I’d like to share my attempt to find out if there’s any truth to obtaining an untraceable prepaid cell phone.
Now by untraceable I don’t mean being able to hide having it tracked when it’s powered on, I feel that’s kind of a no-brainer.
The signal could always be triangulated via cell towers, but this article is not meant to go into those details.
Untraceable in this sense means untraceable to a person, or anonymous use of a cell phone.
I have always been curious about prepaid, no-contract cell phones and decided the best way to learn about them was to buy one for myself.
Emergency Use
This journey started off with me wanting to get a prepaid backup cell phone on a different network than what I currently have.
In an emergency, I wanted to have a phone on a different network just in case mine went down.
When I finally got ready to make my purchase of a prepaid phone, I thought to myself, how easy is it for a criminal to gain access to a untraceable cell phone?
What if they paid in cash? Would there really be no record of who made the purchase?
All these thoughts started running through my head and causing tons of ”what if” scenarios to play out.
With all the bad things that happen on a daily basis in our country, I was confident that prepaid cell phones weren’t something that could be used for the wrong reasons.
Surely there would be some kind of identification check, right?
Findings
The short answer is no. I’m going to leave out a lot of details in my findings, due to this being an open internet site.
I’m currently in the process of contacting the company to implore them to investigate what I’ve found though.
Is an untraceable cell phone possible, you bet it is. In my opinion, it’s a dangerous thing for literally anyone to have the ability to gain access to one.
However, I’m not a fan of regulation and don’t want this to turn into a political article, so lets just keep it at that.
Activation
With the particular prepaid phone I purchased, I had to buy my minutes separate from the phone, and those minutes were only good for 30 days once activated.
The phone also had to be activated from another phone (land-line or cell phone) or their Web site, before it was able to accept the minutes and allow calls to be placed.
Calling the activation number put me in touch with an operator working in a call center in India.
After I read the IMEI number from the phone I’d purchased and let the operator know my name and address, a phone number and area code was created based on the address I provided.
Essentially that was it, no other personal information was required, and I now had a working phone and 30 days to use my minutes.
If the phone account is not refilled within 30 days after the service end date, the phone number will be lost and a new one will be generated when the phone is reactivated.
I realized that to use my new prepaid phone for emergency purposes, I’d need to purchase an optional minute plan where the minutes never expired.
Having a card ready to load in an emergency wouldn’t be a good option, because I’d have to wait through the process of activating the minutes and potentially having my phone number changed.
Closing Remarks
The implications of an untraceable cell phone are fairly significant, and something that I feel should not be taken lightly.
While no real details were provided into how to make a cell phone untraceable back to the purchaser, it was fairly easy to figure out.
This is also an account of just one of the many prepaid providers out there, and is not a reflection of the majority.
What are your thoughts on the availability of phones like this? Do you consider them dangerous?
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Where I hail from, Brasil, these pre-paid phones are the boon of the criminal industry. And if they are coupled with SIM-card capability which can be hacked you have a recipe for disaster in the wrong hands.
On the other hand, many of us who are not criminals can benefit from the same technology if certain situations arise.
Good article, look forward to hearing more about this from you.
Larry,
Thanks for the comment,
Bryan
Without intending it, this is pretty much the way my cell is set up since I got fed up with contract service and switched to pre-paid. I think I used my real info when I set it up but there is no guarantee they kept it. Though I imagine, at this point I’ve put minutes on with my plastic though which ties it to me either way.
Do I think its dangerous? It has the potential to be. But, so do a lot of things. Regulating who can buy a cell phone and how is going too far, in my opinion. It is still a free country, and in a free country, if I want a cell phone that has the anonymity of the old payphone on the corner, I should be able to own one.
More to the point, if I use a prepaid phone and only pay cash for new cards, I don’t want to be criminalized for not being findable. Being anonymous should never be a crime – Plenty of ordinary citizens find they need to disappear, with no criminal intentions whatsoever.
Even if new regulation was put in place to prevent this sort of open access to cell phones, how functional could it be? It would have to be fairly severe to begin with to verify personal information, and it would still have to depend on the honesty of the person buying the phone. Phones could still be bought and set up by X, and then given to Y. Stolen identity information can still be used.
When I set up my last contract phone, there was a guy with an extremely thick Mexican/South-of-the-Border accent buying a phone, and he read “his” information, including social security number, off a hand written note. Was it really his? I doubt it.
My take is there are better things on which to expend energy than cell phone access. I only see a thing like this hurting the innocent, while the criminal element continues to do things the shady way.
Great comments Morgan!
You raise some terrific points and I completely agree with all of them. There’s a way around everything, and there are plenty of things that are dangerous out there.
Without going into details, my intention with the article wasn’t to spark regulation, but to raise awareness and to elude to a fairly significant security loophole created by the company with whom I purchased my prepaid service. That loophole is best left off of the internet.
Regards,
Bryan
Immediately their use in terrorism comes to mind, but our countermeasures are limited.
