How to buy and use a burner phone

[noahdjango]

that’s the last time you embarrass this department, japhroaig! now hand over your badge and gun. and your phone.

[Skeptic]

@daneel

Do burner phones get a signal in the Black Rock Desert?

[Clicks “Groan” button]

[enso]

@girard

When I lived in Europe, prepaid phones were extremely common, totally normal, and provided readily by both corner shops and major companies - they were so commonplace that the school I worked for gave all of its teachers re-up cards for our phones every quarter or so as part of our pay package (and to compensate us for using our phones for work).

I don’t think you can get them without showing an ID anymore in Europe from a shop. Spain flat out said it was because of terrorism because when I was there, the law was a recent change.

Of course, you can buy them from a junkie for 5 quid.

[anon33466019]

@noahdjango

that’s the last time you embarrass

Oh, I have lots of underroos to embarrass anyone.

Wait, I need to put my clothes back on on? Crap. Carry on.

[simonize]

Well the “home or work” thing isn’t about making it easier to track the phone, it’s about making it easier to link to YOU. Because if “they” are interested in you, looking for phones that have been to the same places that you are known to frequent is definitely part of their SOP.

[Tribune]

@Ignatius

If I hadn’t changed when I did, though, that one person I was most concerned with would have started calling in a harassing fashion.

Some poor person who got the number assigned to them next is really confused.

[Nonentity]

@roomwithaview

@vonbobo

You dont access BB only through…the phone in a Faraday lined pocket?

That is correct, you don’t.

(Or if you do then there’s a hole in your pocket!)

What? That can’t be correct, my psychiatrist assured me you’re all just imaginary voices in my head.

Wait… maybe he’s part of the conspiracy!!

[Ignatius]

Possibly but I parked the number for a good while so it’s likely even that one person gave up before the number went out into the wild.

[shaddack]

@enso

I don’t think you can get them without showing an ID anymore in Europe from a shop. Spain flat out said it was because of terrorism because when I was there, the law was a recent change.

AFAIK, here you still can. So far it is country by country, even if the European Commission in its infinite wisdom wants to “harmonize” it across all - read, ban/restrict Yet Another Thing.

[anon34812172]

@vonbobo

Maybe you are here only for the bananas?

Hey, I resemble that remark.

[Skeptic]

@simonize

Well the “home or work” thing isn’t about making it easier to track the phone, it’s about making it easier to link to YOU. Because if “they” are interested in you, looking for phones that have been to the same places that you are known to frequent is definitely part of their SOP.

My point is that with data analysis a constellation of as few as 3 locations can ID “YOU” based on your regular phone and computer’s locations even if those 3 locations don’t include your home or work. I think it is tough for people, including me, to wrap our heads around just how powerful analysis of metadata is.

[simonize]

and as other have said, timing…If you only turn on the burner at predictable times, they can narrow down the possibilities…

[anon27554371]

@Dragonbait1

Never user your burner at home, work or near your existing phone.

@Dragonbait1

If your threat model is a state-level agency, OPSEC (operations security) is hard. Not “pinpointed to 100’” hard ; your OPSEC against a state-TLA is much stronger: "don’t even put the battery in the phone until your are several towns away from any place you normally leave a data trail.

I don’t know as much as most posting here, and would be grateful if you would please clarify… simply pulling the battery out of a dumb phone (for the sake of argument, a truly dumb phone with no GPS) renders it invisible to the cell tower network, yes?

[Skeptic]

@anon27554371

I don’t know as much as most posting here, and would be grateful if you would please clarify… simply pulling the battery out of a dumb phone (for the sake of argument, a truly dumb phone with no GPS) renders it invisible to the cell tower network, yes?

Sure, but turning phones on and off is suspicious.

If the government is interested in you at a high enough level, you really shouldn’t be using phones at all. (Hell, just talking about this probably has all of us keyword (behaviorally) tagged for IP monitoring.) Reminds me a bit of how Las Vegas casinos ban card counting, but are actually just fine with most card counting because card counting is actually really, really hard to do at a high enough level to work, so most card counters loose money to the casino just like everybody else. Same for “burner” phones. It’s probably very nice of you to segregate all of your clandestine phone calls to burner phones so the government can know exact what it is that you don’t want them to know.