Don't know what to call it but I could use help.

Are you getting calls from number starting with 54321 something?

No. It seems as though it is a computer maybe generating tons of random phone numbers and calling me from them.

What are the calls about?

Also, what country do you live in? (it’s relevant for phone-rules related stuff)

A few options:

[list=1]
[] Intelligence service. You posted it online so not relevant anymore. But it’s usually one call or two, not 50. Discarded.
[] Assassin/Stalker-to-death network. Either someone you know personally, someone hired by someone you know personally, or some random psycho that just chose you. Could be internet-based.
[] Your number just got chosen for infrastructure tests. There are certain “tests” numbers within phone companies. This could be: a number you just dial and it’s always busy, a number you dial, dial some more and an action is taken (like a remote control), or just numbers for “checking the integrity of the network”. They’re usually restricted information. Depending on the “rank” of the operator you talked to, he may or may not know about this. But since they are “chosen”/generated by the company itself, it would be unusual that they didn’t know the number is in use already. Maybe the question to make isn’t “hey I am getting a lot of random calls, why?” but “hey what can you tell me about my number?”.
[] You’re being the target of opportunity of some penetration test: either an official, approved entity probing the system, or part of the recon of a malevolent organisation prior to an infrastructure attack.
[] Some weirdo figured out how to call for free or whatever and you’re receiving the calls as a ‘wtf what am I doing’ from the system.
[] The system that just passed the Turing test (note: it’s not the one you can talk to in the web-chat provided, that version it the version from 2001) has taken a passive control of the infrastructure, watched Person of Interest, liked the idea and chosen you as an admin. The “random numbers” you are being called from are not phone numbers but social security numbers or other kind of identification of people who are in danger or pose a threat to humanity. Hopefully it’s the threats that are not relevant to national security.
[/list]

I’m going with the 6th one.

How long are the numbers + how long are they supposed to be in your country?
Have you picked up the call any time?
Do you have a smartphone or a dumb phone?
Do you have a prepaid (card) deal?
If you have a card, and assuming you have a smartphone, have you tried putting the card in the dumb phone? Putting the card in another smartphone? Putting another card in your smartphone?

I’ve heard very funny stories where some guys received a call or two from the number 00000000000, didn’t matter if they picked it up or not, if they had a smartphone or not, if they had a card or not. Advice: if you ever get such call, break the phone and RUN. (Except if you’re a terrorist, if you’re a terrorist then stay there)

1. Someone is in trouble and the only way to communicate with the outside world is calling you. Only they can’t talk over the phone, just change the calling number to whatever they like. The numbers together are an encoded message.

Number 6 can be discarded as well because it didn’t actually pass the Turing test. But perhaps something else did and that is trying to send messages via phone numbers!

Ok. Gonna clear this up a bit and add some details. I have a smartphone. The numbers that have been calling have been standard numbers for the U.S with ten digits, an area code and 7 other digits. When I have picked up (about five times) there was nothing on the other end, no static or music, nothing. I live in the U.S and I do not have a prepaid deal. When I call back there is a machine recording that says the number has been disconnnected or does not exist. I did look two of them up and it said that one came from Costa Rica and the other from Australia. I have not had any calls from 000000000 but I have had two that came from what showed up as my own number. The one that showed up as my own number did have somebody on the other end but I could not understand what he was saying , although he was speaking English. Hope this makes it easier to figure out.

Thanks for the help

So, on a slightly more serious note: the numbers that show can easily be faked, I believe. It might just be a spammer trying to set up a system and has randomly choosen your number for testing. I don’t expect there is much you can do other than getting a new number. Perhaps you can block all numbers with you don’t know, but that doesn’t seem practical in most cases.

You’d hope that your provider has some control over this. Perhaps you can find some expert online that actually has some knowledge about these things (unlike me).

One more thing, the calls are not showing up on the computers at the AT&T store and won’t show up on the AT&T logs, but they do show up in the call history on my phone.

Is your provider AT&T? The way this sounds, it’s just testing the line with loop-back calls and the likes. Might be your provider (if it is not AT&T; if they were doing it, they’d have logs), or some phreak[er] (i’ve seen debates over the correct word for these people, so i’m leaving both of them).

In either case, you should announce your provider, as this should stop, regardless of reason. Either catch the bad guy or (if there’s no bad guy) just stop testing on you (without previous notice, at least).

My recommendation: leave it for the pros. No shit. Contact Law Enforcement (I would go for the FBI, not the Police), it’s better to be embarrassed afterwards than sorry if it was something serious.

The fact that there was someone on the other side at least once puts it in a different level.

