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?
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{ 63 comments… read them below or add oneDiscuss in our Forum }
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
there are talks in the government conferences to pass a law which let you buy a prepaid sim card only with your ID… but then you can buy a fake ID with ~150$
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
You cant live in fear. and dont think for a second ANYONE has your best interest , to include the government- which has the least of your interest. regulation and control becomes a step to the next. yes someone can do something bad in your name, just like someone could steal your mail, or spread a rumor. this fear is being wielded and used for political gain. false flag and such. scanners at airports= public hates them…. suddenly we have an underware bomber…gov wants to regulate the internet= public says no…… Iran gets a computer virus, messes up a bunch of stuff= suddenly the internet needs to be regulated with governement oversight. that tracphone maybe the last piece of privacy you have left.
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
Dude, relax. The reason they are buying so many phones is simple: you can make money by selling them overseas. Prepaid phone companies don’t make money on selling the phones, they make money when people buy the minutes, so companies price the phones very cheap. What you can buy here for under $20 will cost $50-$75 in other countries. The result? People buy phones and sell them overseas, it happens all the time. Remember in many middle eastern countries, cell phone sales can be restricted/monitored, meaning phones are harder to come by (so more $). Pure economics, no terror cells needed.
Just because they dont know whos using the phone don’t mean they cant trace the phone. Most phones have GPS now a days.. so if they need to they can track the phone down within 1-2 mile radius.
And then they can use other clues, like the numbers you call, to better determine who you are.
Or if you pay in cash they can look at the time of sale, and in some cases catch you on video paying for the exact card that was sold.
All of this can be worked around… but it’s easier just to steal someones phone.. use it quick and ditch it you’ll probably never get caught that way.. so does restrictions help keep people honest, yes. Criminals will get untraceable phones no matter what.
nothing is untraceable, only more difficult to trace…. and unless everyone you communicate with doesn’t know your real identity.. misuse it you’ll get caught.
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!!!!!
Here in Denmark you can walk into just about any kiosk and buy cash a “setup package” consisting of a SIM card and prepaid minute card. The only thing needed to be done to activate the SIM is calling a service number and entering a number that came with the package, no ID required. The prepaid minutes work the same way, except for the fact that they can also be purchased in just about every supermarket here.
Of cause the telecommunications companies in Europe are required by law to keep on file information about all calls and numbers for a least 12 months.
Our government is of cause moving to change this and to make all users of prepaid phones/minutes, internetcafé’s and public hot spots have to register to “prevent crime” (More like outlaw privacy :-/ ). Leaving only the public libraries and Tor for anonymous internet access and the libraries are probably already secretly logged.
I know at the company, I affectionately refer to as fail-mart, wal-mart prostitutes and pimps, and probably drug dealers too but i have first hand accounts of the former, buy prepaid cell (Stripper) friends and they like to use them so they can call clients and they can call them, but if they get one that starts creeping or getting possesive the can dump the number and thereby sever contact.
first you need to know who you are trying to not be traced by, how long it should take and how many resources you want someone unmasking you to be forced to expend on tracing you, and preferably have a really good reason to do this – because truly living life anonymously is not liberating to most people, it’s a miserable experience done out of necessity. People may be happy in the Witness Protection Program, but probably they’re mostly happy to still be alive.
And potential and actual abuses of power by Western governments aside, which we should always guard against, many of the people being tracked very, very much should be being tracked.
not being traced by criminals, non-narcostate-level organized crime groups, or law enforcement with a basic level of technology sophistication is VERY different from taking on groups with more money, resources, talent (within the group or hired guns), and time.
in more extreme cases, if you piss off some group like the FBI or foreign equivalents, you are in serious crap.
if you piss off a major power national signals intelligence agency like the NSA, you are pretty much completely screwed. They have effectively unlimited budgets for this task, hire very large amounts of very smart technical and operational people to do this stuff, and have home field advantage if you’re operating in their country.
the technique you describe will make the first mentioned groups have a hell of a time tracking you down.
They would likely not even break the stride of the other listed groups.
Techniques to correlate cell phone IMEI with physical position on Earth via cell tower triangulation/phone GPS and probably other things nobody has thought of (publicly) will likely unmask these techniques very, very quickly. Maybe not fast enough, but you may be surprised.
even disciplined, smart people screw this stuff up, either by lack of knowledge or by making small mistakes.
you might be able to get away with that against the groups first mentioned. The FBI or NSA grade people will pounce on that minor mistake and use it to find you.
even better than having untraceable cell phones is not having a reason or need to use them.
