At some point, between giving your number on a slip of paper at a trade show and giving your card details for that “free trial” you were too lazy to end, your mobile number found its way into a database it really shouldn’t have. Weeks later, the calls began. Numbers you don’t recognize, the recorded pitches for your car’s warranty, spam texts proclaiming you’d won so and so, which you entered into nothing. It wasn’t an accident-your number was published, and the telecoms are calling it about now.
People generally consider their phone number to be private like an extension of their email, known almost exclusively by people they know personally, but it may be the most widely circulated and scraped data field around. Every piece of software, every account created in every store or login asks for it. Once it hits any interface, you have no idea where it might end up.
Where the Spam Actually Comes From
It almost never begins with someone intentionally setting out to find you. It begins with convenience. A shopping website, seeking your phone number so they can message you updates on a purchase.
A gym, looking for your cell number so they can text your appointment reminder.
A dubious competition, demanding you provide your number because it’s, quite literally, the service they’re providing-your contact details, bundled and given to a third party for sale.
And much of this is made possible by data brokers. These are the companies that buy and sell our data in bulk, aggregating information from loyalty programs, marketing companies, application permissions, and public records-your phone number and others. All they have to do is get your number once and find it on the wrong list and suddenly it’s another entry in an unfathomably huge spreadsheet.
The Buffer Strategy: Give Away a Number That Isn’t Really Yours
Next we have the leaks. Company X gets hacked and all of a sudden some forum is hosting a database of several million phone numbers. Whether or not you trusted the company before doesn’t matter; with your number in their system, one hack away from being available to anyone.
And I’m sure there’s a ton of spam that comes from this cruft as well: unfinished online authentications with PII for two-factor auth, those ads that want your number to “show you the price” (I think that’s the line from the ad, I can’t remember), the middle of the page free download forms that hop you over to your phone as part of an unspecified transaction, too.
To clarify, you don’t actually need to shield your actual number from any of these events; you just need a backup to accept the liability.
This is the point where a virtual phone number app is effective not necessarily as some complex privacy trick, but just way of playing good hygiene. Basically, the concept is this: instead of handing out your actual number with whatever website, app, or identity verification thingyou know that you’re unlikely to visit frequently, you give out a different number that only exists for the purpose in question. If it gets a few spam calls to it, you don’t care.
MoreMins operates in much the same way. They sell app-based virtual numbers (no physical SIM required) you can purchase from more than 50 countries including the US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, Poland, and Lithuania. It’s set up in a flash so you don’t have to wait for activation and it costs from $0.99 a month so cheap you start wishing you had to constantly use a disposable number for a dodgy signup form, even if you don’t feel like it.
What To Do When a Number Starts Getting Spammed
I couldn’t care less about making outbound phone calls. Incoming calls and texts are free. Probably 98% of what you’ll do with this number is receive 1 time verification numbers or the one or two confirmatory texts you may get along the way.
If a number gets old, or spammy, simply cancel it and get a new one.
No contracts, no physically swapping SIM cards and no running into a local carrier store.
Here is the use case in practice: you’re about to register for a shopping app you’ll probably use twice. Put in your virtual number instead of the real one. Three months later the app or site begins to sell your data, or gets hacked, and you get the spam calls you’re happy to ignore on a number your friends, family and coworkers never call.
No matter how high the buffer number, it all becomes a mess eventually. Say, for example, you put it on a dozen websites over the span of a year, and now it’s getting three robocalls a day. At that point, you have a choice without just putting up with it.
Let’s begin by shutting down that number for new signups. If it’s compromised, more publicity isn’t the answer. Perhaps second, identify if you can see the spam originating from specific sources, evidenced by the calls being for a particular product or classification, which can then be identified as one particular signup.