Ok, interesting ideas, but also outdated, unnecessary, and just plain silly. Probably the result of too much time watching The Wire and the Bourne trilogy. The CIA is not interested in your hobby phone calls. Your wife, now that's another story.
very extreme but interesting ideas
1.Get feature/dumb/flip-phones rather than smart phones. iOS, Android (or whatever other OS you choose) is not interested in keeping track of your privacy. Feature phones have the benefit of being generally too stupid to leak information about you.
2.Never turn your phone on in, or around your home. Take the battery out when it’s not being used.
3.Leave your phone at a place you’re going to use it to make sure it never gets turned on at your home
4.If possible, pay someone else to activate the phone for you. This is a way of removing yourself from the activation process completely. There are some burner trading sites on the deep web.
5.Fill your phone with fake contacts. Each burner should look like it has a different set of contacts in it.
6.Never save your real contacts in the phone. Put them on paper, or on a separate device, but never on the phone. This information is potentially saved on the SIM and accessible to carriers.
7.Pad operational calls with random calls. Dial numbers you don’t know, leave messages, call tech support, send an SMS. Make it difficult to differentiate between your operations and random activities.
8.Use a burner as little as possible before switching to the next one.
9.If purchased from a retail store, wait at least 60 days to activate. This is usually how far back mom and pop stores keep security footage.
10.Activate from a payphone as far away from home as possible, or at least in the area where you will be using it most often
11.Dispose of burner phones completely. Don’t recycle them or throw them away in your apartment garbage. They should be destroyed completely, electronically wiped, and physically wipe down
Ok, interesting ideas, but also outdated, unnecessary, and just plain silly. Probably the result of too much time watching The Wire and the Bourne trilogy. The CIA is not interested in your hobby phone calls. Your wife, now that's another story.
Appreciate the advice and intent to help. Some thoughts:
A burn phone is as the last poster said, to protect your privacy - it does little to protect from LE unless you only use it when you are traveling.
You do not need someone else to activate it for you. Just buy one with cash and only fill it up with refill cards purchased with cash (and don't use your rewards card when doing so).
If you drive in your car, LE can match GPS data + cams = score, not that they'd go to the trouble but since we're in paranoia land, it's in play. The point is, all of our attempts to use burn phones to keep out of LE's watchful gaze are about as useful as a dog hiding his head behind a tree while his tail is wagging. Burn phones protect privacy to some extent and can make it tougher for providers/pimps to determine your real identify (though they can easily get your license plate and figure it out from there).
Making extra calls, texts, etc. only gives a larger trail to follow and data mine. It MIGHT throw an SO off your trail if you claim you found it or someone lost it and she randomly checks #s. Just make sure to delete all texts and call records related to hobbying but leave the rest. This won't work if you have any ATFs who text or call you ever.
You are more likely to gain real LE/agency attention if you use the deep web to purchase anything. That is terrible terrible advice.
Minimize your risks but don't place yourself at worse risk by doing so. And oh yeah, enjoy.
1.Get feature/dumb/flip-phones rather than smart phones. iOS, Android (or whatever other OS you choose) is not interested in keeping track of your privacy. Feature phones have the benefit of being generally too stupid to leak information about you.
2.Never turn your phone on in, or around your home. Take the battery out when it’s not being used.
3.Leave your phone at a place you’re going to use it to make sure it never gets turned on at your home
4.If possible, pay someone else to activate the phone for you. This is a way of removing yourself from the activation process completely. There are some burner trading sites on the deep web.
5.Fill your phone with fake contacts. Each burner should look like it has a different set of contacts in it.
6.Never save your real contacts in the phone. Put them on paper, or on a separate device, but never on the phone. This information is potentially saved on the SIM and accessible to carriers.
7.Pad operational calls with random calls. Dial numbers you don’t know, leave messages, call tech support, send an SMS. Make it difficult to differentiate between your operations and random activities.
8.Use a burner as little as possible before switching to the next one.
9.If purchased from a retail store, wait at least 60 days to activate. This is usually how far back mom and pop stores keep security footage.
10.Activate from a payphone as far away from home as possible, or at least in the area where you will be using it most often
11.Dispose of burner phones completely. Don’t recycle them or throw them away in your apartment garbage. They should be destroyed completely, electronically wiped, and physically wipe down.