I have found this discussion very interesting. I was just wondering if it was possible to have an untraceable cell phone. I only use mine for emergencies and the minutes expire before I use them.
I am amazed as a culture how dependent people are on cell phones. So many people have them now you can forget looking someone up in the phone book anymore. This helps criminals by keeping their address and number a secret. Now all the poor have cell phones and they get free minutes every month, “Safe link” so they can look for jobs? Like a phone is a necessity like food or electricity! It also takes advantage of the poor who spend the rent just to have the newest cell phone when a 30 dollar magic jack would give them a years worth of local and long distance service. A lousy 2.50 a month will give you phone service but not the cool cell phone kind. I just talked a friend out of an unlimited plan which was expensive and she is on welfare. She has the Safe link phone but uses up the 250 minutes in a week. She is getting a magic jack after I explained to her that this was all she could “afford”. Maybe she could even get cable tv with the savings? I just don’t get it as I rarely use my phone or have a need to be connected to someone 24/7 with a cellular umbilical cord. It seems like every great invention like the television and the telephone starts out promising but within a few short years we have over engineered it and made the content something I find unacceptable to watch or listen to. It’s insulting to anyone with intelligence and “new funny” is not as good as “old funny” was.
Now the cell phone, How did we ever live without them? They are expensive, need to be upgraded, die if they get wet or dropped. You need to charge them, the buttons are too small to see, many vehicular accidents are attributed to texting and jobs are lost over sexting and marriages are over due to cell records and criminals go to jail because of triangulation and call records. Not to mention brain cancer from holding them to our heads all day long. Being untraceable is the least of their problems.
Yes ,I agree 100% untraceable is the least concern.
No they are not dangerous. How could they be???????????? I mean think about when we had no cell phones . No one tracked you 24 hours a day. So why is it such a bad thing now, if we make the chioce to own a nontraceable cell phone? Not everyone wants to have a cell phone for the pupose of being traced. It is a personal chioce, thats all.
Next thing you know they’ll have phones on the streets that for only a quarter will let you make anonymous phone calls! The horror! Or people might hook up cordless phones in their houses allowing anyone with kindergarten tech knowledge to use anyones phone from outside their house… Don’t get me started on what would happen if someone where to invent Voice over IP…
Wise up. You didn’t go to college did you….
That’s not a question.
now it even easier and with less information… I work for a major retailer that sells the above phone. Now you can ask an associate to set the phone up for you, the associate only needs a zip code and doesn’t need a name or any personal information to setup the phone. they key the zip code emei and the pin on the card and bam your good to go.
im pretty sure all their systems are automated now so you could setup a phone the same way and not even have to talk to a operator.
All phones sold in the US are federally required to be able to pinpoint your geo-location to a given carrier to within 100-300 meters. This has always been easy using triangulation (wait for your phone to switch between 3 or more towers, happens faster than you think), but every phone since 2004 or 2005 I think it was now has a GPS chip. Believe it or not, these chips know where you are real-time, send historical geo-location info to carriers where they are stored on servers indefinitely. These records are available on request from government entities, whether its an informal request which in which the service provider happily agrees without asking your consent (yes, this is pretty standard), or upon denial, in a court hearing which doesn’t involve you either (I read that there were about a dozen or so cases in which the courts were involved). No probably cause is needed (showing that access will yield proof of crime), government agencies need only prove that access to a given cell phone’s location would provide relevant aid in an ongoing investigation (aka, if they are looking into what could be a matter of a crime of any level and you happen to be associated with persons, places, or events involved, there goes your right to privacy).
A GPS chip functions while your phone is off as well. You can take the battery out if it makes you feel better, but all computers have internal batteries to keep certain components running 24/7 (think laptops, but desktops too), and since all phones are computers you can bet they all have an internal power source. This one is a bit of a stretch, but if you don’t believe me please do your own research (somewhere other that wikipedia).
So, forgetting about that 100-300 meter radius, GPS (created, funded, and maintained by the Department of Defense) is accurate to within a few feet. Think about walking from your living room to your bathroom to take a pee…seriously? Who, besides you, needs to know that? You can always buy a phone overseas that advertises their lack of a GPS monitoring chip, but since your phone’s public IP changes about once every minute, you can bet that youre being routed through another path (think back to towers here), and since it might take a speedy person three minutes to do their business and wash up, in the time you were taking that Freedom Pee with your ‘untraceable phone’, your position has been triangulated.
