9 ms·
Show HN: Burner, for temporary phone numbers
- amolsarva 14y agoTechnology + freedom. The opposite of GoogleWorld
- Kartificial 14y agoI don't know about iPhones, but can't you just set your phone to appear as 'unknown caller' (so, no phone number is transmitted)? Or is this not really invisible?
- ch0wn 14y agoThis app gives you a new number for incoming calls and messages.
- icebraining 14y agoTheir iTunes page says you can make outbound calls and messages: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/burner-disposable-phone-numbers/id505800761?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/burner-disposable-phone-numbe...
- ch0wn 14y agoYou're right. You can see it in the video, as well.
- gregcohn 14y agoA lot of people won't take blocked calls -- and if you want to be reached in return, or via SMS, that wouldn't be a solution.
- dpritchett 14y agoAm I wrong in guessing this is a Twilio-powered service? If so, this is a brilliant pricing model for adding value on top of someone else's API. One-time App store pricing of $1.99 gets $1.39 to use on purchasing a short-duration Twilio line and then in-app purchases can be used to refill extra numbers/minutes, all presumably with enough margin to make money on top of the basic "reserve and use a Twilio number" functionality. Just checked and Twilio phone numbers are $1/mo. and 1-2 cents a minute for calls. There's definitely headroom to make money here.
- mgkimsal 14y agomight be plivo or tropo, but probably twilio.
- antidaily 14y agoI love that those are actual apps. We're running out of names, folks!
- gregcohn 14y agoWe proudly work with Twilio -- though there's a lot of work that's gone into managing the user-facing aspects of the service and the UX.
- RobSpectre 14y agoGrats on the launch Greg!
- colinsidoti 14y agoAre you pushing voice through data or using call forwarding?
- sulife 14y agoThey charge a lot less than that in bulk too.
- deleted 14y ago
- PanMan 14y agoGreat idea: I assume app + backend + twillio API? The only think that might confuse people is if you start to recycle numbers (because you don't want to keep paying for them), and the call gets connected somewhere totally unrelated.
- gregcohn 14y agoDefinitely an issue we've been mindful of and designed for.
- mmahemoff 14y agoHow did you design for this? I thought you might be using caller ID, so the number is only relevant to people with a specified phone number. (Similar to how Rebtel works.) But it doesn't seem to be the case here, as I think numbers can be shown publicly.
- gregcohn 14y agoAll phone numbers have some ambient activity -- wrong numbers alone account for at least some randomness, though some obviously have more than others, and even very established carriers sometimes distribute numbers with a "legacy". So it's sort of a known problem. For Burner, each number goes through a quarantine and is monitored for activity before we use it. EDIT: Also worth noting that SMS seems to be more popular than voice calls, at least initially. "Wrong number SMS" doesn't seem like an actual problem as of yet.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoI wonder if they keep track of who had what number and when? Just thinking about whether law enforcement or the courts can get details.
- dpritchett 14y agoI'm sure Twilio can link calls to IP addresses and the phone companies can do the rest.
- jonknee 14y agoThe IP address would be the Burner servers, not the end user.
- brown9-2 14y agoOnly if Burner is handling the outgoing phone calls (to your real phone number) themselves. Seems like you could bridge a phone call to a Twilio phone number to the end user's real phone with the <Dial> element pretty simply: http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial
- jonknee 14y agoYou don't have to connect a call to your phone, you can just use Voicemail.
- Timothee 14y agoI'm hoping they do, but it would actually get tricky. Law enforcement wants info on a phone number -> it goes to Twilio -> Twilio links this number at that time to Burner -> Burner links this number at that time to a user account. At this point, I'm not sure how they can link it to a real person. I'm guessing the credits are from in-app purchases, which means Burner itself might not have any real personal info on you and the buck then passes to Apple. That means three different privacy policies involved and most likely a pretty long delay.
- ck2 14y agoCraigslist is able to block all google-voice numbers, I am sure they will be able to block these based on some routing identifier.
