Fight – Unkown CallerID with NoStalk V1.4

21.09.09 – Update to Version 1.4 in Android Market

Changelog:

Version 1.4
Added RingerMode change detection
Added Whitespace trim on incoming Number before check on empty number

Version 1.3
Added internationalization feature
Added German Language to app
Changes to some string values
Changed app’s Homescreen due to some possible missunderstandings
Added a customizable dialog to clarify the app’s behavior on pushing the Quit-Button
Fixed some minor bugs inside Main Activity
Deleted unused code from source

Version 1.2
Added some Logging
Minor bugfix regarding a double user-notification on startup
Bugfix regarding a service Stopcondition
Compilation against the most actual SDK (Version 1.5_r3)

Version 1.1
Added Posibility to disable/re-enable notification bar icon
Removed unnecessary Permission for writing to System Settings: android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS
Some minor changes in screen formating
Minor change in application startup due to different handling with no notification bar icon
Compilation against the most actual SDK (Version 1.5_r2)

See more on changes at the bottom comments!

All of us know that situation, GSM is ringing and if we look at our your GSM-display, there is written „Unknown caller ID“.

So what to do, who is the caller? Why the caller is hiding his identity? In most of these cases, the caller turns out to be a salesperson who want to sell certain goods you’ll never need. Seldom but with raising posibility you’ll be the victim of a stalker, permanently calling you, again and again. The solution is closer than you maybe think…Assuming that you have a Android G1 GSM it becomes easy up from now on. I have developed an application which will take care of calls with „unknown caller ID“. Unfortunatly Google won’t allow us to directly reject an incomming call programatically. But there is a solution. The nifty little application NoStalk V1.4 will just turn your GSM absolutly quiet if a call with „unknown caller ID“ will come to your Android G1 GSM. After the caller dropped the line or (if you configured your GSM that way) is forwarded to your VoiceBox, your GSM will turn back to normal ringing Mode. By that you won’t miss a caller which will call you with a „known caller ID“. In other words, your’e reachable again.

So equal if you are followed by a stalker calling you again and again, or if you often receive calls from salespersons with „unkown caller ID“,
Up from now on, with NoStalk V1.4, your Android GSM will stay quiet if someone with suppressed caller ID will give you a call. You can download the application on the android market.

QR-Code für das G1:

NoStalk

NoStalk

Or if you like to read on your pc first, go here:

http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.voss.nostalk

Her on this screenshot of the main application screen, you can see every possible action within the application. This screen will be visible each time you start the application or whenever you come back to this screen by selecting the icon in the notification bar.

NoStalk V1.3

NoStalk V1.3

If you you tab on the link next to the top of this screen you will enter my blog, where you can read this nifty little description of NoStalk V1.4.

I hope that this application becomes in handy for all of you out there. If there is any question regarding the application or its functionality feel free to ask it here. This is the right place for questions and suggestions.

Some Information:

The application is completly written in java, making usage of the public Android SDK features. it consists out of two class files and some configuration files. The application makes use of a feature in Android called „Service“ which means, the application, once started will completly run in background, let you do your normal business. At Starting time, the application will save your preferred settings regarding sound and vibration. Once turned quiet because of a „stalking call“ it will revert to exactly your preferences if the unwanted caller drops the line.

Besides, the application is now capable of multilingual features. This in fact means, all visible parts of the application can be translated to other languages. As of now the application has, starting with NoStalk V1.3, two languages build in. English as the standard language and German as second availiable language. Switching the language happens absolutley automaticly according to the region/language settings you have on your GSM. If your current language is not availiable, NoStalk V1.4 (and above) will be displayed in English.

The actual NoStalk v 1.4 has been written and compiled against Android SDK V1.5_r3

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25 Antworten zu Fight – Unkown CallerID with NoStalk V1.4

  1. Bonsai sagt:

    Sehr nützliches App, super wäre aber wenn man noch wahlweise die Möglichkeit hätte die Anrufe automatisch zur Mobilbox umzuleiten.

  2. voss sagt:

    Danke Bonsai,

    nun da ist schon eine kleine Liste von Wünschen in den Kommentaren im Market zusammenbekommen.

    Was das Umleiten auf die Mailbox angeht muss ich erst noch sehen ob das über die offengelegte Api überhaupt möglich ist. Der Zugriff auf derlei Funktionen ist leider sehr eingeschränkt seitens Google.
    Umleiten auf die Mailbox ist zur Zeit leider nicht möglich.

