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Build a burner phone with Twilio and Kotlin
- ozfive 9y agoThen you'll pay for all the phone calls from marketers. Thanks but no thanks
- DamnYuppie 9y agoTo solve said problem don't give the # out. Burner phones are for you to use and dispose of, not keep and use as a primary daily phone.
- holtalanm 9y agoisn't the purpose of a burner phone....to give the # out?
- ozfive 9y agoThat is what this tutorial is advocating. Don't get me wrong this is a great project to explore kotlin and twilio. But ultimately a very expensive one if your number gets sold to a lot of other companies.
- problems 9y agoInteresting, unless I'm missing something Twilio's pricing does not include any unlimited incoming model. From other VoIP providers, you can get that pretty easily. I use voip.ms and they charge $4.25/mo for a number and unlimited incoming.
- Nexxxeh 9y agoThere isn't an unlimited package to normal users afaik. But calls are cheap. If you only want a number for a month, thats $1. Leaving $3.25 worth of calls at $0.05 (0.01 incoming, 0.04 back out to your cell) a minute forwarded to a mobile to match. Over an hour of calls, which I wouldn't hit on a gumtree advert. That $4.25 presumably doesn't include the outbound leg, does it? Twilio also do SIP registration, so you can route calls to your handset via SIP even more cheaply. (0.004 for outbound, so 0.01 and 0.004, for over 3.5 hours for that $3.25. There are definitely usage cases for unlimited, but I don't think this is necessarily one of them unless you have a ridiculously high call volume. At that stage, I'd just use the voicemail to email Twimlet and bounce everyone into that.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- problems 9y agoSo, for per-minute SIP calls: Twilio - 0.0125 in 0.017 out voip.ms - 0.09 in 0.005 out Of course, the unlimited plan is only useful for a select few - if you want to plug it into your PBX and use it as a small support line (could be this case) or if you're making nightly calls for a few hours to relatives or a significant other, it's quite possibly worth it. Depends what you're going to use it for and if you want that Twilio API really. If you just want a SIP number, it's pretty clear, but if you want all those nice API features and don't need super high volume, Twilio is probably the way to go.
- Nexxxeh 9y agoYeah. Although there's something to be said for Twilio for straight up SIP too if you've got awkward fucking hardware. The Gigaset N300 is great, but the dialplan options are embarrassingly limited. Twilio offer their own hosted Node.js (Twilio Functions - BETA) and TwiML Bins (free super-basic TwiML hosting with basic moustache templates for simple variable insertion.) Pretty sure the whole project in the OP could have been done quicker and easier using Twilio Functions, but I get that it's more of a learning tutorial and example. I use a combination of TwiML Bins, Functions and Twimlets to quickly chain together powerful functionality. And to work around the N300 dialplan limitations! Edit: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/230878368-How-to-use-templates-with-TwiML-Bins https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/230878368-How-t... https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007737928-Building-apps-with-Twilio-Functions https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007737928-Bu... https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets
- gregorymichael 9y agoGreg from Twilio here. Totally understand the concern there, especially since you're already paying for your cellphone. I did something similar a couple years ago when we were shopping for a car. A lot of car shopping sites are basically lead generators for dealerships and you need to provide a number to get real info. I used a Twilio number forwarded to my cellphone. The deluge of calls started immediately. After 48 hours, when we had all the information we needed, I released the Twilio number and incurred no further charges. Total cost was $1 (per month) for the phone number and $0.01 per minute for the inbound calls. Upside was that my phone stopped ringing the moment I was done talking to salesmen.
- ozfive 9y agoSo what you're saying is this tutorial was written by a twilio sales/marketing employee?
- mattnewton 9y ago..it's own twilio.com, so isnt it transparently promoting twilio? Or is your comment about sales versus engineers? If their salespeople know how to fire up a little endpoint in kotlin using their API that's fantastic.
- jk563 9y agoMarcos Placona is a Developer Evangelist.
