Not every U.S. telephone number beginning with 555 is fake

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/geek-trivia-strength-in-phone-numbers/

by jgarmon • 13 years ago

48 38 13 years ago

techrepublic.com

jboynyc• 13 years ago

What's next? EXAMPLE.COM becomes an actual site?

josefresco4• 13 years ago

In that same line of thinking, who gets the email @test.com?

cmiles74• 13 years ago

The people at test.com! They sounds a bit cranky.

  http://contactx.test.com/contactX/contact-spam.cfm

GotAnyMegadeth• 13 years ago

And the mail for 123 Fake Street?

user242• 13 years ago

I own (my username)@gmail.com and I get test emails several times a week.

JonnieCache• 13 years ago

The owner of foo@bar.com has written a little blurb about the crap he gets at http://bar.com/

andrewaylett• 13 years ago

Have you looked at it recently?

I suppose a lot depends on your definition of the word 'actual', but there's definitely definitely something there replying on port 80, if nothing else.

peterwwillis• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_%28telephone_number%29

Much more interesting (from a hacker's perspective) were all the telco services provided using specific exchanges. For any given ILEC there was an exchange used for services provided to customers or employees, including everything from phone testing services and remote terminal access to business customer information and voicemail. By calling these numbers you could find some neat hidden services, and they were free from any phone. You can imagine how bored kids at school with a payphone could discover quite a bit in their spare time.

The DATU was my favorite. It was a secret lineman's number to test circuits, which also enabled you to listen in on live lines. Using these numbers without proper authorization meant jail time, but they had to catch you first :) Ringback was also a fun way to pass the time. Dial the number and hang up, and 30 seconds later the phone would start ringing, and i'd watch who would go answer it. Like I said, bored kids...

larrys• 13 years ago

As a kid I remember these numbers we would call up and hear a bunch of other kids faintly having conversations in the background (and you could join in). Was many years ago perhaps someone else could fill in the details if they remember exactly.

sehrope• 13 years ago

This isn't new at all. For as far back as I can remember you could dial 555-1212 from any area code and get directory assistance for that area code. There's even a toll free 800 number (1-800-555-1212) which prompts you for the city you'd like.

Haven't used it in a long time (seriously who would when you can search the internet on your smartphone?) but I think it's the same service as 411 minus the $X/min fee (the 800 number version is free, I think the non-800 versions might bill you).

evacuationdrill• 13 years ago

The area-555-1212 one actually is the most expensive at $3.50 according to Wikipedia [1]. There is toll-free directory assistance (it doesn't say what number) from AT&T, where the 800-number owner pays for any lookups.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555-1212

afreak• 13 years ago

Slight correction needed to the article: Mexico left the NANP in the late 90s and has adopted its own country code and dialing plan. It hasn't changed much since but you do need to use 011 and whatever code it is now to dial there.

oasisbob2• 13 years ago

Similar: not every 192.x.x.x IP address is in a private (RFC1918) network.

jmcqk6• 13 years ago

This is interesting. Do you know who controls these public addresses? I know in the past I've seen filtered connections to 192.x.x.x thinking that it would get only internal connections then. The owners of these public addresses could wreak havoc in some places.

benjarrell• 13 years ago

From http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the following three blocks of the IP address space for private internets:

     10.0.0.0        -   10.255.255.255  (10/8 prefix)
     172.16.0.0      -   172.31.255.255  (172.16/12 prefix)
     192.168.0.0     -   192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

randomdata• 13 years ago

RFC1918[1] defines 192.168.x.x as the private address space, so anything else in the 192.x.x.x range would not fall under that specification.

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918#page-4

oasisbob2• 13 years ago

There's a university with a 192.16x.x.x allocation who has written about the confusion it's caused.

Nothing that special about it from a CIDR point of view -- but is rather confusing to us humans when written as a dotted quad.

Github's GITHUB-NET4-1 is on 192.30.252.0/22, which is what reminded me of this.

glitch003• 13 years ago

I have a 192.40.x.x address assigned to a VPS I have from a small random hosting company in colorado.

groovylick• 13 years ago

I got 3 192.x.x.x addresses from Ramnode for one of my nodes. They can't be that rare.

dalore• 13 years ago

Well according to RFC1918 only the 192.168.x.x space is private as it's a /16.

davidw• 13 years ago

I always wonder why people don't just use 10.0.0.X - it's easier to write, to tell people on the phone, and to remember if needs be.

rogerbinns• 13 years ago

Several reasons. The biggest is what netmask to use. 192.168.x.x was originally a class C (/24) and the default netmask to use is that resulting in the least number of problems.

With 10.x.x.x, the original was class A (/8) but it is extremely unlikely you want that as the netmask. Other guesses could be wrong.

Additionally because of its size, it is likely used in corporate networks. This would cause grief with vpns if both your local network is 10.x.x.x and the corporate vpn is 10.x.x.x.

linker3000• 13 years ago

UK numbers for drama...

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/numbering/guidance...

user242• 13 years ago

We use those as placeholder text on our registration forms.

kamjam• 13 years ago

use. I'm from the UK, living in Canada and I find the UK numbering better, esp since I can distinguish between a mobile phone and a land line.

I understand that calling a landline is the same thing as call a cell in North America, but it's why there is this mess of incoming minutes vs outgoing minutes allowances and "roaming" charges for leaving a state. Annoying as hell and means you can't get a cheap PAYG sim :(

WestCoastJustin• 13 years ago

Not only are they not fake, but you can have one today!

Callcentric is an "internet phone service", which has been around for at least 8+ years. They allow you to search for unused phone numbers [1] in various area codes [2]. I searched for unused 555 numbers in the following area codes (213, 310, 626, 818) all have some available! So, you could create an account, and for something like $3/month, forward this 555 number to your existing number [3].

[1] http://www.callcentric.com/did_lookup.php?type=check_by_us_n...

[2] http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/area.html

[3] http://www.callcentric.com/dids/phone_number_sale

55555555• 13 years ago

I have the phone number 5555 5555 in a capital city - it's unlisted, never advertised, and still gets about 10 calls a day, mostly from babies and drunks. If you do get a number like this, and want to use it, I would suggest putting it behind an IVR and asking callers to press * to continue. We dump all the non compliant users to a voicemail, which is entertaining to listen to once in a while.

When we got the number first, it was not possible to call it from the major mobile networks as they had blacklisted it as a test number!

yeukhon2• 13 years ago

Imagine your domain becomes your telephone number one day! Or your IP. Well, you can already do that I supposed with VoIP

obituary_latte• 13 years ago

Can't wait!

"Hey Jim, give me a call at 2607 f0d0 1002 0051 0000 0000 0000 0004 when you get a minute" :)

yeukhon2• 13 years ago

In that case, telephone number can never run out if used Ipv6 version. Reusable too! Totally mobile! And you don't even need to pay for mobile bill. Just an internet bill, $10 more. Woho.

vezzy-fnord• 13 years ago

Now all we need is a catchy jingle for Moss to sing along to.

Not every U.S. telephone number beginning with 555 is fake

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