> or they get cut off from Western nations. No SWIFT, no Internet, no SS7.
How do you propose to disconnect them from the internet? As long as there is a country that peers with them that the west peers with, they will be reachable.
I always figured a better idea was to put a token tax on voice/VOIP telephony. A few cents per minute or even per connected call that crosses the border.
This makes the unsophisticated scams that rely on spray-and-pray and low-take-rate uneconomical, AND provides friction against offshoring legitimate customer-service.
Yeah, you can argue people will encrypt their way around being easily taxable, but it's the "tax evasion/AML" concept-- you create something easy to prove and to prosecute, even if it would be harder to hunt down the underlying scam.
This is easy for the phone calls if the politicians cared: Every provider knows who the previous hop was for a call. You report every abuse and your previous hop has two options. 1. They're covered by local law and can point at their previous hop or direct customer. 2. They're abroad and it's their responsibility to deal with their previous hop.
Nobody wants to get disconnected from being and to call the US. This would solve the spam/scam calls issue pretty much immediately.
For the internet it would be harder to enforce.