An anonymous phone is a phone that is not tied to your identity. A burner phone is a type of anonymous phone that you discard shortly after use.
You can use anonymous phones for sensitive projects or actions where you have determined that the need for a phone is unavoidable. Unless the phone number needs to be stable in the long term, you should always prefer burner phones.
To setup and use an anonymous phone:
- Anonymously purchase the phone, its SIM card, and its plan.
- Do not turn on the phone close to where you live, because an adversary can learn the history of a phone physical location with the collaboration of mobile network operators.
Pseudo-anonymous phones are phones that you have purchased anonymously but you use close to where you live. They can mitigate network mapping — especially if all members of a scene or network use them — but you should not use them for sensitive projects or actions.
- AnarSec's guide “Kill the Cop in Your Pocket”[1] on the dangers of using a phone.
- Burner Phone Best Practices for more information on burner phones.
Techniques addressed by this mitigation
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Network mapping | You can use anonymous phones to make it harder for an adversary to conduct network mapping. | |
| Service provider collaboration | ||
| Mobile network operators | You can use anonymous phones to make it harder for mobile network operators to provide useful information to an adversary. | |