How to Be Invisible

SMARTPHONES, DUMBPHONES, PAGERS

I just flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to New York; took Delta from JFK to Madrid, and then Iberia 1,000 miles south to the Canary Islands. What a difference it makes when you travel with a smartphone! On the way to the airport, I could rebook or cancel my flight, view and change seat assignments, and access real-time standby and upgrade lists. Once I checked in online, a barcode could be e-mailed to my phone—the code to be scanned at security checkpoints and gates instead of a boarding pass. Once underway, I could track my checked luggage—including real-time carousel information—and also follow the status of claims on any delayed bags.

But I didn’t do any of those things because my only mobile phone is a dumbphone, and I do not take it with me when I cross the pond. (I never check luggage, either.)

HOW THE CONTENTS OF YOUR CELL PHONE MAY BE REVEALED

Some traffic cops in Michigan now carry Cellebrite cell phone extraction devices. They can access all the information on your cell phone within a few short minutes, and it doesn’t matter what you erased or when you erased it.

IF ARRESTED, YOUR IPHONE, BLACKBERRY, OR ANDROID SMARTPHONE WILL BE SEARCHED

No search warrant required! At least that’s the current situation in California (thanks to Governor Moonbeam), and it’ll probably soon be the case in a state near you. Even dumbphones typically have information stored in text messages, voice mails, and call records. Thus, it is entirely possible that you can be brought into custody on one charge and end up being charged with something else, all because the police were able to search your phone without a warrant. So be careful what you keep on it!

CROSSING A BORDER?

Not only can baggage, laptops, and flash drives be searched, but whatever type of phone you carry can be searched as well. Make sure you never have any nude pictures of your young children in there, especially not if you enter Canada or the UK.

TRYING TO HIDE YOUR HOME ADDRESS FROM A LEVEL TWO OR LEVEL THREE PI?

He’ll have your service provider ping your smartphone late at night. It will reveal your location, turned off or not, as long as the battery is in it. But suppose you remove the battery? If you need to make a call from home, you’ll have to put the battery back in, no?

Ping!

YOUR VOICE-MAIL BOXES CAN BE HACKED

As far back as the year 2007, Clive Goodman, former News of the World royal correspondent, went to jail briefly for intercepting voice-mail messages of members of the British Royal family. Not much has changed—we are still at risk to determined snoops. For example, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile do not require cell phone customers to use a password on their voice-mail boxes. Because of that, many people simply do not bother to make one up. Big mistake, and here’s why. Any decent PI can use a spoofing program to make it appear he is calling from your number.

Further, with just a bit of additional personal information about you, he can gain access to the automated phone systems for Bank of America and Chase credit card holders. If, then, you have a BofA account or a credit card with Chase, he can come up with debts, late payments, and credit limits. Bank of America’s computer will even read off a list of dozens of recent charges, including names of doctors and other businesses you may have patronized.

Even with passwords, some Level Three PIs may be able to get your messages, but using a password will usually protect you against the lower levels.

THINK YOU CAN HIDE FROM YOUR INTIMATE PARTNER?

Not necessarily, according to a poll taken by Reader’s Digest in a November 2011 article titled “Do You Snoop?” But don’t be too sure. The worst countries for partners who snoop were Brazil, India, and the Russian Federation, and the least worst were China, France, and Australia, but in all nations there proved to be snoopers—especially between ages sixteen to forty-five. To quote just one of the many comments in the article:

“I always check my boyfriend’s cell phone when he’s in the shower,” says Faviana Andrade, 32, from São Paulo, Brazil. “I want to know who he’s spending time with.”

IDENTITIES CAN BE REVEALED VIA FACIAL RECOGNITION AND FACEBOOK

A study led by Alessandro Acquisti from Carnegie Mellon University combined the use of cloud computing, facial recognition, and public information from Facebook and other social networking sites. Results: Acquisti and his team identified college students walking on campus based solely on their face and information gathered online.

• They came up with the real names of members of an online dating site who’d used false names.

• The team then developed a smartphone application which gathers both online and offline information and displays it over the person’s facial image on the phone.

SMARTPHONES ARE MORE VULNERABLE THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

High Tech Computer (HTC) Corporation is a Taiwan-based designer and manufacturer of smartphone devices. They create a base design and then offer their product to be sold rebranded by other companies, such as i-mate, or networks, such as T-Mobile or Orange. They also offer devices under their own HTC brand. One of the posts on the Android Police Web site on October 5, 2011, was by Artem Russakovskii, headlined:

Massive Vulnerability In HTC Android Devices (EVO 3G, 4G, Thunderbolt, Others) Exposes Phone Numbers, GPS, SMS, Email Addresses, Much More

The following is just a brief quote from a long and scary article, pointing out how apps can open up information from almost any source.

HTC also included another app called HtcLoggers.apk. This app is capable of collecting all kinds of data … and then [providing] it to anyone who asks for it by opening a local port. Yup, not just HTC, but anyone who connects to it, which happens to be any app with the INTERNET permission. Ironically, because a given app has the INTERNET permission, it can also send all the data off to a remote server.… In fact, HtcLogger has a whole interface which accepts a variety of commands … and no login/password are required to access said interface.

If you must have a smartphone, then to preserve your privacy have a nominee buy it and maintain it with his or her own credit or debit card. Even then, however, certain precautions must be observed. (I may have additional details on smartphone privacy available by the time you read this. Visit www.howtobeinvisible.com for more information.)

LIFE WITHOUT A SMARTPHONE

For many years I’ve used one of the mainstream cell-phone providers. I gave them a bank cashier’s check for a $1,000 security deposit (in lieu of a Social Security number), my middle and last name, and they handed me a new phone on the spot. A year later, my deposit was returned to me.

