Fwd: Anonymous Long Distance Phone Calling
I thought this might be of interest to cypherpunks. Especially the part about encryption... I would also be interested to know if anyone has dealt with this company (reputation and so on). ---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- Return-path: <LeslieR2@aol.com> From: LeslieR2@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: "LeslieR2" <LeslieR2@aol.com> Message-Id: <9409241357.tn28073@aol.com> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 13:57:47 EDT Subject: Re: Anonymous Long Distance Phone Calling TRACELESS CALLS. Call the U.S. and most of the world withoutmaking a permanent record on your telephone bill of whom you are calling. When you utilize these phone cards (debit calling cards), you take the first step in achieving complete privacy in your long distance phone or fax calling. OVERVIEW: The phone card is used like any other phone cards, instead of making a permanent record of your call with either a calling card or charged to your home phone, you use a pre-paid debit card. Useage is very simple:You first call a toll-free 800 number, and then you will be instructed by the computer to enter your PIN number. The computer will notify you of how many $ worth of calls you have left. Then you will be able to call your long distance number (U.S. or worldwide) with complete anonymity. The card can be used from any touch-tone phone, at home, the office or on the road from any pay phone without needing any coins. The computer will notify you when you have only one minute left on your card. HOW TO PURCHASE YOUR CALLING CARD: You send a $50 or $100 blank Cashier's check, or cash, to the address stated below. I have purchased a pile of PIN cards and I randomly select one and send it to you. The company I buy these cards from, keeps no records, if they did, all records of sales are to me in my name unfortunately. I keep no records of addresses or PIN numbers who I am sending to. After you receive your card you go about making your calls and then when you want to add more time to your calling card (recharge the card), This is where you gain another level of privacy, because I step out of the loop and you will communicate with Traceless, the providing company, directly. You send a money order or cash and your PIN number to the address provided on the card and they will recharge the anonyous PIN number with the amount sent. You put no name or return address on the envelope. Since all they did was send a pile of cards to me and I sent them out they have no way of knowing who what or where the cards went to. Alternatively, for those who have an offshore Visa, MasterCard or American Express accounts, you can set it up so that your PIN account can be credited by certain amounts when you hit a certain key while making phone calls to the special 800 number. If this option is appealing to you, let me know and I can send some more information. Also for those that need voice encryption that option is available. Again if you want more info on this let me know. THE COST: When making long distance calls the charge will be 35 cents per minute anywhere in the United States. If you make calls to Canada the charge is 70 cents. Prices to other parts of the world depend on where. If you need the list of the countries and their charges let me know, most countries of the world except some third world countries. If you have anymore questions please let E-mail me and I will try to answer them.Otherwise mail your checks and take your first step towards greater telecommunications privacy. Reach out and call without your telephone bill reaching back and haunting you. R & L PO Box 1492 Yakima, Wa. 98901
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Matthew Ghio writes:
I thought this might be of interest to cypherpunks. Especially the part about encryption... I would also be interested to know if anyone has dealt with this company (reputation and so on).
---------- Forwarded message begins here ----------
From: LeslieR2@aol.com Message-Id: <9409241357.tn28073@aol.com> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 13:57:47 EDT Subject: Re: Anonymous Long Distance Phone Calling
The phone card is used like any other phone cards, instead of making a permanent record of your call with either a calling card or charged to your home phone, you use a pre-paid debit card. Useage is very simple:You first call a toll-free 800 number, and then you will be instructed by the computer ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ sigh. to enter your PIN number. The computer will notify you of how many $ worth of calls you have left. Then you will be able to call your long distance number (U.S. or worldwide) with complete anonymity. The card can be used from any touch-tone phone, at home, the office or on the road from any pay phone without needing any coins. The computer will notify you when you have only one minute left on your card.
This scheme seems to boil down to "trust us, we won't tell" anonymity; much like the C-punk remailers, but it'd get awfully expensive to chain with these cards at $.35/min. There are two opportunities for tracking/ logging - when the cards are purchased, and when the calls are made. ("800" number calls deliver the caller's number to the owner of the 800 number - sometimes immediately, sometimes as part of billing detail.) The cards seem to trade convenience (no pocket full of quarters) for security (they may track purchases after all). There's nothing at all anonymous about them if you don't use them from payphones, or other unsecure public phones. Cards like these are available for cash at Western Union offices, greeting card stores, and truck stops. They're also more likely to be in the $3-20 range instead of $50 or $100 - which is nice, because you shouldn't reuse them if you don't want eavesdroppers to tie your dealings with party A to your dealings with party B. I don't see much value in encryption if it's not end-to-end; seems like most potential eavesdroppers are going to be located on the customer-to-CO link at either/both ends, which won't be encrypted unless you've got crypto gear installed at caller and callee locations .. which makes their product much less interesting. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.5 iQCVAgUBLoSOmH3YhjZY3fMNAQGqwgQAllrwXVa3zNiSaX13AE6H4emSatSBnScZ RaMpiVfaciwMREWr/G/IBCn1uys3BvUGgUS++e6SY4uFSQm22zTr2jI70Kd5SOXc MMWvOxjC1HAev+uw1moROFleIS16ZdPmIsM+NOSHClCY+AuY2fKSUSTSNQuetI1B quE3r6KnSls= =7nVn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (2)
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gregļ¼ ideath.goldenbear.com -
Matthew J Ghio