Trei, Peter wrote:

Bill Stewart [SMTP:bill.stewart@pobox.com] wrote:

>At 05:49 PM 8/2/98 -0700, scoops wrote: >>Would some one be kind enough to suggest anonymous phone >>call services? >>I know about some supposedly untraceable 900# at $3.95 per >>minute. What about an anonymous prepaid service 800# or a >>calling card.

>Sure - there's a much cheaper, easier approach. Go buy a >phone card. There are some phone cards that insist on being >recharged by credit card, but there are lots that you can >buy at your local convenience store that don't insist on it, >and the ones at ethnic grocery stores which let you call >Mexico or China at moderately outrageous rates are more >likely to be cash-only. Or you can go to your airport (if >you're not too paranoid about Them watching you :-) and buy >phone cards like The Official San Francisco Phone Card, in >return for US$20 bills.

At about the same effort, you can be even more secure. Use cash. Change your $20 bill for a couple rolls of quarters and walk up to any pay phone that takes coins. Put in a quarter, and dial your number. You'll hear something like 'Please insert $3.50 for the first three minutes.' Shove in the coins, and talk. Works fine for long distance as well as local calls. Much cheaper than the 900#.

If you use a calling card for more than a single call, those calls can be linked to each other. It may also be possible to trace where the card was sold.

Peter Trei ptrei@securitydynamics.com

Also, even the private-switch operations selling cash-paid calling cards have records of the calls made on their systems, though those records might not be in a form that makes them readily linkable to the orginator of a given call--it all depends on how much it's worth to the pursuer to pursue you. Richard Storey