1) Cell jamming is expensive and indiscriminate. It would do more harm than good.
2) Registration of a phone to an identity takes our ability to make anonymous speech.
One thing to note is that if you have an old phone, even if you’ve switched over to a new phone, is required by law to have access to 911. So there’s a more cost-effective solution on hand already, and network congestion is likely going to saturate every carrier in an area in a case of an emergency.
K,
Good point on the old phone still being able to call 911. I tend to forget that sometimes.
Also, you’re spot on with the network congestion in an emergency, although the specific purpose I had for the backup phone was for smaller emergencies. I carry bigger radios for a breakdown in the entire network.
Regards,
Bryan
M. Atwood is on the right track: the technology is merely a tool. Is it dangerous? Sure, but what isn’t? I can build a house with a hammer. I can also inflict a pretty good head wound.
in that respect, this cat was out of the bag a while ago (which is why I don’t feel bad talking about it). I’ll bet more than a few readers here have seen IEDs (or at least pictures of them) with a Nokia jury rigged to [your favorite detonator]. While some phones are likely stolen and re-purposed, I’d be willing to bet that a great deal of those are pre-paid… and possibly activated with stolen ID information (which Atwood also intimates). Makes you think twice about identity thieves, though, doesn’t it?
In the bigger picture, targeting anonymized cell phones is a little like treating the symptoms rather than the illness. The best you can really hope for is to keep sound fundamentals in your security practices.
Thanks for the comment Erik!
Regards,
Bryan
I don’t have a problem with it and am glad that there is still a potentially anonymous means of communication available, despite the potential risks. It’s not much different from using a payphone or internet cafe, after all.
The fear about them seems much ado about very little, if not nothing.
Zach,
Thanks for the comment,
Bryan
There used to be a website (that I wont mention for… well it doesn’t matter) where you could go to learn about anything illegal from making crack-cocaine to selling live organs on the black market. The website has long since been closed down by its owner, but they had several articles about how to live “off the grid” and prepaid cell phones were a very common article. I’ve had first hand experience (don’t ask why) setting up fake accounts in Hialeah and Miami, from Austin, TX where I used to live. There is nothing hard about it. I agree, there should be some kind of additional verifiable information you need to provide. This is minute in comparison to the overwhelming ease at creating a whole new identity in itself. Don’t believe the “it’s not possible” nay sayers. It is very possible, and very easy, and very very cheap.
In my country, just like Larry Rocha said, there are a lot of scams involving pre-paid phones.
Also over here you don’t even have to give your ID or any other data in order to activate the phone.
Just buy the phone, buy a card, and activate the card. You keep the number forever, and every 3 months without buying a new card you loose your minutes.
That’s it.
Anyone seen The Wire? Thats how the drug dealers in the show communicated, through pre-paid phones if I remember correctly.
Anonymous pre-paid is absolutely going to be exploited by criminals and terrorists, like Larry Rocha and Erik said. Unfortunately, there are law abiding citizens that may have a need for it too. Granted those needs tend to be few. I can think of a few purposes that I could take advantage of it, but they’re all quasi-legal, or at least only applicable to times when things get shady. Having to pay an extra fee over the phone with a credit card so that minutes don’t expire is an okay, but still not hard to circumvent. Needless to say I think I’m going to take advantage of the loophole while I can, because anonymity can be invaluable.
A fair number of years ago I helped set up the prepay processes for one of the big 4 UK mobile telcos. Initially registration could be annonymous, with just the SIM number needing to be provided for activation. The IMEI and IMSI would be picked up by the network once the SIM was provisioned.
Around 2000-2001 the rules changed to force registration. Users didn’t need to provide proofs, just verbally ID their name and address. This was partly driven by security concerns but was more for the mobtelcos to improve the quality of their subscriber data – a database of 10 million plus people is a valuable thing! It also made it easier, and more likely, for customers to use credit card payment which is cheaper to process and more secure than printed vouchers. In the UK now any prepaid mobile phone SIM is supposed to be registered before activation, and this is often done in the store. However there is a large market in SIM cards, and many of these are registered prior to being sold. Some are second hand, some are registered by the retailer before sale.
Buying one of these SIMs, and likely a second hand phone, would be effectively anonymous. The unique ID of that SIM and handset would be known to the network and could be triangulated, but that could not be identified to an individual without additional intelligence.
There are other options for anonymous communication as well. VOIP via internet cafes and the like give similar options. It’s all good in my opinion. The fact that some people misuse the phone is no reason for the state to control or monitor access to communication.
Using your prepaid mobile this way will allow you to carry a rock-bottom cheap mobile browser with you at all times!Many prepaid mobile plans combine the features mentioned above, plus others.
Today you may be a “good” guy. Tomorrow a law may be passed that makes you a “bad” guy. And you will have done nothing different. I think the ability to remain anonymous when this happens (and it happens everyday) far, far, far outweighs any potential risks.
Keep in mind the federalist papers were written anonymously too.