- nilsbunger 14y agoDoes craigslist do this???
- Timothee 14y agoWhat do you mean "block all google-voice numbers"? As in automatically removing them from posts? That would be very stupid because some people use their Google Voice number exclusively, and it shouldn't be up to them to decide how I should be contacted.
- ck2 14y agoSorry to clarify I mean for posting verification. It's very annoying, they do it to combat spammers but as an innocent user I get hit all the time with the phone verification. Craigslist requires that your number be identified as "Fixed Line" or "Mobile" (not "Non-Fixed VoIP" or "Prepaid Mobile") by their provider, ReduceFraud.com, in order for you to be able to complete phone number verification and post in certain sections on CraigsList.
- themckman 14y agoHow does craigslist block numbers? I don't understand.
- ck2 14y agohttp://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20463322-How-does-craigslist-know-I-am-using-a-VoIP-service http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20463322-How-does-craigslis... reducefraud.com
- jentulman 14y agoSo I'm wondering how you don't eventually run out of numbers if they're burnt and then go to an out of service message. Do they get reused eventually with the hope that the time since burning is long enough for the old usage of the number to have died off? [edit] Sorry, didn't see PanMan had asked virtually the same question already.
- Scriptor 14y agoFrom my personal experience I think some numbers do get reused. When I first got my Google Voice number I kept getting a bunch of calls asking for some other person, so I guess Google just reused someone else's old number.
- rodelrod 14y agoNumbers do get reused. I live in Paris and last year a friend freshly arrived from my hometown in Portugal was attributed the cellphone number (major French operator) from a german acquaintance of mine that had moved out of Paris a year before. She still gets text messages in German all the time.
- patrickmclaren 14y ago"You can use a Burner for dating, Craigslist, short-term projects, side businesses, bands, and other times when you need to be in touch but want to maintain a little privacy." -- Such as when I want to be a royal pain in the ass towards ex-girlfriends, and people that I generally dislike. How have you planned to reduce angst caused by the misuse of your app?
- icebraining 14y agoHow did we ever live with payphones?
- patrickmclaren 14y agoRunning around in public, repeatedly using different payphones is a little different to sitting in your bedroom creating "temporary phone numbers at the touch of a button."
- pyre 14y agoTrue enough. I can see this becoming something to do at college / teenager parties. Create a temp number and start crank calling. If you had to take an entire group of people out to a payphone to do the same thing, it's a bit of a barrier to doing it.
- hnriot 14y agoThis explains why they are ex girlfriends! Why on earth would the app get involved in how the app is used, that's th responsibility of the user, just like when you buy a kitchen knife, the designer wasn't giving much consideration to reducing angst caused by its misuse. Please let's stop with the nanny state nonsense. As others have pointed out its no different to pay phones.
- patrickmclaren 14y agoI would think that the majority of the overall usage of kitchen knives would be true to the designer's intention. Given that this app is available on the iPhone App Store, which every immoral spur-of-the-moment teenager has access to, and will likely abuse, it is definitely something that the developers should have considered.
- philipDS 14y agoVery clever idea. Any plans on an Android version?
- gregcohn 14y agoNothing to announce yet, but we are looking at this.
- jcfrei 14y agodoes burner support short codes for sms? and is there an android version planned?
- matznerd 14y agowhy would you want to use a shortcode with this?
- quintendf 14y agoThis looks like a great concept- but I have to question the one time purchase price. Right now, Burner is top of mind for me, but I don't have an immediate need to use the app. If it were free, I would gladly download it right now, and simply pay for a number whenever a use case arises. As it stands now, I probably won't download the app, and when a potential use case does arise, who knows if I'll remember (and be able to download on the fly) this app. Great concept, and love the rest of the pricing model built on Twilio. I just think the Burner team might be missing out on potential additional distribution.
