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The telephone network is practically useless because we don't have any authentication to it anymore.
When the phone company had to do something to physically connect a wire to a building, it was sufficient. But that I can download any number of apps that lets me war dial an entire continent pretending to be just anyone? Yeah the phone network isn't secure enough for the average user.
It never really was secure. You could always set the Caller ID on an outgoing PRI trunk to whatever you wanted with any of the phone systems in the last half century. It isn't validated.
Also phone phreaking existed. Just blow a whistle into the pay phone and get free calls.
I had a little touchtone dial pad I could put up to the mouthpiece and dial through with. It was sweet
It was when you had to ask the nice lady to connect you. That's what happens when you remove all the infrastructure jobs.