Hacker News Reader

Comment by iamdave | Hacker News Reader

Calling these "burner phones" is a little silly. They are just completely private, non-corporate phones.

So a phone used to duck surveillance from a powerful entity to conduct discussions about things you don't want that entity knowing about, colloquially goes by what other name then?

I get it if the implicit association between a "real" burner phone and these devices might not be a complete and perfect parallel but I think here the term is apt (unless we're legitimately just talking about someone's every day personal phone, but that wasn't the impression I got-the article doesn't really talk more about what these devices are)

View on HN

They don't duck surveillance from facebook as you and I know it, but from facebook as an employer, which is very different.

If a company provides your phone, then it has access to it, and if you don't want your company to have access to what you do on it, you use a different phone. If you want the convenience of a personal phone that you can check your work mail (or work facebook groups) on, then you grant access to that company.

It isn't any different from when a law firm or bank provides its employees phones. If you don't want that firm or bank to read what you write on it, then you need another phone.

A "burner phone" gets thrown away--"burned"--to prevent the someone from tracking you. You don't allow anyone to know you use it.

No one at facebook cares if you use a second phone. So some better terms would be "personal phone" or "non-corporate phone".

Right, and as I said in another comment, my statement here isn't to suggest I don't know what a burner phone is. My statement above is because I'd think someone would either say "We use our personal phones" or something similar to describe how they talk about FB without FB knowing it.

Describing your personal phone as a "burner phone" seems odd and possibly telling that there's something else there.

There very well might NOT be, but as I mentioned before: the article doesn't really say much further so it's hard to know.

> Describing your personal phone as a "burner phone" seems odd and possibly telling that there's something else there.

Doesn't seem odd to me, in the context of a) a former employee sensationalizing the situation and/or b) hiding behavior from any employer.

Next you will tell us that Trump really had his "wires tapped"...

> A "burner phone" gets thrown away--"burned"--to prevent the someone from tracking you.

I would see this as a tertiary characteristic of burner phones that is certainly optional. Almost every usage of "burner phone" you see in media, film, and print, is used to indicate a phone that is unmonitored.

Queue scene of FBI in room with monitors showing camera views of Jason Bourne talking on a phone. "He's got a burner" is more likely to be said when Bourne is talking on the phone, not when he's throwing it away.

>It isn't any different from when a law firm or bank provides its employees phones.

But the law firm and the bank aren't in the business of snooping on cell phones. Facebook is. I've had phones from both a firm and a bank. They didn't look at what someone was doing without cause and they had very strict procedures to follow to get permission to even look even though it was a company phone.

A burner phone is one that you intend to discard after using it to conduct some clandestine, often illegal, activity. Just because a phone is private doesn't make it a burner.

A burner is a phone you intend to discard if it becomes compromised. Just because you don't have to burn it doesn't make it not a burner.

Because you will definitely know when your phone is compromised.

So then this most certainly isn't a burner phone situation, because Facebook employees wouldn't actually "burn" these phones.

It is not when compromised. It all depends on your threat level and what you are using it for.

Some people use once and burn, some burn one a day, or once a week, and some -- like you said, burn when they think it is compromised.

Often illegal, but not always. Prudent travelers use burner phones when they cross borders in order to avoid dragnet searches by customs.

Facebook gives employees corporate phones. It seemed to me that these "burner" phones were just personal phones sensationalized for the article.

At my last job I was given a corporate phone as well as my own personal phone. Some coworkers decided to do everything on their corporate phone. I chose to keep the two separate, but I wouldn't say that I was using my personal phone as a "burner".

It seemed to me that these "burner" phones were just personal phones sensationalized for the article.

Definitely do not want to rule that out, you're right to bring this up, but agreed. Calling your personal phone a 'burner', seems novel? Not sure if there's a better word there.

> So a phone used to duck surveillance from a powerful entity to conduct discussions about things you don't want that entity knowing about, colloquially goes by what other name then?

A "personal device"

Surely you jest.

> So a phone used to duck surveillance from a powerful entity to conduct discussions about things you don't want that entity knowing about, colloquially goes by what other name then?

Yes. A burner phone is a device you use once or twice, then dump (burn). I seriously doubt bookface employees are dumping their personal cell phones after sending a couple shit talk messages to their friends about their employer.

> So a phone used to duck surveillance from a powerful entity to conduct discussions about things you don't want that entity knowing about, colloquially goes by what other name then?

A non-corporate phone. “Burner phone” is something very specific and refers to prepaid phones without attached identity at the network level. Which, as the name implies, can be “burned” (discarded) after use.

Meh, typically burner would be disposable. He’s arguing you don’t need to ‘burn’ this device after using. It’s just a normal phone that you can keep using.

Burner-like if it works better for you.

He’s arguing you don’t need to ‘burn’ this device after using. It’s just a normal phone that you can keep using

We don't know that as a fact, do we? In this specific case I mean, I know how burner phones are used, but we have from the piece an interesting nugget that isn't really fleshed out.

Maybe the employee just used 'burner phone' to get the point across quickly of the lengths employees were going through, maybe it's an allusion to something more but it's a nugget I found interesting nonetheless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com