Hey all, I'm one of the creators of BurnerPhone, and just wanted to leave a comment with a few facts about the product.
We weren't really planning on launching this thing so quickly (we planned on making improvements to the site, etc. and launching in the next couple of weeks) -- but since all the press about the NSA / phone stuff came out it seemed like a good time to put our MVP online.
Anyhow, we're basically trying to provide our users with a secure-as-possible communication device that allows them to remain as anonymous as possible. Yes -- the government can definitely collect call data and SMS data, but by using different devices and SIM cards (phone numbers) you can abstract away all but the most difficult to track details: your voice, your writing style (sms messages).
Using a BurnerPhone allows you to make phone calls and send SMS messages that won't be linked back to your by your telco billing records.
In regards to how we work:
- These phones come with unlimited talk and text for 30 days, nationwide coverage.
- We piggyback off of tons of US carriers, so depending on where you're located, you'll be connected to a different cellular network.
- You can recycle these phones (we have a lot of plans with this in the future).
I'd love to get some feedback from you guys, really respect HN and your opinions.
Also, if you want to prevent tracking at the USPS -- ship the phones in unmarked boxes with postage purchased with cash. Don't use a return address and randomize the post-offices drops you utilize to send the packages.
Are you willing to insure, in real money terms, the privacy of your customers from leaks/warrants at your end?
If so, how much? Can that money be held in escrow by a third party?
Are you willing to go to jail for your customers? For how long?
If a customer orders 134 phones ($10k), will you comply with any relevant federal financial disclosure guidelines?
If served a national security letter that includes a gag order, how will you react?
Will you accept cash transactions through the USPS, with only $75 and an address enclosed?
Can you prove that records are not kept? How?
These questions are partially rhetorical, but for people who want/need anonymity, they're important.
edit, to keep questions in one spot:
How do you anonymize shipping? It's straightforward to find ways to accept anonymous payment, but how do you keep the Man from following all outbound packages from burnerphone?
What are advantages over buying a gift card with cash and purchasing a phone online or through an intermediary?
Have you guys consulted an attorney and tax professional to verify all of this is legal? Maybe I'm just naive but it sounds like by destroying all records of every sale and shipment, you guys might be setting yourselves up to get shitfucked if the IRS comes after you with an audit. But then again I don't know much about the telecom industry or their reporting standard.
Do you deny all GSM technology have state accessible wiretapping built in?
Also, your product is less anonymous than paying cash for a pre-paid phone at a store because you ship it to a physical address.
Buying this phone from you instead of NewEgg is worse for privacy because with traffic analysis it will be easy to identify the sales to you as opposed being mixed it with the 9k orders NewEgg gets a day.
Why should people trust you not to be a FBI run honeypot (like they do with warez BBS, etc. etc. ad nausium)?
Your target market seems to be the unwise and the gullible: even the purchase of one of these overpriced phones is made using a reasonably anonymous currency (e.g. tumbled Bitcoins) there is a still a record of delivery address.
Thus, these phones of yours are completely unsuitable for any sort of serious anti-Government whistleblowing, and probably inappropriate even for criminal communication, given the ease by which electronic records can be accessed by the various police authorities.
This is either a deliberate scam, or a really stupid business idea.
Some business advice, you are opening yourself up to interesting levels of CC fraud (desirable good, lack of needed info, lack of data for pattern checking). Which if chargebacks don't directly kill your bottom line, the payment networks will simply cut you off for your high fraud.
Actually, one more question. I see that you're marketing the Tank T190 phone by Blu which can be purchased on Newegg for $25 (http://bit.ly/ZyKBHA) and packaging it with an unknown 30 day data plan with talk and text which sounds very similar to the 30 day talk + text ReadySIM card which retails for $40 (http://bit.ly/13qyhtM). I guess what I'm wondering is what your company is adding to this equation for the extra $10 aside from being a middle man to obscure the trail? Also have you obtained permission from Blu to use their imagery?
Does it have cool special features like a microphone that ca be turned on (preferably even when the phone is off) and used as a room bug? My current phone has this and I'd really miss living without it.
Does the 30 day talk time start when you get the phone? Or after you make a call? I'm curious if this is something that you could buy and then hold on to as a backup or emergency phone.
I'm generally curious if there will be any (or many) "legitimate" (using it for a genuine belief in privacy for the sake of privacy) users of this phone? I mean, it costs more than a traditional cell-phone plan presumably and with fewer features... so anyone actually using this probably has something to hide to go through this length (or he is Richard Stallman).
