phone records for sale.

Travis H. solinym at gmail.com
Tue Jan 10 07:22:39 EST 2006


You can get records of most kinds from various private investigators
and data brokers for a fee.  I first found out about this in the
mid-90s, but I'm sure they existed before that.

Where the data collection is illegal, the reputable firms assure you
that they are not doing anything illegal, which is correct; they farm
it out to contractors with more cunning than scruples, and they don't
ask questions.  Records of all kinds are available, including
subscriber information for a specific mobile or pager number, or land
lines marked as unlisted.

Mitnick managed to pretext as a law enforcement agent and attempted to
get an informant's drivers license record faxed to him, according to
"The Fugitive Game".  Apparently informants are specifically marked in
the records, which alerted a DMV clerk that something was amiss.

A book I recently read reports that DEA agents have given up informant
names and other info to murderous cartels for as little as $50 a pop,
so to speak.

A well-intentioned law might stop wholesale retail operations, but I
have doubts it would stop the suitably motivated.  I'd rather not have
to try to restrict the activities of some other party who has my
information, I'd rather prevent information from leaking to other
parties in the first place.  The case of utilities delivered to one's
residence is particularly problematic as far as privacy goes.
--
"If I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist"
  -- Enrico Fermi -><- http://www.lightconsulting.com/~travis/
GPG fingerprint: 50A1 15C5 A9DE 23B9 ED98 C93E 38E9 204A 94C2 641B

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