Triangulation is accomplished using signal strength, locations of towers, and computations of signal degradation over distance based on what is known about the technologies being implemented in a given situation. Then what you have is basically a big circle around each of the towers you last connected to, leaving a Venn diagram effect with a common area which you most surely occupy. Phone’s usually switch towers when they leave range of a connected tower, come in range of a tower with a stronger signal than the one it is currently connected to, or when you reset your radio/turn your phone off and back on again. But remember that your phone is a computer, and its connections, voice or text, are not analog, it is data being sent directly to your service providers computer, to your friend’s service provider’s computers, and then to his phone (with no encryption or privacy of contents, I might add).
If it goes through them, they can choose the full path start to finish. If there are three towers that can conceivably connect to your phone and your carrier wants to triangulate you, youd better believe its a only a click away. They might not know who you are, but boy can they find you.
I know most of this is outside the scope of this post, but I define truth as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and I’m sure glad I learned all of this so I want to make sure as many people know what they’re dealing with as possible. This isn’t a free country, we are still fighting everyday for freedom from our government and it’s a shame that the people of the world can’t see that; they instead refer to America and American’s, lumping innocent people like us with government entities that make decisions out of our control, and then tell us it’s what we wanted and for our own good.
I’m still working on a solution for fully anonymous cell phone communications. Not that I expect to make much progress, but if I do, I promise to share it with you all.
European country here. Not Denmark as the entry further up. We can buy prepaid phones like any other good in supermarkets, electronic shops and phone shops, with cash and without an ID. Sim is activated by calling the phone provider and entering a code. Prepaid accounts are good for one year and can be extended by buying a coupon at a shop, then calling the phone company and entering the coupon code.
A few years ago I read half of the cell phones here are prepaid. That means millions of these are in use. I have a prepaid phone myself. It helps to keep costs lower than having to pay monthly dues to a phone company.
I think fears about the danger of unregistered phones are exaggerated. Registered phones that are stolen also make the thief anonymous but become a larger problem for the previous owner, because in case he is the first suspect.
I use it for whistle blowing. Have been for years. If it wasn’t for these kinds of things, i would be in serious trouble. Lets not be too naive about our govt. With enough money, the police will find you
I have purchased several prepaid sim cards on eBay. It was common (years ago) to find them loaded with minutes AND associated with a name. The seller sometimes provided that name (and birthdate) in the event it was necessary to change anything associated with the account down the road. Was that a legit name or ficticious? Who cares. These cards can be loaded by calling from any phone. I was pleased ATT was not permitted to acquire Tmobile. All of my prepaid cell phones are with Tmobile and I didn’t relish the thought of an acquisition changing anything. 25 to 30 cents per minute is a bargain for those who use them infrequently. I believe you can also get 1,000 minutes for $100, but I loaded all of my phones in smaller increments (for virtually free) by using ink cartridge recycling rewards to purchase air time. Unfortunately the office supply chains now prohibit those purchase of time cards with ink rewards.
What about an ip address from where the phone was activated from? Would the company activating the phone have traceability to whom activated it through the ip address of the cell phone or computer which was used (if in fact one was used to activate it online)?
Use VPN – you might want to check out, http://spicevpn.com/ and read a little.
I read an article today as a matter of fact that local police are now use cell phone tracking, a convenience once only used by the FBI, to track a SUSPECT, not someone who is know to commit crimes for sure, but a suspect without a court order. This has gone too far, this means that they have the capability to track you for whatever reason they deem necessary without any proof of a crime having been commited. The U.S. Supreme Court this year already spoke on a case AGAINST law enforcement for putting a GPS tracker on a car of a suspected drug dealer. So, eventually, this case will will have further implications for law enforcement and cell tracking.
I know that we have an enemy of this country that would like nothing better than to drop an atomic bomb on us and because of this, law enforcement has had to reach above and beyond to track people. The problem is, who is watching the police? A disgruntled cop who wants to know where his wife is can simply call the cell phone company and put a trace not only on his wife’s whereabouts but also a log of her phone calls and her text messages. In other words this can be abused and probably already is. I applaud the government in trying to stop terrorism in it’s tracks but if it has to come at the expense of our civil liberties, I am not sure about that. A criminal can always circumvent a way around registering his phone legally. Like a poster above said, it can be done easily with a fake ID. I really don’t understand how you said you were alarmed that you were able to get an anonymous phone. I find it to be a good thing and I am not a criminal. We should be more alarmed on how easy it is for a felon to get a hold of firearms than a cheap Trac Phone from Wal-Mart. People never cease to amaze me that they focus on the wrong stuff all the time. Pshaw!