Any idea what the implications for taking this device out of the country are, given the number of carriers you guys rely on? If you could elaborate on how you guys deal with the carrier networks, I'd be really interested, but I understand if you don't want to.
Great idea, by the way.
EDIT: Ooops, just saw your response to the Canada question below. Ignore this.
Unless you actually created the phone itself, all you are doing is putting a Sim card in it, and calling it a BurnerPhone. No offense, but I can't just buy an iPhone, put a Sim card in it, and call it the YoPhone.... Can you clear up the fact that you make the phone or you buy it yourself in bulk?
Why doesn't someone just built a Tor hidden service that is an interface to the Twilio (or similar) API? Sign up with Bitcoin, get a phone number and then send/receive SMS and send/receive calls using DAP/getUserMedia (html5 mic + audio) in a web browser.
Using a physical cell phone still leaves a trace of the purchase, shipping, physical call location, cell site pings, etc. Plus in a lot of jurisdictions it is now a legal requirement to verify identity and adress with issuing phone numbers.
Using a Tor hidden service (+VPN, etc.) I could be anybody anywhere in the world. Less bits figured out.
1.) How do you comply with E911 laws that require addresses for the end user? Whatever carrier you deal with will likely terminate any contracts it has to, upon discovery.
2.) How does the shipment process work? You may delete all records of the purchase transaction, but you're still shipping via UPS/FedEx/USPS/Etc and all of those maintain records on source/destination addresses and various other shipping details (size/weight/approx cost).
Yeah, this is a joke. "Send your address to a stranger over the internet so they can ship it from a warehouse employing a small number of large corporations so you can be anonymous!"
Pay-as-you-go phones bought in a grocery store are more "burner" than this.
The government said "trust us" too. I'm not entirely sure why anybody who wants to buy an untraceable phone would go to a website run by an unknown person to buy one. There are so many ways that this could go wrong for the phone purchaser.
I'm thinking either this is a spoof site where in a week's time you'll just say "Ha! Look at all this private information you just gave a complete stranger!" or it's a government-run honeypot.
That was my thought too. If i'm so concerned about security there is no way I'm going to trust a web site like this. Even if we give rdegges the benefit of the doubt and say he actually is, there's no way to know that 2 weeks from now the govt doesn't hijack / buy the site, OR that they don't just start tailing these guys on their trips to the post office. Great way to find people with a better-than-average likelyhood of being up to no good.
Other people have commented on the payment issue - I'm glad you're looking into bitcoin.
I'd be worried about delivery, too. I know you say you destroy customer information immediately, but if I'm truly paranoid I'm not going to trust that statement - I'd rather pay someone on craigslist to buy a bunch of prepaid phones for me.
I'm just brainstorming, but would it be possible to set up some sort of physical tor/mixmaster style forwarding that would keep the final destination of the phone from ever being known to you? I'm not entirely sure how that would work, and it would probably be open to abuse, but it's an interesting thought.
Also, could you consider posting something like rsync.net's warrant canary?
> Every time you make a purchase we'll package and ship your order, then destroy all transaction records in our system. We make it impossible to give or share your information with anyone.
Come on. There is absolutely no way you can convince anybody of this fact. It is impossible (and I mean this in the mathematical sense) to prove that you have no record of how it was purchased or where the phone went.
Since all mail has to be sorted to reach its destination, and there's little reason to expect that shipper and recipient data is given an expectation of privacy it probably does not even matter whether the company keeps records.
I suppose it is safe to assume that it would be unknown which SIM card is inside of the package, but having a list of recipients in a given area code and merely noticing when SIM cards came online in that area would be somewhat of a give away.
It seems like the phone would just encourage anyone performing surveillance that you are more likely to be communicating something they'd find interesting, and therefore they might spend more resources on looking at these customers.
I think it serves the public good when more people communicate in ways that can not be traced or listened in on, but I don't think it serves specific customers of this service if they have concerns about their own anonymity, and might be doing things like disclosing information about official corruption.
Whats your moral stance on your business? There are a lot of legitimate uses for your product, but its also (for obvious reasons) very attractive to people involved in criminal activities. Will you be putting any measures in place to counteract this?
