Can my employer "hear" my SKYPE phone calls

Trouble is the bible is just a book of fiction.

Your traffic on your employers computers is as private as a message written on a post card and put in regular mail.

Oh my. Is this the summary.

1. The employer can "see" SKYPE calls but not "hear" them.
2. Unless they "tap" your sound card (is that hard or easy on a network?).
3. The SKYPE encryption has been broken.
4. It's safer to buy a cell phone and sim card.

I didn't think about the cell phone idea. Are you saying I can get a phone with TWO sim cards. One for my normal use and one for my, shall we say, personal issues?

If I switch from one sim card to the next, does that guarrantee me being anonymous? That is, if a certain someone at home were to flip through the cell phone with the "home" sim card in, would he be able to see the calls made from the "personal" sim card?

I'm so confused but I do revere your advice, Susan

Yes you are.

Kenny G.

Get a prepaid cell phone and use that.

They don't need the key. They have this:

"Tell us who these calls were to, and what they were about, or you are fired"

That works as good as having the key.

In message , Susan writes

Can he stand outside your office door?

No. You've been given good advice WRT prepay mobile phones and I'd take that if I were you. It's not worth the risk. Maybe giving your husband the push would be a good start.

(Rest snipped)

It makes "easy" seem difficult. It's trivial for anyone who's taken an electronics course in high school. Network or not, it's done right on the computer. And it's easily done inside the computer, with a tiny component, so unless you know what you're looking for, and where it is, you'd never notice it.

If you have a cell phone with a SIM card (Verizon, for one, uses technology that doesn't use SIM cards), go to a cell phone store - one where the employees know what they're doing - and ask them to show you how to swap SIM cards in your phone. You can get adapters to use 2 cards in one phone, but they're not common in the US yet.

Yes, if your phone keeps your calls list in the phone, not in the card. Some do one, some do the other, some can be set to do whichever you want. A second phone is easier and safer. Just leave it in your desk drawer at work.

Wouldn't a divorce be a lot simpler?

Cell phone calls have records kept that the calls were made. It is true that if you have a second cell phone account, your spouse will not see the calls listed on your regular cell bill.

BUT there is a hitch.

If you were to be suspected of having an alternate cell phone account, the records could be subpoenaed and all of your past calling activity would be exposed. That is why I think you should seek a solution where there are no calling records kept.

Depending upon how committed you are to doing this, there are a couple of workarounds that will cost you a couple of dollars:

If you don't want to initiate your calls through your employer's Internet connection, you could buy a laptop and set yourself up with a data plan through a cell phone company. You could then use BitWise IM to carry your voice and text messages with your sweetie. Your spouse might know that you have a laptop, but the could not subpoena any calling records, because there aren't any.

You could also communicate with each other via your home computer. Just run BitWise off of a disk, take it out when you are done, and there is no record of the application even existing on your computer. If your spouse were to find the disk and run the application, there would be no calling records.

The key, in my opinion, is to leave no audit trail, and that is why I am reluctant to suggest an alternate cell phone account. Only if you can purchase a calling card without giving your name would this be an acceptable option. And, even then, you had better be certain that your spouse doesn't get hold of the card number, because those records could then be identified and ordered turned over by a court.

There are also Long Distance calling cards that enable you to make a call from any phone and have it billed to the prepaid card. AT&T and MCI sell them at wholesale clubs--700 minutes for $15.00. You could call from any phone, and the call record would only indicate that a call was made to the calling card's 800 number. What you did from that point on would not be available.

BUT if your spouse got your calling card number, a court could order your records turned over.

Once you create a record of a call, it stays on some phone company database forever. You can't erase it. So I would think long and hard about doing anything that might one day be subject to disclosure. If you want no audit trail, the Instant Messenger offers an important margin of superiority over any type of cell phone or prepaid card. Your calling records cannot be disclosed, because they are never created in the first place.

Sorry to make this sound so complicated.

Wow..... how about posting some pictures of ya self.

The employer can easily "see" them, and with some effort "hear" them.

Yes.

Yes.

Unless you set the 'phone to do things. everything is stored _only_ on the SIM card. Of course, if you leave the 'phone laying around and someone is suspicious it is possible that they might change the settings on the 'phone, so it's probably better to do as one of the other posters suggested, buy a 'phone just for this and stash it at work, or somewhere else that is "secure".

Cheers, Gary B-)

Thanks everyone. I have one more question.

If I use a cell phone with a pre-paid sim card that keeps the records in the sim card, then I would guess that the permanent records at the phone company would indicate exactly which phone used that card (probably by the serial number of the phone?).

