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Bryley Basics: Setup your Android or Apple phone as a burner

Anna Darlagiannis and Gavin Livingstone, Bryley Systems Inc.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a disposable phone-number; one you could use to make calls to an unavoidable person that you’d rather not have call you back?  Well, you can now get Burner from Ad Hoc Labs, Inc.

Burner creates phone-numbers on your existing phone.  You can create multiple burner numbers, temporary or long term, which are accessed through the app.

Burner is perfect for keeping your phone-number private.  Potential uses include:

  • First dates,
  • Selling items on craigslist, and
  • Responding to nuisance situations.

Basically, any time you wish to remain anonymous and keep your real phone-number private, you can call or text through Burner and avoid the hassle of a potential call-back or text-back.

Burner starts at $1.99 and can be purchased through App Store (Apple) or via Google Play.  Pricing is based on functionality:

  • Number of texts sent,
  • Number of minutes used, and
  • Number of days the phone number stays active.

Burner is, however, free to download and Ad Hoc Labs provides a free trial – you can test a free burner phone-number for up to seven days.

Bryley Basics: Android app-rating site PrivacyGrade

PrivacyGrade, developed by a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, rates Android-based applications for privacy and security. Apps for Android devices are rated based on “the gap between people’s expectations of an app’s behavior and the app’s actual behavior”. If an app’s privacy does not meet expectations, it will score poorly.

For example: Google Maps uses location data, as would be expected by most users. However, a game like Fruit Ninja also uses location data, which is unexpected, and which gives Fruit Ninja a lower score.

For details, please visit www.PrivacyGrade.org.