    ————————————————-
    So far there are a couple of wishes on the list from application downloaders.
    1. Remove of notification bar icon
    2. Also a bluetooth silence
    3. True blocking caller

    Wish 1.
    Well theoretically no problem at all, but after that there is no way to stop the application at all. So i maybe have to look for a way ..

    Wish 2.
    This should be not a big thing at all. Maybe there will be a fast solution the nex few days …

    Wish 3.
    This is a problem .. Google gives no access to the underlaying hardwarelayer .. in fact there are functions for dropping an incoming call but the api is not made public, so there is no way to really block an incoming call.
    Right now we just have the option to switch our Android to silent mode.

    Thanks so far for your comment Bonsai

  3. voss sagt:

    As a matter of fact, it turns out to be a big wish by many people to remove the icon in the notification bar.

    Well i listen to the voice of the majority and i’m currently working on a way to get things working without this.

    Meanwhile there is a workaround for that, just oben your notifications an delete them. That way you will get rid of the icon until the next „unknown caller“ will try to reach you.

    Hope that this will help ya until i will have submitted a new version.

    so far, Jörg

  4. voss sagt:

    News belonging to the Update to Version 1.1

    On 06.07.09 i publised the update of NoStalk on Market due to the opinion of many people to remove the icon i put into the notification bar.
    I decided to make this behavior configurable so everone could decide her/himself to show or not show this reminder icon that this application is running.

    Besides this i did some research on a possible missbehavior by the application mentioned by to downloaders of the application. Unfortunatly i have no clue what could be the reason of this „makes EVERYONES call as unknown“ and/or
    „All incoming AND OUTGOING calls show up as unknown“

    Making Everones call as unknown is maybe possible if the used provider may did some uncommon changes in how call numbers will be submitted to the phone. That is possible because there is not a world wide standard in how the calling number will be submitted, especially in how „suppressed callerID“ will be submitted to the GSM.

    Showing OUTGOING calls as unknown is impossible by my application. I dont even set the permission in my application which would make that possible. I dont even handle any event which belongs to outgoing calls.

    The only thing i do is catching any incoming call an do an check if the provider submitted incomingNumber is empty or not.

    So Lee and Sarah, please if you read these lines, please give me a feedback about this behavior. Especially in which region of the world and with wich Provider you are using your GSM. Then i would be able to do some more research on your special situation. Thanks in advance.

  5. rolf sagt:

    Darauf haben wir gewartet..als antwort koennte eine sprachmitteilung abgespielt werden (bitte keine anonyme anrufe. .) Der onboard ab waere dann endlich da.

  6. jasmine sagt:

    I’m having a similar problem as the other commentators…. when I receive calls from those in my address book they all just ring once and then the phone goes in complete silence as if they where all unknown even though their names are being displayed. Is there a reason for that to be happening? And can it be fixed?

  7. voss sagt:

    So some time has gone and there are a few more complaints about the behavior/misbehavior of this app.

    There seem to be two main issues out there in the field.
    a) All calls claim to be unknown
    b) It worked for a while and now there is no more call-blocking (Phone rings)

    First of all i would like to point out that i wrote this app with the original SDK version 1.5_r2. The app is compiled against this SDK and and has been tested on Emulator and on a real world G1. Testing on „Real World G1“ comes in place again with every new release of the Android OS, published by Google OTA. I’m using a non rooted G1 and no other Software which do handle calls or handling contacts.

    Right now i’m using the original firmware 1.5, kernel Version 2.6.27-00393-g6607076, CRC37.

    I could not redraw any of the issues described in the comments on the market when testing on my phone.

    Some information on the two main issues mentioned above. I do not touch the incoming number in any way except reading it and checking if the respective field is emtpy or not. If emtpy the phone switches to silent mode else not. After this, everything else belonging to this call will be handled by the phone itself respectivly another piece of software. (which may in some cases also come in place before my software catches the incomming call)
    If the Phone state changes after call has not been taken, the app changes Ring Mode back to normal.
    I did not touch contacts or another ringing behavior on the phone. You can see this on the regarding missing permissions.

    So under normal circumstance there is no way that this app will change all callers to unknown. (Definition of unknown here is, that there is no caller ID with this call, so there is no Caller Number displayed)

    Now there are two things which could begin to make troubles.
    First of all, if you have many apps running on your phone or you have’nt restartet your phone for a long time, there may be a large amount of memory consumption by other apps. This could slow down the phone processor and may cause troubles detecting unkown caller ID, which is in fact a very timecritical process.
    So please check if there are other apps running in background which maybe could cause this behavior.