For example, lets say you were regularly getting orders to a foreign country which is known to be a hot spot for terrorism. Then, you have the police knocking on your door, because there has been a major terror threat in a US city, and they need to track the terrorists phones.
I can guess the answer, but just want to make the point there are usually 2 sides to an anonymous service like this.
I know this has been said before....but I just couldn't help but chuckle at the irony of a "completely anonymous" phone, only able to be bought with a credit card :|
Anything but cash/bitcoin leaves too much of a trail. Just because you destroy your records doesn't mean your merchant bank does. Nor does it mean my bank will.
If you need to coordinate your criminal activities all The Wire-like, why not just use some form of encrypted communication using the phone you already have? Maybe just get one for criminal activity only to be extra safe? Aren't all these problems solved by some 2048-bit encryption? I guess the phone company can see which IP you're making a connection too, but that doesn't seem like much. Why do we have to waste this much perfectly good hardware just to be anonymous?
Isn't this service just taking advantage of the situation at hand? This is like offering a 'premium' burner phone, but burner phones aren't supposed to come with nice unlimited plans and etc.
You could get a Tracfone with some starter minutes for $10 and a 50 minute card for $10 with cash. The 50 minutes actually becomes 100 minutes due to Tracfone's 2x minutes promo.
http://www.tracfone.com/phones.jsp
Yes, this isn't 'unlimited' usage, but the whole point of a burner phone is to use it for one time communication, NOT for normal, regular comms over a 30 day period. You're just asking to be tracked if you did that anyway.
Seems like you would just be paying for a burner phone in a pretty box and pretty service when you could go out and buy one yourself.
Also, the burnerphone.us whois indicates that it was registered less than a month ago in May 2013.
What's going on in USA? Why does you care so much about privacy?
You look like crazy paranoid to me, as if you all are trying to hide something from a criminal or a law enforcement.
I bet there are lots of North Americans complaining of this PRISM an Verizon thing, but at the same time is using Foursquare and every cool internet location-based mobile app you also created.
There is a dictate in my country that says (in other words) that "If you are innocent then you have nothing to fear."
This BurnerPhone service would be used only for criminals in my country. I see no use for innocent people. This is too much even for people that have something non-criminal action to hide, like cheating your spouse.
If you have fear of your government watching you, then it's better to move to another country or live like a monkey in the forest. Burn your social security card and go live as if you didn't exist for your government.
These types of services might just turn out to be the "killer app" that pushes bitcoin out of collector space and into currency use.
People will already be committed to going out of their way to obtain extra privacy. Figuring out how to use bitcoin for the transaction will seem like little additional effort.
Sorry to say but you still have to pay by credit card (huge trail), and even if you use bitcoin, you still have to have the phone delivered somewhere, and to someone.
Out of curiosity, did you consult with attorneys before launch? I'm completely unqualified to answer the question, but I would think there's a possibility you could land yourself in a bit of a pickle if you shipped one that was later impounded in a law enforcement operation. It seems clear that you wouldn't have known it would be used illegally, but that wouldn't stop someone from ruining your month.
Although, I do see potential for this, pay with credit/debit card? It will be traceable who do I call, also it will show up in my card records. Also, there is going to be some record where it was sent. It will be probably sufficient for most users, but not all.
I have it a little bit better, but not perfect.
For 15 euros I will get phone + prepaid card. I can buy it from any local gas station or kiosk or mall, I can have some homeless to buy it for me.
Prepaid over here means, it is as simple as old school phone cards. No name, no bank accounts, no contract, no credit/debit card. Cash and goodbye.
I can also allow roaming just by sending sms to specific number(if it is not allowed), it will work almost everywhere(although the prices will be pretty high)
16 hour talk time is the amount of battery life you'll have if you're on the phone for 16 hours nonstop talking.
You get 30 days of unlimited talk / text, so if you talk for more than 16 hours on the phone you'll need to recharge using the charging cord that comes with the phone.
[+] [-] rdegges|12 years ago|reply
We weren't really planning on launching this thing so quickly (we planned on making improvements to the site, etc. and launching in the next couple of weeks) -- but since all the press about the NSA / phone stuff came out it seemed like a good time to put our MVP online.
Anyhow, we're basically trying to provide our users with a secure-as-possible communication device that allows them to remain as anonymous as possible. Yes -- the government can definitely collect call data and SMS data, but by using different devices and SIM cards (phone numbers) you can abstract away all but the most difficult to track details: your voice, your writing style (sms messages).
