demon dialer n. A program which repeatedly calls the same
telephone number. Demon dialing may be benign (as when a number of
communications programs contend for legitimate access to a {BBS}
line) or malign (that is, used as a prank or denial-of-service
attack). This term dates from the {blue box} days of the 1970s
and early 1980s and is now semi-obsolescent among {phreaker}s;
see {war dialer} for its contemporary progeny.