Base Model Burner Blues
In which I repurpose a long idle burner phone
Someone, who shall remain nameless, managed to get themselves mugged in a famously gritty East Bay NFL city that shall also remain nameless. Their phone was among the things that scampered away.
Being that guy, among my associates, namely the person known to have a box full of burners lurking, I got tapped to trudge across the sprawl and hand deliver a replacement device.
I dutifully gathered myself, double checked my BARTopia passport, and after acquiring the necessary SIM and refill card here in Happy Valley, I started my journey. Only to emerge from the train with my phone vibrating due to … texts from the missing device.
Long story short, bereaved postpaid phone owner noticed his “find my phone” setup working, and the device was located safe and sound, under a dense bush a stone’s throw from the site of the robbery.
So I wasted the better part of a day, a $30 AT&T prepaid plan, about $70 in travel costs due to a train outage, and all I’ve got to show for it is thirty days to use a burner I’ve despised since the moment I got it back in 2023.
Attention Conservation Notice:
Paranoid weirdo mumbles about the steadily increasing challenges of passing unnoticed in America’s Palantir Panopticon. If you don’t keep your phone’s SIM in an aluminum pill carrier on your keyring, on the off chance you might want to put it in and use it, this will probably seem a couple clicks past whatever comes after esoteric.
Gadget Du Jure:
I got this AT&T Calypso 3 for some civil mess in 2023. I only needed to do a few simple things, but having time on my hands, this thing got the full monte:
new number
Gmail
Google Voice
ProtonMail
Facebook & Friends
LinkedIn
Twitter
Cake Wallet
Signal
Wire
Authy
I really did intend to farm this persona up as a returning male student at a certain institution of higher education, one that was close enough I could lurk it and get some real local colors, as well as use of campus IP addresses and the like.
Downfall:
Things went sideways for this setup almost immediately. I think Fakebook was first, then LinkedIn, and it wasn’t long before it had no presence left. This was weird to me, because I’ve got another one I did in a similar fashion that’s about to turn ten and it’s fine. I guess the CDE (custody, divorce, executive protection) work that it did the first few years seasoned it in ways that my simply lurking never could. The only thing that ever broke was Instagram, which is weird, because it’s something that only got used to prowl Caribbean swingers resort feeds one summer.
Having lost the social media toehold I established this thing did get used for some SMS/Signal/Wire, and I’m plain amazed the Signal account is still logged in after all this time. The Google Voice number it was attached to slipped away a year ago, so it’s a bit of a unicorn - but only usable with the understanding that it’s gone beyond recall the day a new owner decides they want to try Signal. I’ve had a couple Signal accounts in this condition over the years, and they never last. I can’t trust ‘em, so I can’t use ‘em, rinse, repeat.
Resurrection:
I’ve always set these things up on wifi at a location I will not visit a second time, random corporate coffee shops, mall public wifi, etc. Since I had time to kill on the train, I decided I’d try to go bare this time, just me, a new SIM, and a refill card. No dice. Went at it several different ways, and was starting to think I’d wasted $30.
When I got home I logged into a WireGuard VPN and used the web setup. It wanted a real name and email address. I debated giving it a persona, but I now intend to use this fresh PSTN number to get a Google Voice I’m going to keep for years, so I played it straight. The signup site was just … weird … due to WireGuard, but it did work.
I kinda want to have a go at using a thin persona to do this, but that means being willing to write off the $30 setup cost and probably the device itself. If the corp thinks you’re a fraudster, them giving you a GTFO and keeping the $30 is a win. They hate short term burner users like me though, because that $40 on sale phone is supposed to generate years of recurring revenue, not two or three months.
Conclusion:
The terminator line between “I use prepaid because no credit check” and “I use prepaid because reasons” is … for me, it evokes the Vietnam era firebase perimeter. Lots of concertina wire with empty beer cans tied all over, so the gravel in the bottom rattles, giving away any movement. Every year I’ve been in this curious business it’s gotten a little bit harder to plant a persona.
I suspect those who do this often and at scale have entire Potemkin villages, herds of a hundred devices in a phone farm that is active, without being fraudulent. When an investigator needs a new device *poof* it gets inserted, its old “friends” find it quickly, and it’s free to move about the world.
This has become academic for me, at least until I face some dramatic life change. That one old warhorse of mine lives in Cloak now and I try to drive it a bit at moments when things are slow. Having recently discovered Playwright in the context of my growing work with Claude I imagine there’s going to be a dedicated investigative compartment with its own Claude Pro subscription here pretty soon.
You guys didn’t think I was kidding about leaving the SIM for my phone in a pill carrier, right? That there is the best $2.50 Faraday bag you could ever want, and it goes a long way towards ending any gratuitous mobile communications. You can pull a Faraday bag out of a backpack, remove the device, and be nattering with friends within sixty seconds. On the other hand, if you’ve got to fumble with small parts on a moving train …
