cheese box

plural cheese boxes

1. alternativeAlternative form of cheesebox (“container for cheese”).
2. A device formerly used by phreakers to convert a home telephone line into a payphone.

   There are files circulating about the modem/phreak world regarding a device known as a cheese box.

   2009, Emmanuel Goldstein, The Best of 2600, Collector's Edition: A Hacker Odyssey, page 40

   2 more examples

   Then the bookie leaves the site of the phone and stations himself blocks away in another room with a phone attached to a similar cheese box.

   1967, William Surface, Inside Internal Revenue

   The cheese box bridges two separate telephone lines. It is often used by bookmakers and bettors to place free calls for accepting or placing bets.

   1978, Bell telephone magazine, volumes 57-58