Using a BurnerPhone allows you to make phone calls and send SMS messages that won't be linked back to your by your telco billing records.
In regards to how we work:
- These phones come with unlimited talk and text for 30 days, nationwide coverage.
- We piggyback off of tons of US carriers, so depending on where you're located, you'll be connected to a different cellular network.
- You can recycle these phones (we have a lot of plans with this in the future).
I'd love to get some feedback from you guys, really respect HN and your opinions.
[+] [-] nostromo|12 years ago|reply
edit: I see in another comment that you're adding this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5840440)
Also, if you want to prevent tracking at the USPS -- ship the phones in unmarked boxes with postage purchased with cash. Don't use a return address and randomize the post-offices drops you utilize to send the packages.
[+] [-] ISL|12 years ago|reply
If so, how much? Can that money be held in escrow by a third party?
Are you willing to go to jail for your customers? For how long?
If a customer orders 134 phones ($10k), will you comply with any relevant federal financial disclosure guidelines?
If served a national security letter that includes a gag order, how will you react?
Will you accept cash transactions through the USPS, with only $75 and an address enclosed?
Can you prove that records are not kept? How?
These questions are partially rhetorical, but for people who want/need anonymity, they're important.
edit, to keep questions in one spot:
How do you anonymize shipping? It's straightforward to find ways to accept anonymous payment, but how do you keep the Man from following all outbound packages from burnerphone?
What are advantages over buying a gift card with cash and purchasing a phone online or through an intermediary?
[+] [-] h4pless|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeguard|12 years ago|reply
Also, your product is less anonymous than paying cash for a pre-paid phone at a store because you ship it to a physical address.
Buying this phone from you instead of NewEgg is worse for privacy because with traffic analysis it will be easy to identify the sales to you as opposed being mixed it with the 9k orders NewEgg gets a day.
Why should people trust you not to be a FBI run honeypot (like they do with warez BBS, etc. etc. ad nausium)?
[+] [-] quasque|12 years ago|reply
Thus, these phones of yours are completely unsuitable for any sort of serious anti-Government whistleblowing, and probably inappropriate even for criminal communication, given the ease by which electronic records can be accessed by the various police authorities.
This is either a deliberate scam, or a really stupid business idea.
[+] [-] mey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] h4pless|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nnq|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j-m-o|12 years ago|reply
A list of carriers I think would be useful, or a way to verify that the phone will work in your area (e.g. zip code or phone number lookup).
Also, is it US only? Any support for Canadian carriers?
[+] [-] rdegges|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cakeface|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RobSpectre|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrischen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway203984|12 years ago|reply
Great idea, by the way.
EDIT: Ooops, just saw your response to the Canada question below. Ignore this.
[+] [-] axus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] douglasisshiny|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elorant|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoster|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikcub|12 years ago|reply
Using a physical cell phone still leaves a trace of the purchase, shipping, physical call location, cell site pings, etc. Plus in a lot of jurisdictions it is now a legal requirement to verify identity and adress with issuing phone numbers.
Using a Tor hidden service (+VPN, etc.) I could be anybody anywhere in the world. Less bits figured out.
edit: apologies if this is hijacking the thread
[+] [-] RaphiePS|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|12 years ago|reply
1.) How do you comply with E911 laws that require addresses for the end user? Whatever carrier you deal with will likely terminate any contracts it has to, upon discovery.
2.) How does the shipment process work? You may delete all records of the purchase transaction, but you're still shipping via UPS/FedEx/USPS/Etc and all of those maintain records on source/destination addresses and various other shipping details (size/weight/approx cost).
[+] [-] jarek|12 years ago|reply
Pay-as-you-go phones bought in a grocery store are more "burner" than this.
[+] [-] lifeguard|12 years ago|reply
2) He said they destroy all records in their operation, but of course UPS/FedEx/USPS/Etc will maintain records
[+] [-] CanSpice|12 years ago|reply
I'm thinking either this is a spoof site where in a week's time you'll just say "Ha! Look at all this private information you just gave a complete stranger!" or it's a government-run honeypot.
[+] [-] masukomi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdegges|12 years ago|reply
I'm a programmer at a telephone company currently, and have worked in the telco industry for a while now.
I have no government affiliations at all.
