now.
Either way, I can think of few things more obnoxious than prerecorded voicemails. It's bad enough I don't even know why marketers would want to do so in the first place, I'm not sure what marketing course teaches to you associate your client with feelings of incandescent rage.
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As to landlines, I only know 4 people that have one, everyone else just has cellphones.
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Is there a way to configure voicemail to only allow either approved numbers or approved ranges of numbers? I would be happy to approve only my local area codes if I could. That would not eliminate all spammers but might well eliminate most of them.
It also sounds like we need to push for our cell phone providers to create the voicemail equivalent of spam filters, where if the voicemail system receives too many voicemails to too many boxes from the same number it would get deleted as unwanted spam. If we a
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The problem is that the voicemail is held on the operators end, not on your phone, so theres not you approving it. which is how the whole leaving you voicemail without ever calling you works anyways so it's unlikely there would be some filter if it were to go through.
older smartphones had apps for on-device voicemail though, not sure if current apis allow easily for that.
you could just turn off the voicemail and never use it like most people tbh.
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It is easier to ignore, I give you that.
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Then enjoy!
"I'm sorry boss that you couldn't leave the message that I should come in early today. Damn marketeers."
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If the price is right, they'll even swallow. Like any whore.
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No need to go back that far, just dig up Eisenhower. Even as a corpse he's a better prez than anything we had in the past 2 decades.
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