Hello,
I’m a fan of Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell. In this book, he describes a method of dealing with phone numbers, by migrating them to Twilio and using them over VoIP. I now have the oportunity to do this in practice but I’m not sure if I should do it.
The phone number I have right now is already on multiple website, and my ISP knows already where I live(my pre-paid sim card is renewed by my mother who adds it to the bill has the billing address to our home).
Thanks.
Why wont you contact him directly, IIRC there is a listener Q&A coming up in the early (or maybe mid) parts of January.
Depends on your threat model. Using VOIP could prevent your real phone number to be known by adversaries. When thinking about Pegasus f.x. this could be an advantage. Obviously you will still need internet somehow. You could take a subscription in a different name, and if you order esim also random address.
Can you give me a link?
https://inteltechniques.com/blog/2022/12/16/the-privacy-security-osint-show-episode-286/
I cant seem to find the actual email where the questions go to but above is the link for the podcast.
I am not an expert, but my method the past few years is to decouple my phone number from my SIM by porting my phone number to JMP.chat, and using wifi for calls as XMPP Voip, which go though VPN between me and the server which bridges to the cell network that JMP offers. Occasionally when I am out and away from wifi, I will put in my SIM card, which has a totally different number, and use the data to use my ported JMP number over the XMPP to cell bridge. JMP also added data eSIM which I have been, using, while though more convenient to turn on and off, I can’t know as definitively if it is actually off. I also have an extra phone number with JMP.chat that I can give out to anyone that I don’t want to give my identity tied number. I see method as an advantage because I buy my SIM with cash and use fake identity and address, buy the esim anonymously from JMP, pay for my JMP account/phone numbers anonymously, I am not being pinged by a carrier the vast majority of the time, but can still make calls from my normal phone number, when I am pinged by the physical SIM carrier, the carrier has a false identity untied to my real phone number even if they have my IMEI and location, the physical SIM carrier doesn’t have my phone calls or text data because it is done over VPN encrypted data connection. However JMP.chat or the carrier they use to connect to the cell network does have that data and they can deduce who I am based on my known phone number which is linked to my identity. But I trust the JMP team, who I talk to on a regular basis on their forum more than I trust Mint mobile, so this is a good trade off in my view. I will say that occasional toll free numbers, or large businesses phone numbers will not work with my two JMP numbers, and very rarely SMS verification won’t work with these numbers. In these rare cases I use the phone number associated with the physical SIM.