- brk 14y agoMy perspective: It's $2.00. I'll probably use it at some near-future unpredictable time. Between now and then I'll probably also spend $50 at Starbucks and $100 at the bar. $2.00 is not a considered purchase.
- gregcohn 14y agoThanks for the feedback. We gave this a lot of thought but ultimately didn't want to create an experience that was a "free" download that required additional in-app payment before it had any utility.
- quintendf 14y agoTotally fair- always a tough tradeoff to make. thanks for the response!
- asmithmd1 14y agoWhy do people treat buying an app with the same amount of deliberation as buying a new car? The price is less than a large coffee at Dunkin Donuts. I don't mean to be picking on you quintendf because I do exactly the same thing and your comment made me realize it. I am going to download the app just because of your arguement - I am going to need it sometime in the next few months and not remember the name. There must be some cognitive bias about buying an app. I will blow $2 on a Diet Coke when I fill-up with gas with barely a second thought. But ask me to download a $2 app - Whoa! this is going to take some thought, research...
- WimLeers 14y agoIt'd be interesting if this was VOIP. Then you'd be able to get a temporary (or pseudo-permanent) U.S. number from outside the U.S.
- gregcohn 14y agoAgree!
- WimLeers 14y agoEven better: if you would be able to choose the country the number should be from… :)
- sigkill 14y agoNot sure if they're charging for incoming/outgoing but you could use this to set up a Google Voice number from outside the U.S.A.
- petitmiam 14y agoHeyWire lets you get a U.S number for SMS for free.
- kristofferR 14y agoYou can do that with Google Voice and several other VOIP services already. I had to do it to be able to post from Twitter to Google+ automatically through SMS (Google+ lacks a proper API).
- brianbreslin 14y agoLOVE this idea. actually thought of something like this a few months back, but never got around to doing anything on this. you should post what the costs are for numbers etc.
- nicc_ap 14y agoThat would be too much to ask, isn't it :). But you can figure out some pricing from the twilio's website
- stanmancan 14y agoThis is a brilliant idea. I had this exact same one myself a few months ago and never moved forward with it because I had no clue how to execute it properly. Without having installed the app, from the way it's described it sounds like Burner nailed it. Well done guys. I really hope this gets ported to Android so I can use it myself.
- helipad 14y agoThis was the first idea I came up with when I thought about the Twilio API, so I'm glad someone has done it. I just projected so far down the line that I would have requests from the FBI every day for who was behind particular phone numbers due to nefarious use of temporary phone numbers.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI would expect that too, but presumably they have already set up a law enforcement liason to handle those requests.
- dpritchett 14y agoGovernment information requests are a huge potential revenue stream, up to $1000 a pop: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/03/these-are-the-prices-att-verizon-and-sprint-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/03/these-a...
- thedangler 14y agoCurrently making one right now.... At least I have some nice competition.
- drcongo 14y agoPlease bring this to the UK app store. Please.
- adelivet 14y agoDoes anyone know if they plan to launch the same service in Europe soon? Or does a similar service exist?
- gregcohn 14y agoWe are definitely looking at expanding our international coverage as soon as we practically can. Nothing to announce formally yet though.
- sspiff 14y agoIs this coming to Android at any time?
- meursault 14y agoAwesome idea. You don't seem to be listed in non-US app stores (Canada, in my case). Any plans to be available internationally, or at least in the same countries served by Twilio?
- twelvedigits 14y agoYou, sir, win the award for best product name. And shame, HN, for not complimenting him sooner.
- tomjen3 14y agoIs there any good use of this app that is not basically to annoy people? Because I can't really come up with any.
- netcan 14y agoWatch "The Wire."
- netcan 14y agoSeriously though there are lots of licit uses: -girl goes out to to pull. Gives her number freely knowing that it's only good for a few days. - enter online competitions that might be spam. Advertise a job without getting onto a HR spam list - Sell a used monkey online without fear of monkey spam - Put up an MVP for a salsa lesson in Denmark. Get a local number using the app you already know about from the monkey business - Set up sales meeting with your competitors (define licit..) - Inform on your boss - Call your uncle in Iran I'm sure there are lots more. Who doesn't have some temporary/secondary email addresses?
