C-Span Hosts getting put in their place A prank call (also known as a crank 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] The earliest known streaming prank call on the internet was posted by Michael Biggins, who is known by his prank caller / radio station host name "Blackout". It was broadcast in real audio 1.0 format (14.4 kbit/s modem speed) in 1995. His was also the first interactive internet radio show primarily based on prank calls to broadcast live and take callers' suggestions on pranks. The first world wide notability of a 'prank call site' was Blackout.com (Blackout's Box),[4] and the site remains online to this day. The internet radio station [wPCR] PrankCall Radio (www.prankcallradio.net) is the largest web-site that still continuously broadcasts prank phone calls as they happen live on the internet. Since its creation by "DJ FooDStamP" in 1997, they have completed over 185,000 prank phone calls and broadcast them to over 5 million people worldwide. Ever since the opportunity has been available, there have been multiple internet radio stations dedicated to prank calls. Most of them feature a so-called "rotation" of prank calls, which is a constant broadcast of various prank calls submitted by the community, usually streamed from a SHOUTcast server host. Software such as Ventrilo has allowed prank calls to be carried out to a more private user-base, however, in real-time. The internet has allowed many people to share their own personal prank calls and develop into communities. Prank calls can be carried out in many ways; live or pre-recorded. Sites such as Stickam and Ustream allow hosts to carry out prank calls live to thousands of listeners, who can also chat and discuss on-goings in real-time. The use of social networking and the popularity of user generated content also allows these prank calls to spread and popularity to grow. For example, the popular internet series "PrankCallsX" features pre-recorded prank calls to fan-suggested businesses. 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.[5] 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.[5] 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. Another increasingly popular option is to use some form of VoIP. With some VoIP services, the telephone number will simply not exist. These calls are extremely difficult to trace since they may pass through servers and routers operated by multiple corporations or entities in various countries. Although law enforcement agencies may theoretically be able to find where a VoIP call originates from if they tried, in practice the amount of time, effort, and resources required would be too great to use on ordinary prank calls.

• published: 07 Feb 2016
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