Prank calling

A prank call (also known as a crank call or hoax call) is a telephone practical joke. Prank phone calls began to gain a worldwide following since the invention of telephones, as they became a staple of the obscure and amusing cassette tapes traded among musicians, sound engineers, and media traders beginning in the late 1970s. Among the most famous and earliest recorded prank calls are the Tube Bar prank calls tapes, which centered on Louis "Red" Deutsch. Comedian Jerry Lewis was an incorrigible phone prankster, and recordings of his hijinks, dating from the 1960s and possibly earlier, still circulate to this day.

Very prominent people have fallen victim to prank callers, for example Elizabeth II, who was fooled by Canadian DJ Pierre Brassard posing as Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, asking her to record a speech in support of Canadian unity ahead of the 1995 Quebec referendum. Two other notable examples of prank calls were made by the Miami-based radio station Radio El Zol. In one, they telephoned Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and spoke to him pretending to be Cuban president Fidel Castro. They later reversed the prank, calling Castro and pretending to be Chávez. Castro began swearing at the pranksters live on air after they revealed themselves.

Prank callers can now be easily found through Caller ID, so it is often asserted that prank calls since the 1990s have been harder to accomplish and thus waning in popularity. Most telephone companies permit callers to withhold the identifying information from calls using the vertical service code *67 that blocks the caller's ID (141 in the UK), but potential victims may be reluctant to answer a call from an ID-blocked number.Wiretapping by several governments have also helped bypass this problem. Callers can also call from payphones in order to hide their identity, although this is becoming less common as pay phones are beginning to phase out starting in the late 2000s. The advent and advancements in digital switching technologies such as those found in SS7, unspoofable ANI, as well as outbound and inbound calls being logged at carrier exchange equipment, further complicate the pranksters will to remain anonymous while carrying out such activities.

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