- gregcohn 14y agoI am more sinned against than sinning, when it comes to respect for privacy.
- pauljburke 14y agoWell if I wasn't in the UK I'd probably use it to save carting the "recruiter" phone around with me as well. Of course, that would probably annoy recruiters but I think I can live with that (I don't mind them calling me in connection to a role I'd asked them about but 2 or 3 years on out of the blue?).
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoI assume this is incoming only? or can a Burner number be used to make calls and send texts? Either way, I see huge value in something like this (too bad you are iOS only). But the value is even greater if the Burner number can be used for out going communication.
- gregcohn 14y agoin-bound and outbound, calls and texts. and you can turn the ringer and/or message notifications on and off as you like.
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoSo I create a Burner number and then I can make calls against that number and the recipient would see the Burner number in their Caller ID? Nice... that has huge value! Also open for abuse but anything can be abused.
- noinput 14y agoReally wonderful job on this app. Just tested it out (ios6b4 on a 4s) and all worked really well and very fast. Would love to see some usage data as you grow. Congrats on shipping!
- gregcohn 14y agothanks -- so glad u like it!
- fuzzythinker 14y agoHow long does the initial $2 last? Where is the cost to durations credit table? Can't find this info anywhere.
- gregcohn 14y agoyou get one number, good for up to a week or 20 voice minutes / 60 messages, with the initial purchase. after that you can get more burners on a similar basis.
- g123g 14y agoRingCentral, a more established player in this space, has been providing a similar service since last year http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/ringcentral-new-numbers/ http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/ringcentral-new-numbers/
- gregcohn 14y agoBeen gone from the app store for months. RingCentral, along with lots of other players, are focused on small business IVR types of service. Quite different.
- drewrv 14y agoLooks great, but why is it an iphone app? Seems like managing and configuring a bunch of numbers would be easier in a web interface.
- merrick 14y agoDid the founders watch The Wire - love the name!
- patio11 14y agoThat's perhaps not the name/positioning you want when you get the (inevitable) abuse complaint.
- PonyGumbo 14y agoBravo, man. This is so brilliant.
- DenisM 14y agoGoogle search for "disposable phone number" turns up a number of offers, sOme already out of business. What makes you think you have a business here?
- frankus 14y agoThis got a chilly reception when I proposed it almost a decade ago: ;) http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/One-time-use_20phone_20number#1052586000 http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/One-time-use_20phone_20number...
- gregcohn 14y agoGood ideas come in cycles. At that time, though, 50% of the world wasn't mobile-only, and there were no smartphones. We think this is really relevant right now.
- frankus 14y agoThe phrase I've heard is that being early is the same as being wrong. Trying to make Burner in 2003 would be like trying to make YouTube in 1996.
- jamesbritt 14y agoAny conjecture as to why?
- gregcohn 14y agoAssuming you mean why it's relevant now, not why mobile adoption is up, the mobile number travels with you at all times and also is more heavily used for SMS, which is becoming an increasingly standard way to interact with people. By definition this means a greater and greater percentage of the people you interact with are running through your mobile phone, meaning more carrier minutes, more annoyance, and more stalker risk if people have the number that you don't want to.
- nicc_ap 14y agoWow!! We hacked up something similar few months back as a side project. Nice validation :). You have some real nice UX and figured out the pricing as well. Best wishes. http://www.getroller.com http://www.getroller.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4076883 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4076883
- gregcohn 14y agonice! what happened with it?
- nicc_ap 14y agoWe didn't market enough and had some more features in mind to build. But this is a tough market given the fact that people have to remember your app when they actually need it.
