How to Buy a Phone With a Recorder

Posted on by

If you plan to protest and don’t want to risk your expensive smartphone – or just want to be as anonymous as possible while you’re away – consider buying a phone with a recorder. Yes, it will cost a little money, but buying a cheap phone now is much better than returning from a protest with a broken smartphone later.

A recorder phone – if the name isn’t clear – is a phone that you buy but don’t intend to store or use for a long time. How you buy it – and the prepaid plan associated with it – can range from tinfoil paranoia to a “fairly confidential” level of anonymity. For example, you can go ultra-anonymous and pay someone in cash to buy a physical phone and a gift card, use that gift card to buy bitcoins, and then use bitcoins to buy a prepaid SIM card.

Of course, this process will take time, and most people who need a phone with a recorder will probably want one sooner rather than later. Getting some cash, heading to your local Walmart store and buying a phone to record – or a phone to record with a prepaid SIM card already installed – is a smart compromise between ultra-privacy and convenience. (You can even wear a hat and sunglasses – naturally along with a mask – if that makes you feel better.)

What should I look for in a new phone with a recorder?

Keep your eyes on the prize. You do not try to buy a phone with features; you want to buy an incredibly cheap phone that will allow you to make calls and send text messages. That’s all. If it even has a “display” that you press, rather than simpler menus that you navigate with buttons – we’re talking about a smartphone, not an old-school clamshell – consider yourself in luck. But then again, you really don’t need even that level of difficulty unless you think it will help you write much faster.

You want something cheap that you don’t care about, so you don’t even have to think twice about throwing it away (or recycling it) if you want to permanently separate it from your physical body. You can save yourself some trouble by picking up a recorder phone that comes with a prepaid SIM card. You will still have to activate the prepaid service somehow – which I recommend over a separate phone number rather than over the internet if you care about privacy – and be creative with the details you must opt ​​out of. as part of the activation process.

Where can I buy it?

I only mentioned Walmart above because Walmart is all over the place and they have burner phones, but you can also try looking at local stores like Rite Aid , your nearest 7-Eleven, any dollar store, Target. Metro PCS etc. Expect to pay around $ 10-40 for a phone, and on top of that, buy a prepaid plan .

If you’re in a store, your prepaid plan – or “calling card” – must come from the same company whose phone you purchased, just for convenience. Otherwise, you can opt for something like OneSimCard , which can then be funded online using bitcoin or credit card gift cards rather than a regular credit card. Other reliable options (and the networks they work with) include:

Once you have your phone and plan, you will need to activate them in order to link them together. You might even want to create an email for this process and do it over VPN / Tor at your local coffee shop – assuming you can log in, due to all the quarantine – if you’re that paranoid. Do not use your credit card at any stage in this process, and try not to associate anything you do with your phone record with any pre-existing accounts.

If you need help or if it all sounds confusing, I’ll point you to this overly exhaustive Reddit thread that walks you through the typical (very anonymous) process of buying a phone with a recorder. Although, to be honest, this is not difficult to do. Just remember the basics:

  • You buy a very cheap phone that you can throw away when you’re done.
  • You will also need some kind of prepaid service – ideally a card that you buy and activate on your device, not a monthly plan that you subscribe to. (It wouldn’t be very anonymous to tie your cellular connection to your regular credit card.)
  • Pay with cash whenever possible, or use cash to buy gift cards with credit cards, bitcoin, or another currency you can use to buy your phone and plan anonymously.

I have a recording phone. Now what?

Tracking your phone’s location will continue to be easy; The point is more that we are trying to isolate you from the phone. This means that you shouldn’t install anything on your phone that would tie it to your personality – for example, a social media app if your cheap phone supports them. Do not carry your torch phone with you like a normal device if you can avoid it; this is not its purpose, and it will tie the location of the phone to the places you usually visit (probably with your “real” phone in your pocket).

You will want to leave your phone turned off until you leave the house and find yourself in the place where you plan to use it. When you’re done, turn your phone off again – and you won’t be using either its Bluetooth connection or its Wi-Fi connection, so you can turn those settings off as well (if possible).

Don’t think of your recording phone as an “alternate phone” to your primary device. Think of it as a very silly tool for sending text messages and calls. That’s all. Disable all communication-related features that do not apply to text messages or calls. If your recorder phone is smart enough to run an Android operating system, you can even install an OS without Google on it. If I were you, I would just get a cheaper flip phone that gives you a lot less customization to worry about since all you can do with it is text messages and talk.

Looking for ways to protect black lives? Check out this list of resources .

More…

0
Politics

Leave a Reply