27 ms·
When I was in college in the '80s, My roommate and I got curious about unused area codes (and/or prefixes? I forget). We started dialing some. Within about 15 m
by yodon 9y ago
When I was in college in the '80s, My roommate and I got curious about unused area codes (and/or prefixes? I forget). We started dialing some. Within about 15 minutes we stumbled on some government service with a scary-official sounding operator on the other end (I've no idea if it was this service or a different one).
The really scary part was after dialing the number and encountering the operator, we were unable to hang up (any time we hung up and picked back up, the operator was still there, even after waiting about two minutes). Fortunately this was (a) at MIT which still had a central electromechanical telephone switch for student phone lines in the '80s and (b) I had keys to the switch as a student phone repair tech.
I still remember grabbing my keys, running over to the switch, and physically pulling the relay contacts to release the call and prevent a trace to our location in case that was the motivation for holding the line (nowadays traces are digital and instantaneous, but when looking at old-school electromechanical switches you really did need time to trace the call physically through the relays).
Yes, we were aware the operator was probably just messing with us by showing he could hold our line against our will to discourage us from calling again, but it still scared the crap out of us just in case.
- hashmymustache 9y agoVery interesting story, curious if you remember the number. Reminded me of my favorite scene from Community: https://youtu.be/xx_MkKJPNjQ https://youtu.be/xx_MkKJPNjQ
- yodon 9y agoMy recollection is we were specifically curious about what today would be called invalid address space patterns, aka numbers that were outside the patterns used in valid phone numbers at the time (such as area codes could have a 1 in the middle digit but prefixes could not have a 1 in the middle in the 1980's). We pulled out a paper phone book, devised a set of criteria for potentially interesting superficially invalid phone numbers, and started dialing them. On a rotary dial phone. And we found one pretty quickly. And it was a much scarier experience than we had expected. The exact number we dialed is unfortunately(?) lost to the passage of time.
- hellbanner 9y agoHere's a fun one: next time you get a new phone number (USA), ask for it to end in "9999". It's possible, but not without social engineering (or influence?).
- wolrah 9y agoWhen I last got a new cell number I got one ending in "5555" Annoyingly I use Google Voice so something like 6 people actually know my awesome number.
- compsciphd 9y agoyou can port out your number to google voice....
- kingbirdy 9y agoWhy is it restricted (and who to)?
- elvic 9y agoLet's find out
- hellbanner 9y agoFind out! :)
- edoceo 9y agoTelco used to charge extra for vanity numbers. c2000 I paid Qwest a few hundred for one.
- ghaff 9y agoAh yes. The old Dormphone system that was regularly hacked/extended in various ways and reverted in a pretty much never ending tug of war.
- icantdrive55 9y agoIt reminds me of a scene in Three Days of the Condor. When Robert Redford calls a number from a phone booth, after his sector was wiped out. He then talks to a guy in a wheelchair. Guy in wheelchair, 'Condor you're not following correct protocol! Are you injured? Are you armed?' Condor is freaking out, but gets out all the info. Condor, 'We have been hit. Everyone is dead. I just read books! I have miss _______ 45, she was afraid of being raped. No--I forget her company name. Guy in wheelchair, 'Find a secure location--don't go home, and we will get in touch with you. Walk away from the phone, but don't hang up. (Condor walks away completely scared, and confused. I always wondered about the phone. I guess it was to complete the trace?)
- coin 9y agoHow is hanging up (creating an open circuit) different than pulling the relay (creating an open circuit)?
- theWatcher37 9y agoSounds like someone had god mode
- bdonlan 9y agoEven if the circuit is still open from the telco trunk to the dormitory switch, the link back to the specific extension that dialed out would be broken.
- ajross 9y agoThe phone circuit in the analog days was physical. It doesn't matter that it was open, the relays between one and and another were all connected and could be inspected. It's analogous to finding the hardware corresponding to someone's network address by being able to inspect the routing tables of all the intervening routers. Even if they turn their computer off, you can still trace them back to the physical line.
- Doxin 9y agoIIRC you could send power to the relays from the calling side, which'd keep them latched even if the callee hangs up.
- golergka 9y agoWhat was the conversation like? Was the operator trying to scare you off?
- the-dude 9y agoI had a friend in HS do this to me, I always attributed it to his father being pretty high up at a local newspaper ... ( The Netherlands )
- ams6110 9y agoMaybe not so nefarious. Back in the 1980s the campus phone system at my university had a similar quirk: if you didn't hang up both ends of the call, the connection stayed open. A common DOS prank was to call someone and then just not hang up. Their phone was then unusable.