Keeping A Burner Phone

This is no longer a shady thing in 2024.

Normally anything I write about equipment would end up in Tool Time, but today’s topic is such a burning issue that it’s going in the main timeline.

So let’s talk about phone hazards and phone security.

Attention Conservation Notice:

The world is an increasingly dark and dangerous place. The time really has come for everyone to keep a burner phone. This is practically a mandatory safety move at this point.

Hazards:

First, I’ve long cited this VICE article as a good reason to only give out Google Voice numbers, and never sharing a cellular carrier number.

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone

Then came this one about Heritage Foundation tracking the first Trump shooter’s phone. This is a BFD because they could also see fellow travelers - other phones in the same area.

Heritage Foundation Claims to Use Location Data to Track Trump Shooter's Movements

Then Jackie Singh spotted this nightmare, in which the Koch Brothers bought the keys to our national phone system.

The Secret System Behind Every Call You Make Is About to Change Hands

Phones As I.D.

This is what set me off this morning - an associate has been raving about results from Claude being much better than ChatGPT, so I decided to take a look for myself.

Claude won’t accept a Google Voice number, it wants an actual carrier number. If pressed they would claim this is to limit fraudulent use, but Google Voice numbers have roughly the same inertia as a carrier number. I suspect there’s a “peddle Neal’s consumer behavior all over the place” angle to this.

Just a couple years ago one could use Google Voice for various social media networks. That safer operating mode has been waning, and I’m not having it. I get a new burner when an investigation demands my presence on such networks and I otherwise simply refuse to have anything to do with them.

There are a couple of things that I needed where I did use my carrier number, 100% are applications that handle money. I went back after signup and worked the Google Voice number on my iPhone into play and that seems to be OK with them. If I were 100% sure that was going to work long term I would roll my carrier number, but I’m NOT sure, so I’ve let it ride.

Conclusion:

I think the delusional anti-immigrant stuff the Trump administration is going to do will make this even more difficult. We’re liable to have a national prepaid registration requirement similar to Pakistan, where you can’t get a SIM unless you prove your identity. They’ve done that because phones can be remote detonators for IEDs and otherwise involved in terrorism.

If this comes to pass, I will still buy burner phones for investigations . While such things could be attributed by someone willing to dig hard enough, if all they can get is information on a device purpose bought for just one reason, the information on it is already available for the associated court case via other discovery means.

I let all of my burner devices slide after the second time I moved this year. Then when they were well and truly chilled out I disposed of them. I’m packing again, because cheap/unique housing here is always ephemeral, and pondering changing not just numbers but also switching carriers during the between places phase.

This quote from Russell Crowe’s character in Body of Lies comes to mind …

Our enemy has realized that they are fighting guys from the future. Now, ahem, it is brilliant as it is infuriating. If you live like it's the past, and you behave like it's the past, then guys from the future find it very hard to see you.

You kids be careful, it’s gonna get rough out there.