phone screwing
n.— «Press Gazette has been told the practice of “phone screwing”—illegally hacking into mobile phone voicemail messages—has been widespread throughout Fleet Street.…“The process is known as screwing a phone. Most people who have mobile phones don’t change the factory setting on their voicemail—it could be four zeros or 1234, something very simple like that. You might try using their birthday or something like that if they have changed the setting.”…“Any remote access phone service can be screwed. It was a little loophole that most of the networks have shut down.”» —“Is Fleet Street screwed?” by Dominic Ponsford, Jon Slattery, Lou Thomas Press Gazette (United Kingdom) Aug. 10, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...
In 1971, when a new public library opened in Troy, Michigan, famous authors and artists were invited to write letters to the city’s youngest readers, extolling the many benefits of libraries. One of the loveliest was from E.B. White, author of...