#Online prank dialer registration#

In February 2009, 'Dex' and a member called 'Slayer' called a KFC restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. Updates were also provided through a Twitter account. Pranks that created sufficient havoc were posted on YouTube. Audiences ranged from 40 to 200 people at any given time. Beginning in 2009, members chatted before, during, and after each prank via the chat system of Beyluxe Messenger, which is owned and operated in Romania, and thus outside of North America. After Pranknet users were banned from Paltalk, the company was subjected to multiple DDoS attacks. However, Paltalk banned Pranknet after a February 2009 KFC incident. After Skype began an internal investigation, Pranknet left Skype and briefly used Paltalk for its chats and calls.

#Online prank dialer registration#

As of 2009, Skype used encryption and obfuscation of its communication services and provided an uncontrolled registration system for users without proof of identity, making it difficult to trace and identify users. Pranknet initially operated through a chat room at, and participants used Skype to make their calls. At that time, law enforcement officials from a number of jurisdictions and the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating the various incidents as well as the identity of 'Dex'. In 2009, a wave of the pranks across the United States prompted internal alerts by Choice Hotels, as well as advisories by the Sheriff's office of Orange County, Florida, and others. Pranknet members could listen in real-time and discuss the progress together in a private chat room. Posing as authority figures, such as fire alarm company representatives and hotel front-desk/corporate managers, Pranknet participants called unsuspecting employees and customers in the United States and tricked them into damaging property, pulling fire alarms, setting off fire sprinklers, breaking out windows, and humiliating acts such as disrobing and the consumption of human urine. The group has been linked to nearly 60 separate incidents. The group was founded by a man who later referred to himself as 'Dex1x1', later identified as a Canadian named Tariq Malik. Their pranks were coordinated through an online chat room, and convinced others to cause damage to hotels and fast food restaurants of more than $60,000. Pranknet, also known as Prank University, was an anonymous prank calling virtual community that was involved in a string of malicious pranks and instances of telephone harassment, especially during 2009–2011. Telephone harassment and hoaxing, via social engineering DDoS attacks