Pay Phone Obsession

from the remember-those-things? dept

Thu, May 13th 2004 1:14am — Mike Masnick

You might remember pay phones. They're those public boxes on the street with telephones in them that people used to make calls in the age before mobile phones. Okay, so I'm only joking a bit, but even as phone companies struggle to figure out what to do with pay phones, (suggestion: turn them into WiFi hotspots!) there are some who are obsessed with the idea of calling random pay phones and talking to whoever picks up. For almost a decade, one man has been putting together a huge database of pay phone numbers. Of course, that database has actually turned out to be quite useful. People trying to track down callers (the article lists a mother finding her runaway daughter and a man tracking down a stalker among other things) have used the website to identify the location of a pay phone caller. Of course all this would be much easier if the phone companies published a directory of pay phones - but they don't see any reason to (despite the stories of people this self-built directory has helped).

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Mikester, 13 May 2004 @ 8:59am

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Maybe this isn't the case in the US, but here in Canada, even though the Pay Phone's number is posted on the phone, I've seen notices on them as well saying that they don't accept incoming calls.
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- AMetamorphosis, 13 May 2004 @ 9:20am
  
  How much for a feel ?
  
  Well I for one am calling the Hanover, PA 24 hour a day Wal-fart and pretending I am from the local radio station. I'm going to see how easy it is to convince someone to go pinch the fanny of the Wal-Fart greeter for say 5k ...
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  - thecaptain, 13 May 2004 @ 11:19am
    
    Re: How much for a feel ?
    Considering how many fast-food franchise managers strip search their employees based on calls by pranksters pretending to be police, I'd say the odds are it will be extremely easy.
    
    People are stupid.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2004 @ 10:44am

Re: Pay Phone Obsession
Starting a few years ago in the US, as part of the war on drugs, most pay phones were rendered unable to accept incoming calls. The argument is that they can otherwise be used for anonymous communication which, of course, must be eliminated.
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