Cyber Security Basics for Women - Phone Number Security

➡️ Phone Number Security - Where numbers cause vulnerabilities

One of the quickest and easiest ways to doxx someone is by phone number. This is also one of the key pieces of information needed for identity theft and hacking. Every time you give your number up for a website, app, or business, you are helping the internet create a dangerously accurate profile of who you are and all the ways to contact you, as well as who’s connected to you. See my previous post on people finders.

Many companies use phone numbers as a vetting process to avoid spam/abuse - unfortunately, this also means they can sell your data to advertisers and profiling sites which NEETs use to dox. Many of these sites publish this information for free or behind extremely low-cost fees.

A common social engineering identity theft scam can involve phone numbers. A bad actor will call your service provider (which can be found easily here https://freecarrierlookup.com), pretend to be you, and have your number transferred to a Sim card in their possession.

Lastly, scrotes having your phone number just opens you up to harassment and abuse. I have been in situations where men are very aggressive about giving you their number or asking for yours. Blocking helps but there have been some (rare but scary) instances of unhinged men getting around blocks by using the same methods below to create endless numbers and keep harassing women. Whenever possible, give men your second / third number and make them WORK (if ever) for your "real" number.

Not a single person I met whom I've given my second / third number two were offended when they found out. And if they were I could honestly care less.

➡️ How to Fix It: Degrees of Separation

The way I’ve handled security around my phone number is by using Google Voice and TextNow to have different numbers for different uses. I use a total of three phone numbers for public, private, and bullshit.

I reserve my carrier number for very limited use cases - private. Close family and friends only, and for verification for certain institutions like financial that require a real number. Note: Some companies / sites can tell if a phone number is carrier issued or VOIP (voice over internet provider) so there will be times when you simply can’t avoid using it, but be very selective otherwise.

Google Voice will issue you a free number but does require your real number to register to avoid spam abuse. While I’m not a fan of companies having a ton of information on us, if you use a Google product they already have your info anyway, and I’d rather a company have my info to sell me ads than a scrote be able to find my number to doxx me. Lesser of two evils - a trend in cyber security for individuals.

You can use any area code for this; so I highly recommend using the zip for a large city (like new york or LA) to help with anonymity. I use this as a public or semi-private number. I put this for job applications, when meeting new people while vetting, and signing up for legit sites (like purchasing clothes) where a number is required but I don’t want spam from. Many reward apps as well use this number. Basically, if I don’t need it for serious stuff like identification or financials, I use my google voice number. Google voice has an app and can be accessed on the web so it’s also great for international travel as long as wifi is common.

Lastly, I use TextNow for everything else. It’s free as long as you send a text every week or so, or you will lose your number. Alternatively, you can pay $5 a year to lock in your number for long-term backup use, which is what I do cause that’s very reasonable. I use this for literally everything/anything that requires a number but isn’t essential and potential long-term. It does not require a phone number to sign up for, which is great.

One consideration for services like TextNow is many of the numbers end up recycled so sometimes you get a lot of spam from a previous user. This can also be an advantage if someone tries to look you up by number and gets 50 results. So that can be helpful depending on your use case.

I’ve had decent success with TextNow; however, I would caution against using it for anything important where if you lost the number, you’d get locked out forever. I recommend using a spare google email to “sign in with google” so you can easily access your account and number.

There are other 3rd party free number apps - as always, do you due diligence when signing up for them. I used my real info with Google but you can bet your bum I did not for TextNow and never would for any 3rd party free number service.

➡️ A cautionary tale about profile builders/overuse

I’m going to go into deeper detail about building an alias in a future post, but I want to touch on this in regard to phone number use. The more you use a number in conjunction with your other PII (personal identifying information) the less effective these methods become. If you’re signing up for an app or site with all your real-life information except you’re using a secondary number you’re still going to be findable so keep that in mind. Depending on your uses, it may be advantageous to change these backup numbers periodically. Or better yet for that frivolous 3rd number, create an alias to attach to it if you want to hold onto it for a while to avoid confusion. Easiest way is a throw-away e-mail under a fake name and location.

Thanks for reading! Please give me your feedback and let me know what topics you’d like to know more about. Also if you have any follow-up questions.

My Experience: I’ve worked in IT for over 7 years, much of that was tech support for consumer electronics so I have a lot of real-world experience with personal security. I currently am an IT analyst for a large company. I am a life-long tech nerd millennial who grew up on the internet.

Disclaimer: This is meant to be general experience-based advice, and I am by no means a legally bound security advisor. Please use common sense and do research. No amount of proactive security sweeps can prevent all doxxing - I will go into that later. I have experience but I'm not perfect. Also, I’m not responsible if things don’t work out, yada yada. You know the drill.

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