Private Disposable Telephone Numbers

 

Sometimes you may want to communicate with someone by telephone, but you may not be comfortable giving out your personal and private telephone number. Maybe you are signing up for an on-line account or service and need to receive a text message to complete your registration. Maybe you are selling an item on Craigslist or e-Bay and want to let potential buyers contact you, but don't want to put your personal telephone number out on the Internet. You might want to provide a telephone number in a developing social situation, but if things do work out do you want that person to have your real telephone number. There are many reasons why you might not want to disclose your personal telephone number, and this is where disposable telephone numbers come into play.

Some of the most popular apps for disposable telephone number are:

Sudo App – I wrote about Sudo App in December 2017 and use Sudo regularly. The only disadvantage I see with Sudo is that it is currently only available for iOS (Apple), and thus if you have an Android phone you can’t take advantage of Sudo’s great services. Sudo is free, and gives you nine (9) telephone numbers.

Hushed App – Available for both iOS and Android, Hushed plans start at $1.99 per month. Calls between Hushed numbers are free, so you could set up a calling circle with friends and family for free as long as everyone signed up for a Hushed number.

Burner App - Your Burner App numbers works as a forwarding service to your private cellular telephone number. Plans cost at $4.99 per month / per line. Burner gives you the choice of a subscription or a simple pay-as-you-go option.

Number Proxy - Based in Canada, Number Proxy works similar to other disposable telephone number services. To create a telephone number with Number Proxy you purchase credits using either Bitcoin or PayPal.

It may be that you need to just receive a text message to sign up for an account or on-line service. SMS Receive Free and Free Phone Number both receive text messages and post those received text message to their web-pages. The received text messages are visible to anyone looking at the site, so you wouldn’t want to receive sensitive information there, but to just receive an activation code these sites may be an option to avoid tying a registration to your personal cell-phone number. The downside to this type of text message receiving site is that the telephone numbers can get overloaded.

Disposable telephone numbers and text message receiving web-sites help you add layers of privacy to your personal life. It is one more thing that an adversary will need to overcome in order to find the "real you".

While not designed as a disposable telephone number, Google Voice can have useful applications to ensure that you can always be contacted by those who have this number.

Google Voice (Google's VOIP telephone service) was established in 2009 and is free for anyone to use. With Google Voice, users can obtain a single phone number to be used on all of their devices. No longer do you have to give out an office, cell and home number - with Google Voice, whenever your number is dialed it will ring each phone and device you sync to the service.

One of Google Voice’s major selling points is the ability to route all of your devices under just one single phone number. Upon creating a Google Voice account, you are provided with a dedicated Google Voice phone number. This new dedicated number can then be linked to your cell phone, house phone, work phone or any additional lines. Whenever someone calls your Google Voice number, it will ring every device linked to your account. You can of course also make outgoing calls from all of these devices as well, even including your computer. No matter which device you dial from, the receiver’s caller ID will see your new Google Voice number.

Since Google Voice numbers aren't listed in phone books or connected to physical addresses, they're difficult to trace. When you call contacts from your Google Voice number, it shows up on their caller ID, but standard phone traces don't reveal your identity. If law enforcement agencies become involved, Google provides them with your account information, including the IP address from which you created the account and placed calls. (Security Tip: Always connect through a VPN.)

A government agency can request your data from Google by providing a subpoena, court order or search warrant. However, Google claims to take users' privacy very seriously and doesn't give information to authorities unless the request passes a rigorous internal process. If authorities have requested your data from Google, you receive an email notifying you of the request. If Google finds a subpoena, court order or search warrant valid, it provides the government agency with specific account information, including your IP address, which can reveal your physical location.

If someone enters your Google Voice number in an online directory, such as White Pages, Switchboard, or AnyWho, the search returns the Bandwidth headquarters, the company that issues VoIP numbers to Google Voice users. Since Bandwidth has many headquarters across the country, your Google Voice area code determines which building the search finds on a map. Finding your location and identity from this information is impossible, especially since you can choose any area code for your Google Voice number.