Good Bye And Good Riddance
If you check you will find that there are a number of pre-paid phones available for purchase, but don’t get one over the ‘Net, and don’t use anything but cash.
I have a TracFone simply because you can buy time for it almost everywhere – convenience stores, office supply, department stores, building supply stores – pretty much everywhere they take money.
You only pay for what you use and there are all kinds of different deals and discounts so read the agreement.
There exists no link between me and that telephone in anyone’s database. If I call you and you have caller ID, you will get number and nothing else. If you call directory assistance that number won’t appear.
I got the phone because of the loss of landlines during hurricanes and to make it easier for my Mother and clients to contact me. Its lack of existence in the data base is just a side benefit.
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I have a TracFone for use mainly in emergencies; I bought it at the grocery store and pick up an occasional ‘minutes’ card when needed. These days, I’m seriously considering using it exclusively.
In defense of caller I.D., my life it a bit more peaceful now that I no longer answer calls that indicate “blocked”, or a phone-o-holic friend who always calls at dinner time to tell me nothing for twenty minutes.
There’s nothing wrong with caller-id, it’s just that the pre-paid don’t show as anything but a number because they aren’t in a directory with an associated name.
I recognize the numbers of friends and enemies, and some are in the internal memory of my phone, but nothing is available to any government agency.
This isn’t your old tradecraft carried over to civilian life?
Not consciously, but I know what’s possible.
Part of it is the old habit of law enforcement officers to have unlisted numbers, they tell you to do it in the academy.
Somewhat OT, but –
We switched to digital phone service some time ago, and my very-limited understanding is that VoIP is difficult, if not impossible (depending on the company’s technology) to tap. True?
Extremely difficult to do, even in theory, and currently impossible as most companies designed their systems without consideration for tapping. There is a battle over regulations requiring companies to make it possible to tap the VoIP calls, and the companies are pushing back because it would be extremely expensive to design the changes.
Other than at the two end points the phone call is a series of chunks moving over the ‘Net by any available route. If you try intercepting anywhere other than the end points you are not going to get all of the call, just slices of sound.