If you’ve been watching the news, you’ve heard about Jeff Bezos’ recent divorce. The richest man in the world was caught cheating, leading to a $37 billion divorce and at the very least, bad publicity. Did you know? Inexpensive and anonymous phones may have been able to prevent both of these consequences.
What is an Anonymous Phone?
An anonymous phone is precisely what it sounds like; it’s completely anonymous. There’s no connection to the person using it at all. That means there’s no real name, no email, and everything is done using encrypted communications, including texting and phone calls.
Encrypted communication should also never use the real name associated with the text. These phones are meant to be used only for communication and not for searching the internet or using personal social media accounts. They are only used to communicate secretly.
The Difference Between and Anonymous Phone and a burner phone?
A burner phone is a disposable mobile phone. They are used in Hollywood films and television shows often by the “bad guys” who don’t want people to be able to trace their calls.
A burner phone can either be an app or an actual physical phone that lets someone create an unidentifiable phone number that can’t be traced back to you. With burners, you typically buy the phone and a card with minutes on it. Once the minutes are out, you can buy a new phone with a unique phone number and remain anonymous. However, you should check with the carrier to see what data they keep on you.
When using a burner app, you are still very much on your real phone, although you may use anonymous names for the app. However, this can again be traced back to you because it exists on your phone where the service company has your name, address, and other personal information on file.
Anonymous phones, however, are just like your real phone, only none of your actual personal information is connected to it, and you don’t have to burn it, or throw it away after using it.
The Big Question
What’s cheaper? Spending up to a million dollars on an investigation on who hacked into Bezos’s phone with a security/investigation firm that does not understand setting up a privacy lifestyle for the client or working with an Executive Protection company that sets up anonymous phones?
Let’s stay consistent with our Jeff Bezos example. He chose not to work with a protection firm that could set up anonymous phones for him and help him avoid the chance of someone finding out about his affair. By using old techniques that no longer work, he only set himself up to get caught. Protection work has evolved, and it also includes privacy protection using up to date technology.
On the other side of this, if he had two anonymous phones, nothing could have been traced back to him.
The conclusion: it would have been cheaper for him to use anonymous phones instead of giving up over half of his wealth.
The Consequences of Not Using Anonymous Phones
Blackmail and Extortion
We deal with blackmail and extortion all the time in our industry, especially when it comes to high net worth individuals and those hoping to make a quick buck. Bezos himself was blackmailed by the media when his phone was hacked.
They told him that they would print the story if he did not pay them. Blackmail is very serious, especially when it comes to the rich and famous. In some cases, it can even lead to violence.
If he had used anonymous phones, the press could not have been able to blackmail Bezos. They wouldn’t have any real evidence that it was him behind the texts, so they wouldn’t be able to publish a credible story.
Bad Publicity
Whenever a public figure or famous person has an affair, they get bad publicity. The public doesn’t like knowing that someone they idolize has done something wrong.
Although this matter should always be personal and none of the public’s business, it got out and created some bad buzz around Bezos, and of course, Amazon. Bad publicity gives people a reason to no longer work with or purchase from the company that a certain individual is associated with. Simply put, bad publicity is bad for business.
Using anonymous phones would have prevented any bad buzz. Nothing could have been traced back to Bezos, and no credible stories could have been published. Because the press had the texts available to them, they were able to publish a story with facts and let the public read each one of those texts. In the case of Bezos, the bad publicity could be in the millions of dollars, and it was in the news cycle for a long time.
Divorce
Of course, the biggest consequence is an expensive divorce. Bezos’ ex-wife was awarded $37 billion, half of his worth. Imagine working so hard for so long to create the biggest company in the world only to have half of your wealth taken away from you. Remember, one of the fundamentals of Executive Protection is the protection of the client’s privacy and confidentiality.
Again, anonymous phones may have prevented this messy divorce. Although a couple can get divorced for many different reasons, to be awarded that much money, you need to have proof that the other party has violated the contract of marriage.
Evidence was not hard to find since it was all over the internet and in the media. If Bezos had anonymous phones with which he used to text the other woman, none of this evidence would exist, and he would have most likely not lost as much money as he did.
How Could Privacy & Confidentiality Experts Have Helped Jeff Bezos?
These experts are experienced in setting up anonymous phones. When setting up the phones, they pay cash for the phones and set it up entirely for our clients with no connection to them. They do not need to be there, and shouldn’t since there will be security cameras and we want the process to be completely anonymous as well. We would have created ten aliases for Bezos, and he would get into the habit of using them with these phones.
Merely purchasing a phone with aliases and a fake credit card is not enough. We can’t share all of our techniques for making a phone completely anonymous. You need the experts to teach you the tricks and techniques to make your phone truly anonymous.