As it is a smartphone, it could also be something on there. As SFisher said, try putting your sim in another phone (indeed preferably something not so smart) and see if it still happens.

@SFisher :if it was a loop-back, it might’ve been some sort of cross-talk over the network (since Xero also speaks english - i understand he’s from the US). Or just people testing the line, discussing at some distance from the phone. No need to be alarmed…

But i tend to agree. If it happens again, contact law enforcement and your phone company

Do you mean like another call’s audio being redirected to his phone?

No, loop-back is sort of an echo…you talk, and you get what you speak back to you (ideally and if i understood the concept). Cross-talk is interference between what you send and what you receive (used to happen in old line-phones a lot). Cross-talk could distort your echo and make it less audible and even impossible to understand (think superposition of 2 different signals).

I understand now. Thanks for clarification. That could clear up the fact that he only heard it when his own number was the originating point as well.
But how do these loop-backs get started?

Check this:

https://www.hackthis.co.uk/articles/phone-phreaking-now-then#loop-line

and this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosstalk_(electronics)

for a bit more clarification.

Now, my advice:

Call your provider. Tell him what happened, in detail. Tell them you want to know what it was and you want it to stop. If they don’t know what it is, or they say something and you say “please stop” and it doesn’t stop, call law enforcement. Also let the provider know you intend to go to law enforcement unless they do something about it, for hasty solving of your problem ;) If they honestly don’t know what it was, they should actually encourage you to talk to law enforcement.

Thanks for the heads-up. But I thought this problem was much less likely now that communications are wireless. (From the wikipedia page, “Alternatively, the signals can be converted to digital form, which is much less susceptible to crosstalk.”)
Also @Xero_Out if you have the opportunity to do so, maybe try moving 30 or 40 miles from where you are and see if it affects the problem?

Yeah, well, the same wiki article further states:
“In wireless communication, crosstalk is often denoted co-channel interference, and is related to adjacent-channel interference.” (i suggest skimming co-channel interference and adjacent-channel interference as well).

The cross-talk could also be internal to the phone (but in that case, there should have been no dead silence in the other cases), so i tend to reject that idea.

Agreed on the changing location idea.

(Related?)
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/Operators/66308.php

May be related but I don’t think so because I haven’t received notice from AT&T. Not saying it isn’t a possibility but I don’t think it’s very likely. One more thing, none of the area codes were valid U.S area codes and only one was valid for anything at all, that was an international calling code for South Africa.

Xero_Out just take the help of the police .

I reiterate: contact the FBI.
It’s much better if you call them (not from your smartphone), it’s faster than sending an e-mail.

You’ll get better solutions from there than from here. I think.

From personal xp I’ve dealt with the same problem before. I don’t have AT&T, I had T-Mobile, and my mum had Boost at the time. I would get random calls from all sorts of numbers. I would get really creeped out and would hear talking in the background to beeps going around in rooms. Being fed up with all of the calls I started calling the numbers non-stop until I got an answer. Finally I did from one of the numbers, which had all of the same beeps going on in the place as well as a lot of chatter, and the lady actually picked up. It turned up to be a hospitals number and the lady told me that she hadn’t called. After she put the phone back down I probably got a good 4-5 more calls that when I picked up I still heard the same lady in the background talking and enviroment. I would do the same and hang up then call right back. Everytime the lady got pissed even more at me and even threatened to call the cops. I’ve had a bunch of other random numbers call with the same behavior and both my mum and I’s phone. Sometimes there would be hanging up or the line would just sit there for a good thirty minutes straight, sometimes talking in the background, and idk…. fucking weird and pisses me off. I still to this day do not have a phone for the reasons of GPS Tracking and all of the numbers randomly calling. The only people I give my number are to friends and two family members that have a phone. I never sign up for anything so yeah :P

My guess is either the Gov or some leet hackers. I can’t even begin to think why somebody would sit on a phone line for so long with no activity for humor or testing. Unless they were gaining something from it……

So idk, just cancel your phone….. you’re better without it man.

Edit:

That’s pretty deep @dloser

That’s what she said, @MaxLockhart (sorry, couldn’t resist :P)

Although I can imagine it is very annoying and all, I wouldn’t necessarily take it in personal or paranoid way. Ever read code that made you think “how the hell did this ever run?” Now realise that the whole world is running on that kind of code. ;)

[quote=dloser]Ever read code that made you think “how the hell did this ever run?” [/quote]

Yes. Anything that is written by @gizmore

Thanks for the replies guys. The calls just stopped today, haven’t gotten any. I’m still not sure exactly what happened but I’ll try to figure it out.