I have an old analogue modem which I use to pick up caller ID information for incoming phone calls using NCID[1].
When a call comes in:
* Automatically pauses the music player on my PC.
* Looks up the number in my address book, and displays the information on my screen. Also sends to the two Kodi/OSMC servers, for people watching TV.
This assumes it is not on my block-list. If it is on my block-list of known scammer and telemarketer numbers then it as automatically answered with a recording of the "This number has been disconnected..." message to try and trick them.
I used to have a similar setup, except it announced the name/number using festival TTS. Now I've replaced the landline with VoIP and an Asterisk server, so instead I just use a perl script that does the same thing, with the added functionality using my local LDAP server to match names with numbers.
Having all my friends, family members and contacts in LDAP has made it easier to automate another task: keeping my antispam white list updated.
I use NextCloud (fork of OwnCloud) to manage my contacts[1]. It has a CardDAV interface. Synchronises contacts with my phone, and live lookup for my email client too. Very nice having a single-source-of-truth contact list.
[1] In fact, that's all I use it for. Don't use any of NextCloud's other functionality.
When a call comes in:
* Automatically pauses the music player on my PC.
* Looks up the number in my address book, and displays the information on my screen. Also sends to the two Kodi/OSMC servers, for people watching TV.
This assumes it is not on my block-list. If it is on my block-list of known scammer and telemarketer numbers then it as automatically answered with a recording of the "This number has been disconnected..." message to try and trick them.
[1] http://ncid.sourceforge.net/