- nicc_ap 14y agoWe have been getting some consistent traffic, but need more push to market ourselves. Got real good feedback from both users, friends and HN, but getting the real consumer to use it is the key I guess. You guys figured out the pricing, which is great and being an iphone app you can use the in-app purchasing. We were more web focussed. Also, not generating real phone numbers as you did. I might still add some more features to it, but thinking about the direction right now :)
- huhtenberg 14y agoSo this presumably should allow registering anonymous Gmail accounts?
- lizzard 14y agoYes, so if law enforcement (for example) were trying to find out the phone number for a Gmail account, they would then have to go to Burner or Twilio to get records for the Burner phone number account. I guess it depend on what level of anonymity or privacy you're going for.
- kragniz 14y agoWait, does Gmail ask for a phone number when signing up these days?
- thomaslangston 14y agoIt did sometimes. I think a cookie/IP limit kicked after it detected "you" had created a few accounts.
- ct0 14y agoIt is extremely easy to create an anonymous number already, let alone a gmail account. A friend of a friend daisy chains anonymous numbers with physical burners for a "proxy" effect.
- nilsbunger 14y agoAbso-f*cking brilliant. (downloading)
- gregcohn 14y ago:-)
- nqzero 14y agodoes this service work with MMS ?
- Timothee 14y agoNo, since it's not supported by Twilio at this time.
- jhendren 14y agoPlease open up an API or provide a webpage to allow non-smartphone users the opportunity to use it. I'm not sure how the internals work with your app, and I hope they are not too coupled to iOS. I have a very basic cell phone, since I prefer using a laptop to do my browsing/email/development. I like to disconnect at least half my day, and not be at the beck and call (excuse the pun) of a smartphone.
- nicc_ap 14y agoHey, give this a try. Let us know if your feedback. Its web based and free right now to try. www.getroller.com
- jhuckestein 14y agoIf it's Twilio, then numbers will only cost 50 cents in volume pricing so this could be a nice model. I'm skeptical about handling dead numbers though. Either the service hangs on to them which will cost them $.5/month in perpetuity or they release them to Twilio in which case other apps can use them. I recommend checking out Plivo btw. They're cheaper in every way and I've heard the voice quality is better. My company uses Twilio now and just made up my mind to switch to Plivo as soon as I have some free time.
- lelandbatey 14y agoOh, I'm curious to here about Plivo. I've seen quite a bit of Twilio (they promote a lot at our events) but I've never heard of Plivo before. Are there any downsides to Plivo vs Twilio? If not, I may use Plivo more often.
- bevenky 14y agoHey Leland, This is Venky, One of the cofounders of Plivo. Would love to have a chat to explain what we do. Mail me up at venky@plivo.com and we can catch up :)
- RobSpectre 14y agoHey Jonas, Thanks for the observation on the "burnt" phone numbers from Burner. Just a quick point of clarification - phone numbers released to Twilio sit unused for two months before they are accessible by any other Twilio customer. Obviously would love to find why Twilio's not working out for you. Hit me up at rspectre@twilio.com or reply - whichever you feel works best. Always great to hear from you.
- gregcohn 14y agoWe've been happy all around with Twilio -- specifically to this point on the quality of the numbers, but also the general ease of use and the responsiveness of their team.
- Timothee 14y agoI like that the video on your homepage shows most of the functionality pretty quickly, but I realized that I spent the whole demo with my head tilted to the right. There's no need for that tilt. (somehow, it now says "this video does not exist" right now)
- gregcohn 14y agoyou could always tilt the screen? ;-) (there was a brief outage as we switched video hosts)
- yahelc 14y agoSo, the term "Burner" is associated with temporary cell phones used by criminals to avoid wiretaps. Presumably that's the inspiration for the name and the concept. What happens if your app indeed becomes a salvage for criminals? What's your policy around government requests for information about the person who used the number during a duration? Would you cooperate with subpoenas, or is this really only private on a social but not legal level?
