Back in my day this was all called phreaking [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking ] I had the pleasure of knowing

Back in my day this was all called phreaking [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking ] I had the pleasure of knowing a guy who knew a guy when I was in school. Basically there was a prefix 786 that you could (within the area code of course) dial the prefix for the callback 971 and the last 4 digits of the host (thankfully the number of the pay phone is right there on the pay phone) and then hang up twice the phone would ring until you picked the phone up. Fast forward to another thing of the past, the mall! The mall had BANKS of pay-hones just sitting around. So a group of friends and I got to all of the banks and decided to make all the phones ring. We walked around the mall forever as people just looked at the ringing phones and carried on about their lives. After doing it for about an hour security caught on and I got banned from the mall, I think for the fourth or fifth time. It was a beautiful site to see. Two dozen or so payphones just ringing and people completely perplexed as to why.