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this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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Microblog Memes
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That last bit reminds me of a prank that my friends and I used to play in high school in the 90s. We would make a Beigebox, which is just a normal landline phone with alligator clips on the cord instead of the normal connector. You could use the alligator clips to attach the beigebox to someone's phone line from the exterior of their house, at the phone junction box. We would do this, take the phone off the hook and hide it. Their phone would be tied up until they found and disconnected it. Sometimes it would take them days (or contacting the phone company from another line) to find the issue. If we were feeling particularly malicious, we would dial internationally or a 900 number instead of just leaving it off the hook.
Reading this back now, I feel like to Gen Z this prank reads like "In the previous century, I would play a naughty trick by filling the chamber pot of mine enemy with adobe so that it cannot be cleaned."
That's not a prank. That could ruin someone's life. What if some relative was dying and the victim didn't find out because you cut their phone line?
What if they needed to call 000(911) in an emergency?
I wouldn't see this as a joke, man.
I mean, this is some pretty hardcore catastrophizing. You're absolutely right, both of those scenarios are possible, but incredibly unlikely. At the time and place this happened, it was pretty common for phone lines to be busy or unavailable, they would call back with important news. People also knew and interacted with their neighbors, who would help if they heard someone shouting.
Most pranks aren't things that make you laugh, they're mostly teenagers being pieces of shit.
You kinda missed one of the major reasons of why phreakers built the beigeboxes. We used them to find lines that were connected to the phone company switches but not hooked up to any subscriber, so that we could make expensive calls that nobody would have to pay for. For example, long-distance or Internet dialup.
The beigebox was basically just a DIY Lineman's Handset (LMHS), a common tool used by telco workers for troubleshooting when doing field work.
We also did that.
There are cool pranks. But this is just being a piece of shit. It's as funny as flattening a tire.
A big part of being a teenager is being a piece of shit. If it makes you feel better, I realized that my friends doing this never stopped being pieces of shit and I cut them out of my life.
You're my hero.