[+] [-] cdjk|12 years ago|reply
I'd be worried about delivery, too. I know you say you destroy customer information immediately, but if I'm truly paranoid I'm not going to trust that statement - I'd rather pay someone on craigslist to buy a bunch of prepaid phones for me.
I'm just brainstorming, but would it be possible to set up some sort of physical tor/mixmaster style forwarding that would keep the final destination of the phone from ever being known to you? I'm not entirely sure how that would work, and it would probably be open to abuse, but it's an interesting thought.
Also, could you consider posting something like rsync.net's warrant canary?
http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
It's not perfect, but it is a nice touch.
[+] [-] jcromartie|12 years ago|reply
Come on. There is absolutely no way you can convince anybody of this fact. It is impossible (and I mean this in the mathematical sense) to prove that you have no record of how it was purchased or where the phone went.
[+] [-] rz2k|12 years ago|reply
I suppose it is safe to assume that it would be unknown which SIM card is inside of the package, but having a list of recipients in a given area code and merely noticing when SIM cards came online in that area would be somewhat of a give away.
It seems like the phone would just encourage anyone performing surveillance that you are more likely to be communicating something they'd find interesting, and therefore they might spend more resources on looking at these customers.
I think it serves the public good when more people communicate in ways that can not be traced or listened in on, but I don't think it serves specific customers of this service if they have concerns about their own anonymity, and might be doing things like disclosing information about official corruption.
[+] [-] joshuahedlund|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guyht|12 years ago|reply
For example, lets say you were regularly getting orders to a foreign country which is known to be a hot spot for terrorism. Then, you have the police knocking on your door, because there has been a major terror threat in a US city, and they need to track the terrorists phones.
I can guess the answer, but just want to make the point there are usually 2 sides to an anonymous service like this.
[+] [-] jgalt212|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcamillion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradleyland|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkulak|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aetch|12 years ago|reply
You could get a Tracfone with some starter minutes for $10 and a 50 minute card for $10 with cash. The 50 minutes actually becomes 100 minutes due to Tracfone's 2x minutes promo. http://www.tracfone.com/phones.jsp Yes, this isn't 'unlimited' usage, but the whole point of a burner phone is to use it for one time communication, NOT for normal, regular comms over a 30 day period. You're just asking to be tracked if you did that anyway.
Seems like you would just be paying for a burner phone in a pretty box and pretty service when you could go out and buy one yourself.
Also, the burnerphone.us whois indicates that it was registered less than a month ago in May 2013.
[+] [-] hgfischer|12 years ago|reply
You look like crazy paranoid to me, as if you all are trying to hide something from a criminal or a law enforcement.
I bet there are lots of North Americans complaining of this PRISM an Verizon thing, but at the same time is using Foursquare and every cool internet location-based mobile app you also created.
There is a dictate in my country that says (in other words) that "If you are innocent then you have nothing to fear."
This BurnerPhone service would be used only for criminals in my country. I see no use for innocent people. This is too much even for people that have something non-criminal action to hide, like cheating your spouse.
If you have fear of your government watching you, then it's better to move to another country or live like a monkey in the forest. Burn your social security card and go live as if you didn't exist for your government.
[+] [-] noonespecial|12 years ago|reply
People will already be committed to going out of their way to obtain extra privacy. Figuring out how to use bitcoin for the transaction will seem like little additional effort.
[+] [-] steeve|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drglitch|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidmr|12 years ago|reply
(Congrats, of course)
[+] [-] forgotAgain|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DocG|12 years ago|reply
I have it a little bit better, but not perfect.
For 15 euros I will get phone + prepaid card. I can buy it from any local gas station or kiosk or mall, I can have some homeless to buy it for me.
Prepaid over here means, it is as simple as old school phone cards. No name, no bank accounts, no contract, no credit/debit card. Cash and goodbye.
I can also allow roaming just by sending sms to specific number(if it is not allowed), it will work almost everywhere(although the prices will be pretty high)
(source(sorry, translator don't work with https https://www.elisa.ee/et/Eraklient/konekaart/konekomplekt/eli...)
[+] [-] steveinator|12 years ago|reply
- Unlimited talk and text for 30 days.
- 16 hour talk time.
I'm confused. Which is it?
[+] [-] rdegges|12 years ago|reply
You get 30 days of unlimited talk / text, so if you talk for more than 16 hours on the phone you'll need to recharge using the charging cord that comes with the phone.
Sorry for the confusion there.
[+] [-] ggoodale|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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