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13 Secret Codes That Unlock Hidden Features on Your Phone

13 Secret Codes That Unlock Hidden Features on Your Phone The USSD protocol allows you to access hidden features you didn't know about right from your smartphone's dialer. But there is some trickiness you'll need to know about. Remember that scene in War Games when the socially broken code monkeys were explaining to aspiring hacker Matthew Broderick all about "back doors" (i.e. secret pathways planted by programmers)? Well, that's actually a thing. Coders have a storied tradition of baking in secret passageways (or sometimes, just fun little Easter eggs ) that can only be accessed by inputting a special "key." And so that tradition continues in the mobile age. Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)—sometimes known as "quick codes" or "feature codes"—is an extra-UI protocol, which allows people to access hidden features. This protocol was originally created for GSM phones , but can be found on CDMA dev...