    Secondly it may be possible that you are running a rooted phone with a modified part of the android OS. This could seriously cause troubles detecting the caller ID or other things. Everything is possible and could not be checked by me.

    So if you experience troubles, everyone has the ability to write his comments here with some information regarding Firmware release, CRC and Kernal Release and a description what kind of problem is ongoing. If possible for me i will check if there are known issues in the regarding area of OS-Source.

    In the next few days i will publish a new release which will be compiled against the latest SDK 1.5_r3. Your GSM will tell you about it ;)

    One more word about uninstalling .. there are no hooks in the application which will disallow uninstalling it. That must be an issue with other software or ROM things.
    The software isn’t even copyprotected.

  8. voss sagt:

    After some testing and the help of a cute guy from Androidpit.de it turns out that there is no Bug in the app itself.
    But there is an interdependency with some other apps from Market. In this special case it was the interaction between the apps „CallLocation“ and „Batteriestunden“ where „Batteriestunden“ is permanently running as a Service in background. In case of an unknown call comming in, there hasn’t been enough time for Nostalk to switch to silent mode due to the fact, that these two apps took to much CPU-time.

    I won’t state that these Apps are buggy ..or defect, it just seems to be a fact that if there are too many apps acting in background and there action take place around the same event „incoming call“ problems may raise quickly.

    So the solution should be simply to deceide which apps need to be present. You can check how many apps are running at the same time with a little help of an app named „Taskiller“ for example. It’s free for download in the market and will show you in a cute list which apps are running and grab memory and CPU time.

    Beside this, the new NoStalk Version 1.2, compiled against the latest SDK Version (SDK 1.5_r3) is in the Market up from now. Update your NoStalk and enjoy the silence

    Feel free to ask questions here. It’s not a good Idea to do this within the market comment function.

  9. mcdonalds sagt:

    Thanks much for this informational piece of text.

  10. kiu sagt:

    just to make it clear, CallLocation is not running as a service in the background (no battery consumed). Its only started by the android system on incoming calls, then it will be a background service, but only for a short time :)

    kiu (author of CallLocation)

  11. voss sagt:

    Thx Kiu for making that clear. I just adopted the corresponding comment. I’ll get back to you by mail soon.

  12. jason sagt:

    I am still receiving calls from restricted #’s

  13. Ashley sagt:

    I have this app on my phone and someone called me yesterday and my. phone kept ringing and I don’t know y.if I have this app installed

  14. voss sagt:

    Dear Ashley, just having the app installed isn’t enough .. you also need to start the application to have the background service running. in that case you should check if you can see the Nostalk Icon in the notification bar which ist indicating that the app is active and running.

  15. myers503 sagt:

    Installed on my non rooted g1, working just fine so far! Great program, thanks for your efforts!

  16. Basti sagt:

    Hallo,
    Vielen Dank für diese einfache aber nützliche app.
    Toll wäre wenn man den unbekannten Anrufern einen separaten klingelton zuweisen kann als all diese Anrufer zu blocken.
    Ist dies möglich?

  17. deb morrow sagt:

    help me.

  18. latasha sagt:

    I want this app,I really need it.I all Wats get restrict n private calls

  19. voss sagt:

    I didn’t really get you latasha .. just to mention .. this app will silence your phone if there is an incoming call with unknown caller ID aka unknown number…

  20. Renee Souder sagt:

    I thought this would tell me who or at least where from,a unknown caller is and more. I have now received 3unknown calls today. I didn’t even notice if there were any change in the ring,because I still saw the call and heard it.It woke me up this morning. I have it on my home page. Is there.Kore I need to do? I even clicked on it just now after the last call to try to trace it and now have discovered that all this is suppose to do is stop it from ringing? Is that right? Does it block anything? If so how do I get it to function. All it did was bring up the initial words for the app. What do I need to do?

  21. voss sagt:

    The app will just silence your phone on an unknown caller .. nothing more .. thats the story ..

  22. Andy Voorde sagt:

    I have no stalk and who is callin and I still get unknown and blocked calls .I thought these two apps was suppose to help with anoyin ppl callin

  23. jose sagt:

    I don’t want nobody looking up my call history

  24. jose sagt:

    You really should do something so that no one can see your call and text history

  25. voss sagt:

    Jose, i do not really get what you mean? Where is the context to my app? My app does not touch your call/text history in any way!

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