I believe that privacy is a cornerstone human right, and in today’s world I believe everyone shoul have an untraceable phone. I usually have one on a bogus name and address just cause big brother is too damm nosy. I’m not a criminal or a threat to no one but those who would be a threat to me, my family or my friends. It is scary when governments eavesdrop on it’s citizens. Besides the real evildoers always have free access to guns and phones being stolen or purchased from ” somebody” so like always its the good citizens being left in a disadvantage.
I am writing a novel where a guy gets a phone call from his missing wife, but the police tell him the call was untraceable. It’s a text message using terms that only he can decode, so obviously she’s hoping he’ll understand and realize where she’s being held. Could she have sent the message from a stolen phone? A computer using SKYPE? When she was kidnapped, she had her laptop with her. Wouldn’t they still be able to triangulate the call? How broad of a search area would there be in a fairly remote area? This is from someone who never texted in her life. I have a tracphone and a card I bought from Walmart and I thought since I paid cash these were untraceable, except perhaps my location could be triangulated. Have I watched too many crime shows on TV? Any advice would be helpful.
Just happened to stumble across this article and thought I’d chime in. If you have a little money to throw at it, it’s very easy to get a full-blown cell CONTRACT anonymously. Currently, Sprint and Verizon both have deposit options if you don’t have ID. Go to just about any third party cell retailer at your local mall and tell them you need to start a contract without ID or SSN and are willing to pay the deposit…$150 for Sprint and $400 for Verizon. Use an alias, which is NOT illegal if you aren’t intentionally using a real persons name with the intent to defraud that person. Also, the contract is not illegal as long as you pay because you are not defrauding the service provider.
Make sure you remember all the info you use to set up your account and pay them cash with the payment machines. If you aren’t doing something illegal, then no one will ever come looking for you anyway. It’s just a good way to stay “off the grid” to a degree.
If you really want to make it difficult…I think you could get creative with how and where you use cash to make the payments…
Let me put this simply to you. I bought an AT&T Go Phone here a while back. Here’s how things went…. First of all I wore a plain white T-shirt and jeans along with sunglasses and an old baseball hat I was going to trash. The Small national chain store I went to was well out of town from where I live for me. I bought the phone with cash, all the while never looking up at the known cameras above the checkout. I also bought the minutes at the same time. I then went to the parking lot and got into my vehicle which was parked in front of a mom & pop Chinese place that has no cameras at all and is next door and behind the small shopping center where the store is. It is a place I wouldn’t be going back to anytime soon at all since it is that far away from my home. I sat in the vehicle, punched in the code that AT&T told me to use to activate the phone. It consisted of a code, the zip code I would use it in most, and a rate plan code I wanted from the 3 choices. I did that and hit “call.” I was told to shut off the phone for 10 minutes then turn it back on. I did, and then got a text with my new number. I called the number on the prepaid minutes card and added my airtime. All the while, never giving any info whatsoever to anyone as it was all automated. I left, went to a nearby place that had no cameras outside and threw away the hat I had already destroyed. making sure this was a rubbish bin that is frequently used by people throwing away sodas and other liquids. After that I left and drove towards home, but not before stopping by an internet cafe and using the AT&T website to update my account via a VPN and providing a non existent address in a major city not near me. I do know the phone can be tracked by LEOs, FBI, and such if they want it. But out of the millions of phones sold in the US, 90% or more of the people will not be able to track you. Also, to AT&T, I am “Prepaid Customer” whereas my previous provider asked for ID when I bought the phone I did at their store and had it activated. In fact calling AT&T customer service about something with my phone, I called from a GV number and gave them a fake name first name in the idle chatter we had. No trouble all was well.All they wanted was the phone number and the PIN assigned to it. See “Bourne Ultimatum”, that simple. No phone will be 100% untraceable from the cops if they want it, but if one keeps below the radar they can slip by. They may just lift an eyelid and sniff at you and be done. But if you awaken them….. And you set your caller ID to ALWAYS be blocked to anyone you call and you NEVER call 911, any emergency number, or toll free number from it. It’s how you stay safe. Be well :-)
People talking on cell phones: That’s creepy.
