About us What is Burner Burner is an iOS application and service that enables users to obtain temporary, disposable numbers for voice and SMS communication. Fast, safe, and private, Burner lets you get as many numbers as you want, use each as a private line within your iPhone, and "burn" a number whenever you're done with it. We think of it as a privacy layer for your phone. Burner is made by Ad Hoc Labs, Inc., a privately held company based in Los Angeles, California. Our team is passionate about the idea that real-time communications should be more socially aware and privacy oriented, and we believe Burner is just the beginning. Team Greg Cohn, Co-founder and CEO Prior to Ad Hoc Labs, Greg led strategy and business development for social and developer platforms at Yahoo!, where he worked on identity (OpenID, oAuth), Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator, and partnerships with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Zynga, and other industry leaders. Before Yahoo!, Greg was a founder or key executive at several startups, including Away.com (sold to Orbitz) and Everyday Health. He began his career in book publishing and holds degrees from Penn and Oxford. William Carter, Co-founder and Head of Product Will is a developer and a designer focusing on mobile experience, interaction, and product. Before Ad Hoc Labs, Will worked as the lead developer and designer at Protohaus, prototyping mobile UI and UX for clients such as Samsung, Google, and Sony. Will was a Senior UX Researcher at Nokia, where he engineered next-generation products focused on Augmented Reality and new kinds of mobile interaction. After leaving Nokia, Will started Nodesnoop Labs, building iPhone apps for such clients as Sony, Disney, and Coke. He is a graduate of Brown University and USC's School of Cinema-Television, where he studied Interactive Media. Ted Timmons, Head of Technology A frequent Wikipedia editor, Ted is interested in cloud computing, data-driven decisionmaking, and the art of software engineering. After beginning his career at MP3.com pre-IPO, he worked as an engineer at Amazon and various startups, learning how to balance business problems with pragmatic engineering – and how to use an eigenvector. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Portland State University, spent six months motorcycling through Latin America, and enjoys cats, tattoos, and tattoos of cats. Will Chang, Head of Growth Will’s most recent startup was People Media, a group of online dating sites, where he ran sales and business development through an acquisition by Match.com/IAC. A recovering investment banker, he also previously led business development for several key verticals at Yahoo! Will graduated Johns Hopkins University with bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Computer Science and a master’s in Economics. Jessica Marquez, Community & Marketing Lead Prior to joining Ad Hoc Labs, Jessica was the community ninja who helped lead NeighborGoods, a platform for neighbors to exchange goods and services, to critical success and multiple awards. She also helped organize LA Startup Club, a collaborative work group for local entrepreneurs. Jessica holds a BA in Communication Studies from CSULB and an MCM from USC’s Annenberg Program on Online Communities. Michael Parker, Lead Developer Mike previously co-founded ReadyUp, a mobile app for discovering and organizing impromptu plans with your friends. Before that he was a software engineer at Google, where he worked on search quality for the Search Appliance and the backend for Google Docs. He has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering and a master's degree in Computer Science, both from UCLA.
Ah, you can get a burner phone with 140 minutes at WalMart for 30 bucks (cash), activate it from a laptop at McDonalds parking lot using their free wireless, running an OS that boots from CDRom and not need to supply your contact info (name, address, other phone nor email address). And when you are done with it, you can leave it at the bus station without a pin to lock the phone down so anyone that picks it up can use it. Please don't ask me how I know.
This prompts me to share a few thoughts I had before, but the Boston events and this thread bring them forward in my thinking again. There are probably some preps we should make for OPSEC. I've pondered a few burner phones might be good to have and they should be purchased with cash and no traceability to you. We never know what might be the events If .gov gets out of control, rephrase that, more out of control and that might suggest the need to communicate via cell service but without any traceability. But wait, Wal-mart has video cameras galore. Look at how the Boston bombers were identified. Yeah, they were stupid but what if needs, say to get medical supplies or something forced you to make a trip into video camera land? Many/most states are using facial recignition software and even just good old gumshoe work with a photo could ID me. So, I've been thinking it may be good to have a few decent wigs, hair color, beard, mustache, fake chin, rubber cheekbone and nose enhancements and a collection of makeup, glue etc. So, it may be necessary to camo not just our clothes in the woods but hide our facial appearance when among the sheeple. Some of these preps may be found at thrift stores and costume shops after Halloween. Some make up items might have a finite shelf life but much could last for decades just in case and we should get it while you can and without any radar picking you up. Just thinking..... AT
I got the .App above, and noticed one thing right off... This App, does NOT change the devices EIN which is DEVICE Specific, and therefor even if you are using a "Burner Number" your devices EIN is STILL being transmitted to the Network, Controller and LOGGED there. This really still leaves your Personal OPSEC Compromised, if the Watchers are smart enough to mine the DataBase for the EIN instead of just the Phone, Text, or SMS Number. ..... YMMV....
@Airtime most store are going to have maybe no more than 2.5 weeks of recorded video. Mom and pop shops probably no more than a few days before they overwrite the info. I think that a plain old ball cap or boonie will go a long way towards obfuscation. Wigs and make up is a bit too much for me others maybe not. paying cash, buying from a store you are going to visit just once in your lifetime because it's enroute to or from somewhere you don't plan on going again, and not activating in that area nor in your AO would suffice. Sure, they might be able to tell you purchase the phone in columbus ohio 15 months ago, activated it in indianapolis 9 months ago using the open wireless of a mcdonalds, and made 2 phone calls to similarly purchased/activated from a cell site in the middle of a corn field 7 months ago far from the dialers AO. And dialed phones were located somewhere in a 15 block radius that included a park, 2 shopping malls, a major hospital, a university and a major expressway interchange. That's a lot of data to sift through and would the original video still exist? right now, no, not enough data will exist to make a connection. If however, that utah super data sucker thing gets all private/commercial entity data/video, then we could have a problem. Then we will just have to resort to using patsy's to go in and buy the phones so we can stand out in cornfields to comm with each other. There should be plenty of unemployed obama voters we can use for that when the time comes.
Could be a nice little Biz for an enterprising Monkey, buy a few phones from a number of different local Ma&Pa Outlets, over a wide area, and then trade them for similarly purchased Burners from the other side of the country, and then sell them for CASH, OR PMs, to local Monkeys, for SHTF Comms.... After the event and before the Network is either crashed or shut down by .Gov.... .... YMMV....
No disagreement that burner phones purchased 15 months ago may present less or little risk. But as noted in the post there may be needs to go into camera land beyond just phone purchase, say for medical supplies after a bad event. And there might not be the benefit of 15 months for video records to be over written. AT
Erm, send the starving/unemployed obama voter into candid camera land? Amazing what you might get them to do for a can of spam and 40oz.
Activation is going to be the limiting factor. Need to activate typically within months of intended use. Minutes added to phone expire typically within 6 months of being added to phone. I guess the phones could be traded in differnt states of usability. purchased from location x no minutes added with a valid minute card or purchased from location y, activated in location Z, 60 minutes added and minutes expire w/in xx months. Or some such fashion.
Do you think they could drop a dime on you (yeah, dating myself!) for even less, especially if being squeezed by the "authorities?" In a scenario where this kind of OPSEC would be needed, I think one might not want witnesses and terminating witnesses is just flat wrong and not even remotely an option.
I had begun to think that you were writing your reviews in invisible ink. I kept sniffing my screen to see if it smells of lemon juice.