The bills go to a remote address and are paid from there. It is never turned on except when I am away from home and expecting a call, or when I need to make one. Therefore it is rather difficult to locate the phone, should anyone try to do so. The service does include password-protected voice mail, which I usually check once a day.

The way one of my readers obtains his cell phones is to search for them on eBay or Craigslist. He says, “If you want a fairly private cell phone, buy a used Verizon cell and activate it on the Page Plus Cellular system. Been doing this for years.”

PREPAID CELL PHONES

Although the per-minute cost is high, if you carry a cell phone only for the occasional emergency, a prepaid cell phone may be your best choice. You choose how many minutes you want, and how much money you want to spend. Advantages:

• No deposit.

• No contract.

• No credit check.

• No minimum monthly fee.

• No identification required.

• No request for a Social Security number.

Some are even disposable. You’ll find them at stores such as Walmart and RadioShack, as well as at many places on the Internet. I suggest you first go to Amazon.com, click on “Electronics,” search for “prepaid cell,” and study the reader comments for each phone on the list.

USE A PAGER WITH YOUR CELL PHONE

Although clerks in electronics stores may tell you, “People don’t use pagers anymore,” pay no attention to them. I am a great fan of those small, cheap pagers that cost less than $10 a month. A big plus is that—unlike cell phones—the basic models cannot be tracked. A cell phone, which both receives and transmits, is tied to a single tower. As you move down the highway with the cell phone on (even though not in use), it transfers your number from tower to tower. With pagers, although they, too, use towers, there is a vital difference: Each tower broadcasts all the messages, and there is no clue as to which tower is used when your pager rings.

For example, suppose a friend is trying to locate you at a huge airport. A message goes out on all the loudspeakers: “Miss Loretta Lindstrom, please meet your party at gate 10 on the B concourse.” Unless you decide to show up (only to discover a stalker, a PI, or the police), no one can possibly know you were even in the airport, much less in which part. The small, cheap pagers offer you this same protection.

The best way to use your pager is in conjunction with a cell phone that is not turned on. If you receive a message that appears urgent, either turn your cell phone on just long enough to reply, or go to a pay phone. Here is a simple code used by one of my readers. He carries a pager clipped to his belt and keeps his cell phone in his car. The pager is always on, and the cell phone is always off unless in use.

First digit: Is always 1, 2, or 3:

1. Call me in the next day or two.

2. Call back as soon as convenient.

3. Emergency!

Second digit: Will be between 1 and 7:

1. Call wife at home.

2. Call wife on cell phone.

3. Call wife at work.

4. Call secretary.

5. Call parents.

6. Call friends Larry and Carol.

7. Package received at ghost address.

Look how simple it is to translate these two-digit codes:

22. Call wife’s cell phone number as soon as convenient.

15. Call parents, perhaps this evening.

31. Call home this very minute!

How often have you been asked for your telephone number, and have been reluctant to give it out? (One such example is when you’re arranging a blind date.) From now on, give out your pager number. Take the time to record a greeting in your own words, such as: “This is Hillary. Please leave a message.” (You will, of course, check for messages from time to time.)

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

I’m in the UK and there are certain times when I must make a confidential call. That being the case, what is the least-worst phone I should buy?

Check out the GSMK CryptoPhones from Germany. These have the strongest encryption algorithms on the market and are the only secure phones I know of that come with full source code available for independent review. They are not in general use because they cost thousands of dollars but if you really need it, it may be money well spent.

What is the dumbest dumbphone I can get?

According to Engadget, it’s John’s Phone. According to a review:

It certainly is basic. In the age of smartphones and cheap featurephones, John’s Phone is more clearly defined by what it lacks than what it has: no fancy color touchscreen display; no camera; no 3G radio, WiFi, Bluetooth or even GPRS data; no FM radio; no user-accessible storage; and no music player or apps of any kind. It can’t even send a text message. It’s just a quad-band GSM phone with an ink pen and paper notepad tucked neatly into its capacious recesses. That’s right, pen and paper.

What do you think about Zfone?

I’ve never used it, but I asked a PI friend to check it out. He answers, “Other than the GSMK CryptoPhone, Zfone is the only encryption system I’d trust for telephony.”

Note: Zfone doesn’t work with Skype. However, it does work well with services like MagicJack.

When I leave my car at the dealer’s for servicing, shouldn’t I give them my cell phone number and then leave it on, so I’ll know when my car is ready?

If you carry a small pager, just give them that number and tell them to enter some simple number several times (such as 1111 or 7777) after the beep. This works equally well when you’re waiting to pick up eyeglasses at the mall, at the golf course when your tee time is ready, or when your wife is ready to be picked up after the baby shower.

Do you recommend satellite telephones?

You’ll see these advertised in Power & Motoryacht and other yachting magazines. They were developed for oceangoing ships, but some airlines use them now for passengers, and you and I can use them anywhere, even in an isolated mountain valley or while crossing the Sahara. At one time it appeared that communications via satellite were reasonably safe. However, as we later learned, the late Osama bin Laden—who used one in Afghanistan—had his calls monitored on a regular basis. Also, the minutes are unusually expensive. I seldom recommend them unless you have an oceangoing yacht or plan a trek to the South Pole.

Why don’t you allow consultations by telephone?

This is one of the main reasons why I require my consulting clients to meet with me face-to-face. Intelligence agencies, as well as many divisions within law enforcement, have it drilled into their heads to never use the telephone if a face-to-face meeting is at all possible. “Never,” they’re told, “say anything over the phone you wouldn’t wish to see in tomorrow’s New York Times.”