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When I was 12 I was the hub for FidoNet mail in my smallish town. I was tweaking the settings before heading on vacation. We left the next morning, and returned

When I was 12 I was the hub for FidoNet mail in my smallish town. I was tweaking the settings before heading on vacation. We left the next morning, and returned a week later. We came home to an official notice from the police to contact them immediately. My parents did, and pretty soon 2 police officers showed up at our door. They wanted to know who had been "hacking" from the second line in the house. It turns out I forgot to enter the area code for the FidoNet long distance number, and some poor souls had been getting a phone call at 3am with "strange noises", which auto-dialed every minute for 3 hours straight. The police had disconnected the line, and I had to spend an hour explaining to the police officers what a BBS is, and what FidoNet is. I remember trying to draw a diagram, but it was in vain. In the end they just left confused, reconnected the line and I promised to be more careful in future.

scottm01 10y ago
I had a similar experience as a kid. We had a second phone line as my parents were both occasionally on call. Because they were just on call and the phone company charged extra, we didn't have the 'tone dialing' feature on the line. When they weren't on call, I was able to use that line for BBS's and Compuserve. It turns out that at least for US-Robotics pulse dialing is not an exact science. The BBS I used most frequently was often busy so I would turn the modem volume down and just wait for it to eventually connect. One day my parents got a call from the police who had gotten complaints of persistent prank phone calls late at night. I realized the problem and that I had to admit to staying up way past my bedtime online, I don't recall what the police threatened but I was definitely scared. I gave them a list of the top few BBS #s I called, and one of them was one digit off. I got off pretty easy, I think I just paid for 'tone dialing' on that line going forward.
- chrissnell 10y ago
  Tone dialing was such a crack-up. My grandmother refused to pay for it and it was always such a pain in the ass placing calls from her house. What was so funny is that the phone company had already transitioned to digital switches so somebody actually had to configure that line to intentionally not interpret the DTMF. If you didn't pay the $3 or whatever a month for tone service, they would have to create a burden for you.
Razengan 10y ago
That seems very nice of the police, both ways, Where and when was this?
- cknoxrun 10y ago
  It was nice of them, but I honestly think they just didn't know what to do. It was 1991 in Fort McMurray, Canada.

scottm01 10y ago

I had a similar experience as a kid. We had a second phone line as my parents were both occasionally on call. Because they were just on call and the phone company charged extra, we didn't have the 'tone dialing' feature on the line. When they weren't on call, I was able to use that line for BBS's and Compuserve. It turns out that at least for US-Robotics pulse dialing is not an exact science. The BBS I used most frequently was often busy so I would turn the modem volume down and just wait for it to eventually connect. One day my parents got a call from the police who had gotten complaints of persistent prank phone calls late at night. I realized the problem and that I had to admit to staying up way past my bedtime online, I don't recall what the police threatened but I was definitely scared. I gave them a list of the top few BBS #s I called, and one of them was one digit off. I got off pretty easy, I think I just paid for 'tone dialing' on that line going forward.

chrissnell 10y ago
Tone dialing was such a crack-up. My grandmother refused to pay for it and it was always such a pain in the ass placing calls from her house. What was so funny is that the phone company had already transitioned to digital switches so somebody actually had to configure that line to intentionally not interpret the DTMF. If you didn't pay the $3 or whatever a month for tone service, they would have to create a burden for you.

Razengan 10y ago

That seems very nice of the police, both ways, Where and when was this?

cknoxrun 10y ago
It was nice of them, but I honestly think they just didn't know what to do. It was 1991 in Fort McMurray, Canada.