TLDR – Follow the advice in the article and you will end up in jail, without a doubt.

The advice in this article will get you busted imo and should absolutely not be considered as a burner phone.

A Disposable/throw away phone? Perhaps. But untraceable? Totally and absolutely not.

Considering that the threat model here is going to be an actual three letter agency (TLA) following the advice in the article will land you in jail.

Even allowing for the fact that the article is 2 years old, cell tower records have been stored and kept for much longer than that and the Intercept should (and does!) know this.

Any 'old phone that you have laying around' isn't going to cut it. The IMSI will have been merrily pinging prior and will show movement (work, home, work,home). Text messages will have been stored and can be retrieved. Original purchase is likely traceable since you didn’t have sec-ops in mind when buying it originally..

As for ‘popping out your current SIM and putting it in your ‘burner’ phone’ - WTF! Don’t do that because obviously that SIM card is easily tied back to your original account.

The author purchased the burner phone from Amazon? Ah hell no. Obviously, Amazon have payment info and shipping address and the vendor will know the IMSI number.

So then, how to do it? There is no easy way but I will list some of the easiest ways of slipping up.

Purchasing a new phone with cash - uhmm great but what do you do about the store CCTV and the shopping mall CCTV with some lovely shots of you getting in to your car and driving off? Oh - you get a friend to buy it for you - Except when it comes to having a TLA after your blood your friend is gonna fold under the pressure (unless they are a hardened criminal but even still, they aren't going to face down some Federal Pen time for you).

Ok - so maybe you approach some random stranger and ask them to get it for you. Slightly better except shopping mall cameras etc lead right back to you because all they do is follow the stooge/patsy/cut-out on the tapes till they see you meeting up with them.

Ok, so you meet somebody out of visual range of any camera (good luck with that one, it is harder than you think) ask yourself this - if some random person came up to you in the park/woods etc and asked you to buy them a phone would you do it? A respectable citizen is unlikely to do it either which leaves you with vagrants/teenagers etc as your 'patsy' - except they are likely to just pocket the money (don't forget you can't go anywhere near the shop so can’t keep an eye on them). Also the local police are likely to recognise your cut-out because chances are they would have busted them a few times before.

Ok, so you managed to somehow find someone to buy it that doesn’t just take the cash and walk away and that also isn’t known to the cops and that also doesn’t look like a vagrant (because if they do then the LEO’s are gonna trawl the usual places with their pic from the CCTV and guaranteed someone in that community will recognise them and give them up).

Do not buy your prepay top-up at the same time or place as the phone. Which means either finding another stooge or re-using the same one.

Do not switch the phone on for the first time anywhere near your usual places and also nowhere with cameras. Again, good luck with that. How are you (and the phone) getting to this ‘event’? Unless you teleport to the event it (and you) will show up as travelling together.

Even if you do all of that (which is a lot harder than it sounds) and assuming you didn’t make a single slip up…

On the day of the protest/event you walk along merrily with your friends (who either haven’t used a burner or they slipped up somehow in the steps above)…. Great….. they (TLA) can see and track phones that move together and will apply pressure to them to give you up. Stingrays (cell tower interceptors) can and will be deployed at the ‘event’.

Even if you do all of that – You need to find a phone with a removable battery or else you are toast. Seriously.

Note – All of the above is based on open source / non law enforcement sources.

I cannot believe this article is so boneheaded and has been out there for over two years and hasn’t retracted by the Intercept.

TLDR – Follow the advice in the article and you will end up in jail, without a doubt.