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Some years ago there was a silly game, the topic was to make friends with "phone number neighbors" whose phone number is just one digit away. I gave it a try,
by Rygian 3y ago
Some years ago there was a silly game, the topic was to make friends with "phone number neighbors" whose phone number is just one digit away.
I gave it a try, texted $(my_number + 1) and said "hi, you're my phone number neighbor, our numbers are very similar. What's up?"
Their reply: "who are you and how did you get my number?"
- netsharc 3y agoI met a girl whose birthday is the day after mine, and the last 4 digits of her phone number was also mine +1. Sadly she turned me down when I asked her out.
- jojobas 3y agoThat was a near miss.
- netsharc 3y agoMaybe in the next lifetime (i.e. this lifetime plus 1)..
- ignoramceisblis 3y agoIt was probably the wrong time.
- jbaber 3y agoWhat shell are you using? For bash, that's got to be $(( $my_number + 1 ))
- Rygian 3y agoIt was pseudo-code :-)
- tetris11 3y agoI always titter when I see arithmetic in shell operations. In Python, one would merely do: export mynumber="+4912341234123" python3 -c "import pip; pip.main(['install', 'phonenumbers']); \ import phonenumbers; x = phonenumbers.parse(\"$mynumber\", None); \ x.national_number = x.national_number + 1; \ print(x)" Just plain and simple, really.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI would assume this was a spammer/scammer trying to verify if they could reach a real person at my number.
- Rygian 3y agoEven if the originator phone number was indeed one minus yours?
- lotsofpulp 3y agoYes, I’m especially wary of unknown callers if they share the first 6 digits of my phone number. I don’t think I have ever received a legitimate phone call from one. The whole one digit away thing could easily be a tactic a scammer uses.
- 20after4 3y agoSeems like a bad strategy if people are conditioned to distrust it. In rural areas of the US, ALL of the phone numbers (at least until somewhat recently ) would share the same first 6 digits. Even now there are very few possible exchange prefixes in my area, though a lot of people's mobile phones are tied to another exchange prefix (phones not purchased locally/owner moved to the area and kept their old number)
- rahimnathwani 3y ago> Seems like a bad strategy if people are conditioned to distrust it. Most people live where they grew up. Those people aren't conditioned to distrust it. They're also probably underrepresented on HN.
- bigbillheck 3y agoI get the occasional call or message from numbers with the same area code and exchange as my number, and they're universally spam. If I saw one that was one number off mine I wouldn't think "oh, somebody's having fun, I'll answer / text back", I'd think "huh they're bothering to fake more digits now."
- rahimnathwani 3y agoI got a call from a spam caller who spoofed the caller ID to be $(my_number - 1). They said "hi, you're my phone number neighbor, our numbers are very similar. What's up?" My reply: "who are you and how did you get my number?"
- Rygian 3y agoAt that point, any reply back from the original sender just proves them to be legitimate (ie. able to receive messages on the originator phone number, so not spoofing it).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rahimnathwani 3y agoI misread GP and thought they made a call, rather than sent a text.