> > What happens if someone takes the telephone and does the equivalent of a
> > spam?  What if they hooked the phone to their pc, and had it dial number
> > after number, and play some kind of recording to each person that answered?
 
This reminds me of a joke I heard about the above mentioned senario...
 
A computer was set up to call a list of number and on being answer by
a non-mechanical signal, would launch into a series of questions,
indicating the end of each with a signal to indicate that you were
to speak. After answering each question you were required to press a
number to get the next question.
 
Anyway, the PC called one home and a answering machine answered. Not
hearing the a signal, the PC launched into it's questions. It got the
question about if you had kids. At this point the the machine gave
it's "leave your message now" beep. The calling PC took that as a
number and asked how old the child was. The beep IT sent triggered
the "leave your message now" beep on the answering maching and an
interesting cycle started between the two machines.
 
About an hour later the owners of the answering machine came home and
saw that the machine was still on. They hung up. By that time the
calling PC had registered that this family had something like 2000
kids with ages ranging from 0 to 23000 years old!
 
The company never called that house again... :)
 
Geoff