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Using a computer to dial telephone numbers within a given range, usually with the intention of finding a modem carrier signal.  The practice largely predated the widespread [penetration] of broadband Internet connectivity; at the time, many businesses, agencies, and individuals operated computer systems "on-demand" through telephone-based modems, each of which might (or might not) offer a unique (and possibly privileged) selection of [information], as well as possibly offering access to powerful hardware or a platform for reaching other networks and systems.  Usually, the wardialer would be covertly planted on a public, shared, or corporate phone line, left to operate for a limited time, then retrieved so that any "positives" (phone lines returning a modem carrier signal) could be investigated later from yet another location.  The practice often went hand-in-hand with phreaking, for obvious reasons.

Today, some telemarketing and social research firms use similar programs (usually working from a digital phone book) to reach [residential] numbers in search of sales or social [information].  Also, on rare occasions, people engaged in [social engineering] have used a form of this process to explore "gaps" in corporate phone listings to discover (and identify the owners of) unlisted numbers.

This term directly inspired the term wardriving, due to similarities between the two practices: both return [unpredictable] results, both require real-world travel, and  both activities are done for rather similar reasons.  On the other hand, while wardriving is inherently focused on and limited to a specific geographic area, wardialing is a prototypical bruteforce process, much like password cracking, and can theoretically be achieved from any location with a dial tone.

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