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Installing a payphone in my house

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Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#31

Post by dQw4w9WgXcQ »

hayleox wrote: post #8

I did really enjoy this post, but is it just a tiny bit weird how casual he is about repeatedly committing fraud? Not asking for some grand apology (lord knows the crap I did as a kid), but the post is written like defrauding an ISP is just a normal and fine thing to do. Am I off base here?

You must be Gen-Z or younger. Small-time "fraud" antics like this were part of the hacker ethos throughout the 80s and 90s, some highlights being the Anarchist Cookbook, Matthew Broderick changing school records in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Kevin Mitnick as one of the notable poster children of the new era of cyber enforcement crackdowns. Even the word "hacker" meant something a lot different than today where kids now say that someone "hacked" their Instagram.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#32

Post by ck2 »

idontwantthis wrote: post #20
0des wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The matrix had phone booths in the good one. edit: not one of you asked "which one's the good one".. I rest my case.

I rewatched all 3 recently, and I have to say I don't remember why I and everyone else disliked the sequels so much. They are exciting, and tell a good story. I haven't watched the new one yet.

Do not watch the fourth. Not kidding. It's not worth the curiosity.

Yes the 2nd and 3rd were great despite critics. The fourth is a "WTF who wrote this garbage money grab" the entire time, it's not even "fan service" because it destroys everything with poor writing and terrible acting, feels like someone was shouting "we'll fix it in post" after every first take rushing to the next shot to churn it out.

Remember how epic the music was in the first three? The fourth is like that kid from Bob's Burgers mashing on a keyboard.

Remember the epic dialog from Hugo Weaving and those chilling rants from Agent Smith? Yeah absolutely nothing, nothing even vaguely faintly like it in the fourth, it almost undoes the entire franchise.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#33

Post by cbhl »

makeitdouble wrote: post #15
hayleox wrote: post #8

I did really enjoy this post, but is it just a tiny bit weird how casual he is about repeatedly committing fraud? Not asking for some grand apology (lord knows the crap I did as a kid), but the post is written like defrauding an ISP is just a normal and fine thing to do. Am I off base here?

The credit card fraud is to me the worst, as any random number might actually match an existing one, and back in the days I wouldn't expect much scrutiny from the card processor. That's then up to the poor soul who's number was used to go through paperwork purgatory to dispute the charge. Orherwise ISPs are the poster child of monopoly giants that had to be broken down kicking and screaming, but kept screwing the cus…

IIRC in the 90s online credit card processing was a minutes-long affair since it would require dialing into the bank's computer system, or possibly calling a human banker to check the authorization. IIRC it wasn't uncommon to just do it offline with physical pieces of paper in the mail. Towards the late 90s they got better at rejecting CCs if you did authorize online (especially after PayPal gave away a lot of $5 prepaid ones).

ISPs were also pretty liberal with free trials (AOL CDs galore) since it was mostly customer acquisition cost (it wasn't yet established that you had to have an Internet connection like you did a landline and Cable TV) and the marginal cost was low (ideally, the cost of peering -- the ISP basically had some routers and modem banks between an internet exchange and a phone exchange; and the user paid any applicable long distance charges to call the ISP). Whereas now you'd preauthorize the card at signup time to catch this sort of fraud beforehand.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#34

Post by tomc1985 »

hayleox wrote: post #8

I did really enjoy this post, but is it just a tiny bit weird how casual he is about repeatedly committing fraud? Not asking for some grand apology (lord knows the crap I did as a kid), but the post is written like defrauding an ISP is just a normal and fine thing to do. Am I off base here?

It was, for a time. Much better times than now, that's for sure.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#35

Post by spicyramen_ »

Awesome, I used to work with Mitel PBX which have a feature called DISA which allows you to call a number and place calls from there. The number you call will give you dial tone and you could place calls anywhere I looked up the list of customers with Visa find the main number and try the first 20-100 numbers which was normally the range used (sold DIDs by Telco) during my installation I gave myself access to those via 1800 numbers so it was pretty much able to call LD/cell phone which used to be expensive before

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#36

Post by cbhl »

I feel like the logical next step is for the author to discover PBX, such as Asterisk or something built on top of it. Then they can call between the two in-house phones and also dial out to the real phone line in an emergency.

Just need an old PC, a compatible dial-up modem with voice, and a card with a few FXO ports to go to the payphone and child's phone...

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#37

Post by jjeaff »

Mobil1 wrote: post #28

I found that if you had 2 adjacent pay phones you could make free calls by inverting the 2 handsets and placing the call on one phone, but putting your money in the other so the sound of the money dropping would make the operator think that you had paid for your call. Your money would be returned to you when you hung up the second phone.

Was it literally just the sound of money dropping that validated the call? Presumably this was before automatic switching and a live operator had to connect you?

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#38

Post by jamal-kumar »

Mobil1 wrote: post #28

I found that if you had 2 adjacent pay phones you could make free calls by inverting the 2 handsets and placing the call on one phone, but putting your money in the other so the sound of the money dropping would make the operator think that you had paid for your call. Your money would be returned to you when you hung up the second phone.

lmfao that's hilarious, you just redboxed a phone with another adjacent phone

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#39

Post by nahmean »

jjeaff wrote: post #37
Mobil1 wrote: post #28

I found that if you had 2 adjacent pay phones you could make free calls by inverting the 2 handsets and placing the call on one phone, but putting your money in the other so the sound of the money dropping would make the operator think that you had paid for your call. Your money would be returned to you when you hung up the second phone.

Was it literally just the sound of money dropping that validated the call? Presumably this was before automatic switching and a live operator had to connect you?

At one point it was. You could even record the sound on a handheld recorder and play it back. But it hasn’t worked in a long while. Pay phones mitigated this in a low tech way - by software muting the handset.

Edit: oh yeah, and after that, you’d just call the operator and tell them the keys were sticky and to dial the number for you, then you’d “insert the coins” by playing the tones.

Well, or you just third party billed the call to someone you didn’t know. That worked too.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#40

Post by dhosek »

jjeaff wrote: post #37
Mobil1 wrote: post #28

I found that if you had 2 adjacent pay phones you could make free calls by inverting the 2 handsets and placing the call on one phone, but putting your money in the other so the sound of the money dropping would make the operator think that you had paid for your call. Your money would be returned to you when you hung up the second phone.

Was it literally just the sound of money dropping that validated the call? Presumably this was before automatic switching and a live operator had to connect you?

It was automated. The coin drop sound (or at least what was generated for the wire by the phone) was what drove the switch. All signals on POTS lines were sounds (thus the tones for pressing buttons or the numbers of clicks from dial phones).
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