- heretohelp 14y agoThis app probably isn't useful for avoiding wiretaps unless they've gone through the hassle of building an encrypted VOIP client (not likely?). Also this is the same moralizing question asked about everything ever that could possibly be used for nefarious reasons on this site. Aren't you bored seeing the same questions over and over about mostly interchangeable subjects?
- adgar 14y agoI had the same instinct, but I mean... OP called his app Burner. Haven't you seen The Wire?
- heretohelp 14y agoI don't base my thoughts on the intersection of politics and technology on a TV show.
- sankara 14y agoIs there a reason you chose to do this as an app instead of a webapp?
- arturadib 14y agoNeat idea. A couple of thoughts: 1- They better have a very large pool of unused numbers - otherwise it's likely my phone will be randomly ringing due to the many past users of the number I just bought... who knows where and how many times they would have posted the number at. 2- Personally, I don't immediately see how I'd go away from Google Voice, which is free, to a paid service. Because of the above, I prefer to have one or two fixed private numbers which I can always remember. If the number becomes a problem, I can always block the annoying caller or switch to a new number - for free. (I still haven't had to replace my year-old private number, btw). That being said, it'd be neat to see what people end up doing with true throw-away numbers.
- ApolloRising 14y agoPricing seems a bit steep for what you get, especially since it is not obvious before you buy the app.
- gregcohn 14y agoThanks for sharing that feedback. We can work on making it more obvious, at least. (It's meant to be and our SKU's are also made visible by apple in the app store, but I'm sure there's more we could do.)
- TheGateKeeper 14y agoHow is this not obvious? It's right there on the iTunes page.
- barakstout 14y agoA drug dealers dream...
- draftable 14y agoYou should get Wendell Pierce as a spokesman
- nicc_ap 14y agoGreg, Wouldn't it be a better idea to release the app for free and then use in-app purchases for the numbers? That way you would not scare away the people who just want to download and see what it does. People may argue that $1.49 is nothing, but why lose potential customers.
- gregcohn 14y agoPer above, we considered that but didn't want to create bad will with a "free" app that didn't do anything until you added more money. (It's also against Apple TOS, though widely flouted.) In the future we may consider something more along the lines of a free sample.
- lallysingh 14y agoI'm disturbed by some of the "chill effect" responses here, in the crime/law enforcement space. Why does an anonymizing product, one designed to protect the user, get so many questions about use by criminals and ways for law enforcement to get around it? Frankly, the job of law enforcement is up to people in law enforcement. We're not responsible for them. Their physical inability to do certain kinds of harm is part of the balance between civil rights and law enforcement. Most people who benefit from Burner won't be criminals. It'll probably end up reducing crime by protecting potential victims. Most people are good, so when this thing is doing it's job, it's mostly going to be protecting good people. The additional safety will encourage people to have a better feeling of safety in their lives, as they'll be taking smaller risks when using their phone and interacting with other people. In single life, this thing is frankly a godsend, and can really make a substantive improvement in many peoples lives... Especially for those who've previously been victims. Worrying about whether to protect people, versus easing the jobs of the people who protect people, is absurdly myopic.
- izaidi 14y agoI don't get the impression anyone here is actually that concerned on an ethical level about the potential for criminal abuse. But it's likely to become an issue if the product is widely used, and it's worthwhile to ask if the developers have a strategy for dealing with the kinds of dilemmas that could arise. It's a business question, not a moral one.
- Foy 14y agoIf this is used for anonymity it is completely understandable for potential customers to want to know EXACTLY how anonymous this makes the number. That's like Sony saying "give us your personal info, CC numbers, etc... don't worry we'll take care of the rest" and they turn around and store it in plaintext or md5 on an insecure database. Also, if it turns out that this service is somehow unlawful or could get shut down / interrupted by law enforcement then I want to know that before I invest in them as a customer. TL;DR - It's never wrong to question something; especially something like this. If they can't answer the hard questions now then they don't deserve our trust.
- mbell 14y ago
- vsl 14y agoAny particular reason why the app is only available in the US store, seeing that Twilio has international coverage?