Who knows what they are saying about stuff? Could be terroristic drug dealers, criminals, polticians…
The govenrment should listen to all calls and decide who is good and who is bad and then act on it.
It’s for our own good.
Oh! That’s right, they already do.
It’s called ECHELON
untraceable phone is impossible.not any government on this world will ever allow it.it is just an advertisement to make more mobile phone sales.can you even imagine that real untraceable phones are being sold like a bread and chees in every market?it will completely jeopardise national security directly.this is why even Togolese government will never allow such phone sales.technically it is also impossible.there is not even single phone which can be completely discrete in front of US NSA and such organisations.
A phone that is not in your name that you can call from??? next thing you know there will be a generic phone on every corner that anybody can call from by prepaying!!! wait, that was the LAST 60 YEARS!!!!!!!! insert generic trading liberty for security saying here. Idiots do not learn from the past. What amuses me the most is that the vocal republicans, a party which i am a member and waiting for the real republicans to return to, want the most invasive intrusion into our private lives in the name of personal safety, (btw, before i get flamed, look up the statistics of Getting killed by a terrorist vs getting killed by an alligator or bee) are the same that cry to keep the government out of our business lives, ban the federal government and give the power to corporations. Just saying knee jerk reactive short sightedness causes more problems than they will ever solve.
Local Gas station here (mom and pop place) sells new cell phones (Verizon agent) as well as used cell phones of any brand or type (CDMA or GSM) as they buy used ones. It is too easy to walk in and buy one, buy a SIM card off ebay or elsewhere, and then activate the phone via the internet as I have described above. And with cell phones costing as low as $10, it is easy for a paranoid person or someone who really doesn’t want to be tracked to buy a new one every month and buy a $10 phone card each month (or when one runs out of minutes) and just toss the SIM card, give away the old phone or sell it, and activate and use the new one. And with a whole country of zip codes to choose from, they can get a new number in a new area code monthly if they want. The cost? $20 to $25 a month (more if they add another $10 card because of needed minutes.) If the government wants you, they can track you. Make no doubt about it. CIA, NSA, FBI, Homeland, State Police, or even Sheriff, etc. can track you if they need to. It’s Joe Public and a lot of PI’s and the other 98% that cannot that ones are getting away from. A show of Discovery Channel a year or two ago had a survival expert showing how to “disappear” and live off the grid so that no one really save the government would be able to find you. But yes, it can be done. Be well :-)
I’ve been using a prepaid Tracfone from Walmart for years, and love it. But as much as I have resisted, I find myself actually NEEDING a smartphone now. That is a whole nuther story. How the hell does one get anonymous smartphone service? Everywhere I have looked into it, even if you buy an unlocked phone for cash and try to get carrier service prepaid for cash,…somewhere along the line someone demands to see ID. I suppose I may have to set about getting a fake ID, since I absolutely REFUSE to have any phone connected to me. But at 44, I’m not hooked up with the high school crowd, so I have no idea where to get quality IDs.
The article is imbalanced, granting undo weight to the dangers of anonymous phones while overlooking civil rights. While a crime could be committed with an anonymous phone, there are several questions we have to ask. Do we remove rights of privacy from millions of consumers just to stop the occasional crime? And would doing so actually stop those crimes, or just make criminals look for other ways to accomplish communication anonymously? Knives are used in criminal acts more than guns, do we register knife owners? And cell tracing only helps expedite the investigation of a crime. Should we tap all phones and run them through AI algorithms in order to try to prevent the crimes? The article treats phones as though they are weapons. They’re not, they’re tools. We can regulate and restrict weapons, but violating privacy rights in order to regulate and restrict tools is nonsensical. We have to ask – how many major crimes have been accomplished or gotten away with due to anonymous phones? The figure is probably close to almost none.
*the right to a false sense of privacy.
It’s easier for the Gov’t just to let people think they have privacy and not even try to pretend to regulate it.
I get a new prepaid every month just because hackers piss me off.There is no phone. that is untraceable
imagine if you will a parent so obsessed with spying on there children, EX husband and there family to the point it causes the child to wake up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares that someone is out to get them. having some one parked on your block or in your backyard camped out trying to eavesdrop on your conversation and using family members working for at&t to help them track you turn features on without your permission….don’t be so quick to knock anonymous devices…..there just what i’m looking for