- ozfive 9y agoI missed that this was on twilio. Fair enough
- gknoy 9y agoIt's on the Twilio.com blog, so I think that it is pretty reasonable to assume that it's written by a Twilio employee. :-)
- 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- HNSucksAss 9y agoWhatever those are.
- thedangler 9y agoOr download a real burner phone app that lets you buy numbers and associate them for different things. There are plenty on the app store for iOS and Android. Still looks like a fun project.
- pmiller2 9y agoThat defeats the purpose of a burner phone by not being anonymous.
- Sleeep 9y agoNeither is this. I don't know much about Twilio but when I clicked on the link in the article it asked for a bunch of personal information. I also don't know how this is any different from, say, Google Voice?
- dogma1138 9y agoTwilio is a business with a full KYC process this isn't an anonymous service.
- Nexxxeh 9y agoDepends. A burner can be for anonymity, but can also be for disposable use. For most legitimate usage cases, like those in the OP, are covered by using Twilio.
- nucleardog 9y agoYou don't always want anonymity, and when you do it still depends on who you want anonymity from. Sure, state actors will probably still be able to track you. But the weirdos on Craiglist and the spammers that scrape it won't.
- bdcravens 9y agoThose apps are just using a provider like Twilio on the backend. Though some of those apps are pretty feature-filled - "Burner" supports integrations via Slack, Dropbox, webhooks, etc.
- packetized 9y agoI think that the disconnect here is that this isn't a "burner phone" the way many people think of them, but rather some sort of call/SMS firewall.
- WisNorCan 9y agoThe challenge for Twilio is that phone #s are a fixed quantity. The same #s have been circulating across lots of different companies including being used by spammers and in marketing campaigns and published across the Internet. Make sure to search the Internet for any phone # you acquire from Twilio before buying it. It may already have substantial call spam/undesirable organic traffic associated with it. On the flip side, there are already companies out there specializing in monetizing misdials. They specifically look for phone #s that have been retired recently with a lot of volume and then take those calls and resell as leads for cars, insurance, etc.
- ben_jones 9y agoOdds are you won't be able to figure that out. Furthermore downstream providers will often treat traffic differently, including but not limited to ratelimiting and dropping of SMS, if the number was abused by a previous owner. The things that people gloss over in an IPO...
- WisNorCan 9y agoAgree you won't be able to figure it out 100%. A couple of lines codes counting # of websites that reference the phone # will prevent some potential catastrophic results, but not all.
- softawre 9y agoCouldn't you test that though? I mean, test if your SMSs are dropped, or if you get ratelimited somewhere?
- toomuchtodo 9y agoYou have to acquire (at a cost) a number first to do that.
- gregorymichael 9y agoGreg from Twilio here. Agreed on the challenge of working with a fixed number of phone numbers (and I say this as someone who recently moved to NYC and would love to own a 212 number). In the industry, phone numbers that have a high-volume of unwanted traffic are called "dirty numbers." Think of a number used by someone who signed up for every sweepstakes they came across for 40 years, or maybe a number that's particularly cute (you probably don't want to have a cellphone tied to XXX-867-5309). If we sold them, dirty numbers would be worse-than-useless for (almost all) of our customers. So, whenever a phone number is released by a Twilio customer, we reserve it for a minimum of two months before it can be purchased by another account. We also monitor each reserved number until it reaches an acceptably low number of phone calls. If you do find yourself getting unwanted calls, you can use the <Reject>TwiML verb[^1] to create a blacklist - your account won’t receive or be charged for those calls. [1]: https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/reject https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/reject
- cupcakestand 9y agoNice idea, confusing title (burner phone??).
- softawre 9y agoIt's a common thing in US spy/criminal movies. Basically a throwaway phone number not tied to you that you might give to an informant or use in some other way to stay anonymous.
