Phreak.ing: an Anonymous Phone Switch That Lives in Your Browser

Hacker News is chewing over phreak.ing, a playful project that drags the aesthetics of the old phone network into the browser. It is essentially an anonymous office PBX, minus the office: you can place calls, grab ringing lines and check voicemail straight from a web page by dialing the same service codes that once lived on wired desk phones.

A switch with no names

The authors are upfront about it: no logs are kept and no personal data is wanted. You are told not to use your real phone number at signup, and any three-to-ten-digit number works as an extension. The underground-network vibe is maintained down to the details.

The full set of star codes

The real joy is the roster of service codes, lifted straight off a real switch's cheat sheet. You can call someone so that both their phone and their browser ring. There is an echo test (600 or *43), a callback to whoever last rang you (*69), and a call with your caller ID hidden (*67).

Voicemail lives behind *97 and *98. Classic call parking is here too: 70 puts a call on hold and reads out the slot number, while 71–79 let you pick up a parked conversation from another handset.

There is also intercom: *80 opens a two-way speakerphone on someone's desk, *81 a one-way one, and *500 pages every opted-in phone at once. Naturally there is a do-not-disturb toggle (*78/*79) and call forwarding (*72/*73).

Rooms, radio and chat

Codes *801–*899 open conference rooms that anyone may join. There is a hardchats.com voice room and even a live acid-radio feed on *49. Texting the "number" 742735 posts your message to the #phreak channel, and sending 411 returns the command list itself. For good measure there is a cryptic "party mode" (*#06#).

Under the deliberate silliness sits a tidy reimplementation of an entire telephone infrastructure on the web — a nostalgic nod to the days when running a network meant a few taps on a touch-tone keypad.

Source: Hacker News