|
Burner
Phones
I was
recently watching an episode of “Better Call Saul” in
which he got the idea to market pay-your-way cell phones to people who had
reason to want to stay anonymous in their communications, (OK, criminals).
Burner phones play a big part in that television show and many others. The
Burner phone has entered our public consciousness so much so that when
attorney Michael Cohen was raided by the FBI in 2018 and it was reported
that they had seized 16 mobile
phones, everyone knew what was going on; Burner Phones.
Burners are represented in popular entertainment as the standard in
keeping communications secret, but
here are the realities; burner phones aren’t invisible on the Public
Switched Telephone Network, if you call a number that is being recorded
your call is recorded too. They respond to all the same signals as any
other cell phone, they can be pinged for location, leave “Call Data
Records” and can be trapped by a Stingray device. The only thing they
really offer, and this is crucial, is anonymity, not tying any of the above
to you the user. All that being said, it seems like a good time to tell my story of picking up a burner.
So I have a friend/business associate I
work with on a lot of things and we talk a lot on the phone because we’re
about 900 miles apart. Sometimes, by agreement, we will talk on our cell
phones rather than our recorded office phones to avoid making inconvenient
records. No, not anything remotely criminal, just inconvenient, if shared with
some other specific people. Recently during a conversation he says, “we
can’t talk about this on these phones” and I replied “OK, call you on your
cell in a minute…” and he goes into “No, no… I don’t want to do this on my
cell phone either!” At this point he has made me really curious so I
suggest “Maybe we need to get a couple of those really hot phones” which confused him, then I said “you know,
the kind that are on fire!”
again, not clicking, finally I said “we need Burner Phones!” Now getting
it, he agreed and wondered why a couple of business men like us weren’t
already equipped.
At this point we made our first
mistake; we both agreed to go out and get burner phones that afternoon and
get back together that night. Do you see the mistake in that? If you don’t
want your new burner phone number to be associated with you and don’t trust
your electronic communications security, then how can you exchange burner
phone numbers with somebody far away? In this case one of us should have
purchased two burners, programmed them with each other’s number and Fedexed one to the other user.
I go on my mission to get a burner
phone and there are a lot of options, frankly they’re everywhere today, you
can pick one up in a bodega or a “big box store” and just about everywhere
in between. So I head for my
neighborhood Walmart store and then decide maybe
not the one where I shop so often the greeters know me by name and instead
head across town to a “strange” Walmart. When I
get to the electronics department they have three different brands and
several different models each, most requiring that you buy the phone and
some bulk minutes separately. I pick out a phone, grab a card with 300
minutes and head to the checkout. This is where you run into the first
“anonymity” challenge, come prepared with cash, so your burner doesn’t get
associated with your bank card!!
The next challenge is to get the burner
activated with its own number… and in most cases that takes an already
working phone! Well, of course I don’t want to associate my existing cell,
and thereby my identity with my new burner so I just ask the clerk in the
electronics department if he can activate my new phone. He looks rather
questioningly at the cell phone clipped onto my belt, but says “No problem,
the rep for the cell company happens to be here, he’ll handle it for you!”
and he calls the rep over and tells him “This guy needs his new phone
activated.” The rep looks pointedly at my existing cell on my belt… and I
think this is where things started to unravel.
He says “Happy to help, I’m Bob! And
you’re Mister…?” I respond that
“Mister” will be just fine thanks. He smiles knowingly and dials in on his
phone to start the process. Apparently like many automated over-the-phone
registration systems there are a lot of options and he is enjoying taking
me through all of them…
Bob;
“What area code do you want your new number in?”
Me;
“415”
Bob;
“That’s not a local number, don’t you live around here?”
Me;
“It doesn’t matter where I live; I want a number in the 415 area code.”
Bob;
“What do you want for the caller ID name?”
Me;
“Leave it blank, I don’t want a name displayed.”
Bob;
“It’s free with the account?”
Me;
“Blank is fine”
At this point, both clerks in the
department have joined us at the counter and are grinning at Bob and I,
even an elderly black man on a mobility scooter has figured out what is
going on and is hanging around making comments about “secret agent man”.
Finally
Bob makes one more pass “Do you want me to personalize the main screen on the
phone with your name?” After I decline, he presents me with my now working
burner and tells me “Here you go! An out of state phone that is completely
off the grid!” and all of them laughed as I made my exit having paid as
much in dignity as I did money for that stupid phone.
After all that effort to get a burner I
couldn’t seem to hook up with my associate to have that “private”
conversation and learn what was so sensitive we couldn’t discuss it over the
phone. He never did get a burner and eventually told me what was going on
and it turned out he was simply exaggerating about the subjects’
sensitivity. But I did get to go through the process to get a burner phone
and found that it wasn’t anything like a TV show criminal or spy doing it.
|