- zeep 9y agobut in this case it is probably tied back to you ... (the credit card used to pay Twilio...) So it is not really a burner phone in the traditional sense
- Sleeep 9y ago"Burner phone" is a colloquium used in the United States referring to limited use prepaid phone, separate from your main phone, that's not tied to your identity. Usually used for drug deals or other criminal behavior. This isn't really a burner phone as the Twilio link I clicked asked me for a bunch of personal information first.
- Sleeep 9y agoI meant to write colloquialism not colloquium. Burned (heh) by auto correct.
- cottsak 9y agoYour not the first person to think that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14802242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14802242
- detaro 9y ago"Your not the first person to think that" and then referencing a few minutes old comment that points to an equally young other comment?
- mkez00 9y agoAuthor is building a Spring MVC application but labels it as a "Kotlin app". Is it because Kotlin is the new hotness and the Spring Framework is "old" and "uncool"?
- orclev 9y agoI imagine it has more to do with the fact that simply saying "Spring app" will make most people assume it's written in Java. It would perhaps be better to say it's a Kotlin Spring app, but honestly the web framework being used is probably less important than the language it's being written in.
- SeanDav 9y agoIs this a USA solution only, or also applicable in UK, EU, Rest of World?
- Nexxxeh 9y agoUK for sure, dunno about RoW number availability. When you pick a number though, do check that the number supports voice and SMS. Not all do.
- Endy 9y agoAt the risk of sounding silly, what advantage does this provide over buying a $20 TracFone for cash and activating it without an account on TracFone.com over a public Wi-Fi? Or, better yet, not bothering to "activate" it, but using it only over Wi-Fi, creating a new Google account, and downloading Talkatone (or the Hangouts Messenger to create a Google Voice account connected to your new account)?
- gregorymichael 9y agoGreg from Twilio here. Not a silly question at all. Developers certainly have a propensity to recreate the wheel for the sake of recreating the wheel -- though I think that many of us would agree that the act of creating is itself the advantage. That said, a few things: 1. Costs less. A Twilio phone number is $1 per month (in the US). A minute of calling costs $0.01. 2. You can get a new number any time you want. 3. You get to write code. Don't want to speak for Marcos (though he happens to be sitting 10 feet from me at the moment), but my guess is that what excites him most about writing this post isn't that other developers will copy it line for line. It's that they'll use it as a jumping off point -- that it inspires and equips developers to ship their own inventions. For an example of this, check out the folks at Burner app who used the similar concept (pre-Kotlin) to build an entire business around this idea. [1]: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/burner-app-offers-alias-phone-numbers-powered-by-twilio.html https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/burner-app-offers-alias-...
- CodeWriter23 9y agoFor example, this is the same model Uber uses to anonymize the driver's and rider's phone numbers. Probably when a driver signs off their number is released for a new driver to use until they sign off.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoDo they use a unique number per driver per shift? If you know the rider's and driver's phone numbers, then you can connect them anonymously with just a single phone number. When I call that number, see if I have a ride in progress, and put me through to the right driver. This assumes no pooling. With pooling you might need 4 numbers, as the driver could have up to 4 separate passengers they want to contact.
- kchr 9y agoYou might want to use the term "single-purpose number" or something similar. Burner phone is colloquially used as a term for non-registered/anonymous phones, which this isn't. Sure it sounds cool but people might assume that's what they are buying...
- bdcravens 9y agoTrue, but it's mostly anonymous (but not subpoena-proof). There are multiple mobile apps that refer to themselves as "burners" (burn the number) but the same caveat applies.
- daxorid 9y ago>mostly anonymous >(but not subpoena-proof) Then it's not anonymous, "mostly" or otherwise. Any entity that is either subject to CALEA, or behaves as if it's subject to CALEA, is not your friend. Note that Twilio, although not subject to CALEA, still behaves as if it is, bending over backward to honor any and all "lawful requests" for customer information, and requiring PII on account signup: https://www.twilio.com/legal/law-enforcement-guidelines https://www.twilio.com/legal/law-enforcement-guidelines
- bdcravens 9y agoI meant in the general use case, where I talk/text a random person and then "burn" the number.
