Burner Phones About To Get Hot,

[gab13by13]

Michael Cohen claims that a known person was given $400 to purchase 3 burner phones at a CVS, and he/she is about to testify to the select committee. Cohen claims that Mark Meadows is one of the people who was communicated to via burner phone.

I know Raw Story, but this sounds pretty credible.

https://www.rawstory.com/cohen-burner-phones/

[C_U_L8R]

1. They think burner phones are untraceable

This will get good.

[Chainfire]

4. How would you connect a burner phone to an individual?

I don't have a clue.

[C_U_L8R]

5. I heard an FBI agent speak about it once

He thought it was laughable that people think they can be anonymous.
It takes a little more time but they can put together all the digital breadcrumbs
to hone in on suspects. And they have lots of tools we don't know about.
I imagine they are proceeding carefully to not reveal any methods.

[Chainfire]

6. Scenario:

I pay a bum, unknown to me, to buy me a burner phone, for cash, some distance from my home. Immediately, upon leaving the area, I remove the battery. I put in the battery, use it once, away from my home or office then destroy the phone. How in the dickens can anyone prove, in court, who used that phone?

I am not up on the capabilities of law enforcement, no need to be, but I just don't see how they could connect those dots, regardless of what voodoo they do.

[C_U_L8R]

7. From what I gather, no one is a single dot.

And somehow, they do connect them, whether terrorists, drug dealers or Trumps.

[Hugin]

8. They almost always screw up and call a non-burner phone at least once.

There are many many identifying unique numbers associated with modern cell phones. It is how the network works.

Twenty years ago this was not the case. When I would take my daily walk I'd see at least one crushed phone beside the road. It was really the wild west then.

[ret5hd]

9. Did you have your "regular" phone with you?

Did you call someone known to be an associate of yours?

Did you buy a coffee with a cc while the battery was installed?

Did you install/remove the battery in sight of a camera?

Did you use the phone to check any website etc?

Also, your scenario (install battery, make a call, destroy the phone) would greatly limit the utility of the phone. How many phones would you need the bum to buy for a complex operation? How would your co-conspirators contact you if the situation was complex/fluid?

If your co-conspirators were using the same routines, how would you know their numbers…for the first, second, third phones?

Your scenario would be useful in very limited situations, but so would putting a piece of masking tape on a light pole at a particular location.

Not saying it couldn’t be done, just saying the more “secure” your procedures are, the more cumbersome they are. After a while people get lax, sloppy. And soon a mistake is made.

[Chainfire]

10. For someone trying to cover their tracks, there are obvious answers to your questions.

The phone would be for a one-time communication, certainly not for checking the latest post on DU. With a minimum of planning, you can have, for all practical purposes, secure communications and especially for a single communication. The security agencies are quite advanced, but they are not the only ones who know how modern communications work.

Do I think that the phones, that are the subject of the conversation, will have been used in a nearly foolproof manner. I seriously doubt it, the users will have been to damn arrogant to use proper communications discipline. The downfall of most crooks is believing that they are more clever than everyone else. Two things that have always kept me on the right side of the law is my inability to lie convincingly and knowing that I am not smarter than everyone else.

[GoneOffShore]

3. 'Better Call Saul'