You know what scares me? It isn’t some nebulous and fairly theoretical threat of “the terrorists”. It is this, right here. A bunch of – as far as I know, at least :) – level-headed people having a serious discussion on how being able to own a functional cell phone without the government sticking its dirty paws into the affair is dangerous!
None of us live in a free country. What little freedoms we have are constantly under attack by the ever expanding nanny states the western world has become. THAT is the real threat!
Yes, with the availability of anonymous communication methods, criminals can transmit messages to other criminals without government knowledge. Criminals… like you and me. Personally, I find this to be a GOOD thing. Any little thing that stands in the way of the truly Orwellian surveillance society all western countries seem to be striving to become is a good thing.
What about using Google Voice (or finding a similar voip service but with more anonymity) to hide everyone you are calling? Of course your calls can still be tapped with anyone nearby with the right listening equipment.
By more anonymity I really meant, they don’t keep CDR, or call records.
the same situation exists in most countries of the world. but, honestly, i can probably name 100 products from boltcutters, to lockpicks, to TAZERS, to spraypaint, to guns that have more than one use. Society only survives because the criminally minded people are a small minority.
Well, I’ve thinking about trying to clone my verizon phone, because i hate when people steal mine, i don’t want to do anything illegal, so i googled untraceable cell phones, and this came up, and if people can’t clone some of there cell phones, and they still want some of that stuff like the same number or whatever they should switch to prepaid, and have multiple ones, so that they can have multiple numbers if one dies…
I believe that this article was almost just the thing I was looking for, though it was lacking a few points.
Though they are not important at this moment, I’d like to thank you with this article, as I have found the best untraceable cell phone as far as pre-paid phone companies go. TracFone.
I work in a place where people buy pre paid cell phones and we actually activate them for the customer. No ID is required and for most companies, all you need to do is verify that the customer is over the age of 13. All this coupled with paying with cash, i’d say it is close to untraceable. That being said, some companies offer “recent activity” management on the account through the computer. So if someone remembered the customer’s number and PIN, they could access the account and find out who they are calling.
I will inform you all as far as what I know about the whole “Pre-Paid Cell Phone” Issue.
I use to work for a major retail store as a Assets Protection member. We were in the OR I-5 “corridor” as we called it. About every 2 weeks or so we would get a call from one of our stores either above or below us on the I-5 and be warned that our “cell phone” buyers were making their runs…
We would collect as much data as possible on these individuals. The situation as far as I tracked them was normally a family consisting of the Father, Mother, normally two older sons, and a daughter. (Sometimes we would only have the father and son, or the two older sons… They were mid twenties.) The family would enter the store and would all attempt to buy as many pre-paid cell phones as possible. I literally mean as many as possible. There was one or two times that we were caught off guard and they cleaned our supply out… this means over 50 phones at one time.
Our AP team took heavy into tracking these individuals. They almost always paid with a credit card. (They did not care about their name being on file.) I had tons of face shots from my security cameras from when I zoomed in on them at the check out stands. We gathered all their information, I had their credit card numbers on file, all their names I could gather, and would then follow them into the parking lot with the PTZ cameras and got license plate numbers and vehicle descriptions.
I remember that we would either see them in an old white ford minivan or a grey toyota. I remember watching one time as the father and son opened the trunk of the toyota and we saw the trunk was COMPLETELY FULL of pre-paid cell phones from all the other stores they had bought them from.
We gathered all this information and sent it up to the district office. Our investigators would then turn all documentation over to FBI agents. – So all together, the FBI and our other federal agencies do know about this. The reason they were “watching these individuals” from what I was told was that they were traveling from WA to CA all up and down the I-5 corridor and after buying all the phones they would then send them over to the Middle Eastern Countries, where it was believed they were then sold or given to possible terror cells. I dont know how much of that is true… but not to be a judge, however… I believe it 100%…. do keep in mind however that I worked for that company over 3 years ago… so I cant comment of current situations…
Skuzzy G
Wow, thanks for sharing the story!
~ Bryan
i believe the most infamous untraceable cellphone company is “Boost”. this service is most commonly used by drug dealers.
Interesting article
But I don’t know what the worry is about criminals using pre-paid phones, they are likely to steal cell phones then dump them, when they are done.
The same goes for lock picking, a criminal is not going to pick the lock on your front door, they are going to find an open window\door or as the silly home owner does leave a key under the mat or just break in.
I’m of the ilk that I’d rather have the people – as a collective and/or as individuals – have the RIGHTS to freedom of speech… PERIOD!!! If that means that some evil exists as a result of NOT tracking the world… because of a few rotten apples… oh, well!!! I’d rather have the little bit of evil amongs the people perpetuated rather than having “Big Brother” (or anyone/anything else) know more than they should. The government has gotten more than a little too big for its britches, if you ask me. It is THEY who are to submit to THE PEOPLE… NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!!! Until the People – collectively and individually – come to terms with this we will forever be taken advantage of!!!!!