The Security Mentor

There's a company that will sell you anyone's cell phone calling records, for a little over a hundred dollars.

That's bad if you're a businessperson negotiating a merger. It's really bad if you're a journalist with anonymous sources. It's life-threatening if you're an undercover police officer.

It's not clear how the company is getting hold of the information. They might be impersonating their victims, they might be "encouraging" phone company insiders to help, or they might even be getting the info legitimately from the cell phone companies. Incredibly, the phone companies are allowed to sell data about who you called and when to advertisers.

How to protect yourself? Don't expect help from your phone company, they are likely to react with incomprehension. There's a web page which supposedly explains how to opt out of having your call information sold but first, it's not clear that's how the information is leaking, and second, the page has incorrect information for my cell carrier.

If you're blowing the whistle on your employer or doing something even more sensitive, use a pay phone if you can still find one.