- ceejayoz 9y agoI don't think that's what most people think when they hear "burner phone".
- justin66 9y agoA valid search warrant issued under the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or equivalent state warrant procedures upon a showing of probable cause is required to compel Twilio to provide the contents of communications sent or received through Twilio’s products or services. How utterly unreasonable. Yeah, the man is totally trying to keep you down through Twilio.
- Animats 9y agoEr, you realize Twilo logs everything, right? You can log into Twilio and read your own logs.
- gregorymichael 9y agoGreg from Twilio here. Privacy is incredibly important to us. You can delete the logs of any call or message that you don't want residing on our servers. https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/11/introducing-delete-api-nt.html https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/11/introducing-delete-api-n...
- deftnerd 9y agoAccording to that blog entry, it just makes that data hidden on the front-end and from the API, but it still resides on your servers. Has that policy changed? Soft-deletes, which the blog indicates that you are doing, is very different from actual deletion. To make the distinction clear, if a log of a call or message is deleted, can it be given to law enforcement? If so, it's not truly deleted.
- TACIXAT 9y agoRecently tried to use Twilio as a burner for registrations (project to set up unique personas online). All modern websites that require a phone number are also using a CNAM lookup and discriminate against VOIP numbers. I won't be ditching my prepaid phone any time soon in exchange VOIP services.
- bdcravens 9y agoTwilio even has a web UI for this lookup: https://www.twilio.com/lookup https://www.twilio.com/lookup
- exhilaration 9y agoThat's really cool, I'm plugging in my cell phone number and it's returning my name and carrier. I didn't know services like these were available.
- Sleeep 9y agoA lot of cellphone companies have this information displayed as an option for numbers not saved in your contacts. My provider (Verizon) gave me this option for a month for free when I first signed up then sent me a text that it was additional cost if I wanted to keep it. Then they started displaying that information for business lines for free. Later when I got my new phone it stopped for some reason.
- rsync 9y ago"Twilio even has a web UI for this lookup: https://www.twilio.com/lookup" https://www.twilio.com/lookup" Strange - almost every number I put into this UI (friends, family, etc.) comes up with: "caller_name": { "caller_name": null, "caller_type": null, "error_code": null, }, I wonder why that is ?
- callalex 9y agoAre you using a paid or a free trial account? A lot of number lookup services start returning garbage data if they suspect fraud/abuse from free users.
- burntrelish1273 9y agobur.nr is available for $679.99 :D
- vedanta 9y agoIs it just me or wouldn't everyone just rather live in a world where privacy is respected by third parties just like a first party would. The do not call law has developed too many exceptions or needs strengthening methinks. If I'm getting a spam call on a burner number vs. my normal number, have I really saved any time? or privacy or security if the number can be reused in malicious ways? I save numbers for 2nd factor auth, and I seem to get yahoo/msft messages from the same numbers, also github sometimes. Number reuse is definitely a problem. A PKI cert system for numbers/calls would be great to have in this case. I want to know for sure that I'm getting my 2nd factor auth code from msft, regardless of the number they're using.
- Jamieee 9y agoI've been using ring4 for throw away numbers and it's been decent. Plus there are often lots of promo codes to use. Code for 20 extra credits if you check it out: INV-DKCSGJHX
- blago 9y agoI've been doing this for a long time and there is one big, real-world, gotcha - most business (such as Uber, Lyft, Microsoft) can't send text messages to Twilio numbers. I filed a ticket with their customer support a few years ago and they basically swept it under the rug.
- blago 9y agoBTW, nor can you use your Twilio number to send a text message to a short code provided by Twilio to a third party such as Uber: https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-my-twilio-number-send-sms-to-a-non-twilio-short-code https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-my-twilio-number-sen...