Assuming the permanent records tie the sim card to the telephone by telephone serial number, if we remove the first sim card and put a second sim card into that same telephone, wouldn't that second sim card also be recorded as having been used by that telephone serial number?

My point is, wouldn't someone knowing the first telephone number from the first sim card then allow them to find the records of ALL phone calls made from all sim cards ever put in that phone since the phone has only one serial number?

Isn't the telephone serial number a weak (identifiable) link that negates the "privacy" afforded by the second pre-paid sim card?

Does this question make sense? Susan

The cell phone provider is bound to know the ESN of the telephone that was used to make the call. Ordinarily this would not be a concern, but if your spouse were to learn that you had another SIM, and if he could get a court to demand that the cell provider turn over the call records that are connected with that SIM, it could all be tied in to you.

If you are going to use a cell phone, I think you would do better to buy a completely separate phone and use a completely separate provider. You might also want to look into a prepaid walkie-talkie type of provider, because you can get unlimited walkie-talkie contacts and I do not believe that records of those communications are kept, because they are not "phone calls."

A lot of my city's local drug dealers buy cell phone cards from "Boost," which uses the Nextel network. They pay $30/month and can make walkie-talkie calls to one another all month long. If you were to use that, your friend would need one of those phones, too, and you'd each have to pay the monthly charge. I do not know if there is an extra charge to communicate outside your local area.

Regardless of what cell phone you sign up with, you want to be sure that the bill won't be sent to you at home. By all means, look into some prepaid plan. Do not recharge your card by calling over the phone and having your checking or credit card account debited (that will leave a record that you possess another phone). Go somewhere that you can pay in cash. I think Wal-Mart has these plans available.

But be warned: all of these schemes rely upon your keeping any record private that you have another phone. If your spouse finds out about it, everything might unravel. It takes only one slip-up to crack the thing wide open.

If you can make calls from your office without getting into trouble, consider a prepaid card from AT&T or MCI. You dial their 800 number, enter your card number and the number you want to call, and your connection is made and charged against your card's remaining minutes. The card issuer doesn't know who you are and doesn't care, because the card is prepaid.

Commit your card number and its access number to memory, or write it down in some coded form, and dump the card. Now there is no evidence that connects you with that card. What you keep in your own head remains private.

Oh, and do not ever call the prepaid access number from your cell phone. Your spouse may ask why you make so many calls to the same toll-free number when he sees it displayed on your cell bill.

I'm beginning to think this whole thing is a joke.

And the Call Detail Records (all the digits you dialed in every phone call you made) from your phone at work are subject to discovery during the divorce proceedings. Your company is going to love that!

Yes, but there are plenty of other weaker links generated by a second cell phone. If the sim is bought at a store there is going to be security camera footage of you buying that sim card. I supposed you could wear a burka, but that has its own set of problems...

FYI, in the age of the CALEA and E911 "interlocking" laws, all cell phone calls can be tracked to within a small number of feet of where they were made. Is the position of the phone routinely recorded in the billing system? Who knows? If not now, it might be at some point as part of a fraud detection scheme. I wouldn't count on all that much anonymity.

If you've ever used your home or office phone to make a call to the destination number or received a call from that destination number, there are already phone records that tie you to that other person. If a cell phone call were made from the same general area, to the same destination, someone looking at the records is going to wonder if both calls are somehow related.

Unfortunately your quest boils down to the same one that some random terrorist has -- making untraceable calls. As such there is going to be lots of machinery in place to be able track all such calls and tie together the associations. Also, this is a really bad time to try any phone hanky-panky. Hezbolah has just announced that they are very pissed-off at the US. This would be a time where all the machinery would be in high gear trying desperately to spot any activation orders coming in.

So I guess I'm saying, if all you want to do is keep calls off of your home phone bill a second cell phone with a prepaid sim should do the trick. If you want it fully untraceable I think you are out of luck.

-wolfgang

Oh, I dunno, it's kinda entertaining, in a 'watching a train wreck' sort of way. She can only hope her hubby has never heard of Usenet, and his lawyer won't have any idea how to use Google News. 8*|

The SIM card serial number is what ties things together. The account is linked to a particular SIM card, not to a particular telephone handset. If you know the SIM card number, and you have access to the records of the cell phone company, you can break a whole slew of federal laws and get information about calls made by that SIM. Or, if you're the government, you can get the information and not worry about the law.

Knowing the serial number of the handset won't do anyone much good.

Are you trying to say that when confronted you would not provide what your Employer asks for? And if confronted about your activities you would not admit it? If the answer is yes you need to move on to some place else to work.