Cell Phones and Phone Numbers

Thanks to Saddletramp1956 and CindyTV for the quick review.

I've been giving some thought to phone numbers and cell phones in stories. Let's start with phone numbers. I'm sure you've read some examples like these:

- "Call me back at 555-555-5555."

- "My new number is 805-555-1212"

- "The main company number is 800-123-4567. Ask for extension 89."

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. Is the actual number important? Probably not. The challenge is how to convey to the reader that a phone number has been shared. Could parts of the phone number be important? Sure.

- "Here's my phone number," George said as he repeated the number twice. Eva couldn't ignore the area code, "720" meaning the Denver area.

- "I've got a new number." Alexa said as she read off her new phone number. Jillian noted the last two digits of her old phone number were '67' and the last two of her new number were '68'. If she had burner phones, would the next one be '69'?"

- James noted the area code indicated New York City, but what was really odd was the prefix was the same for several of the numbers they'd given. 489. That could mean the numbers all belonged to the same company. "SHIT!"

- "It's really important. You have the phone number, but remember to ask for extension 265. That's 2. 6. 5."

Now you're calling attention to something about the phone number that's significant. 555 is almost never significant.

Now, about cell phones. A cell phone now links a person to everything about them. Security has improved greatly for sensitive data, but it's still possible to have lax security practices. Using '1111' as a pin. Using 'Password' or 'Password123!' as a password. You can shoulder surf and see these fairly easily.

Why do I say the phone links to the person? Think about what's on most cell phones. It's easy to start with:

- Facebook

- Personal email

- Company email

- Twitter (X)

- Instagram

- Pictures

- etc.

What about:

- Online banking

- Stock brokerage account(s)

- Crypto currency wallets and accounts

- Voicemail messages with transcripts

- Text/MMS messages

- Medical information (Apple Health, lab portals)

- Pharmacy information

- Current location and location history

How can this be useful?

- I looked at her phone. The health data had some disturbing information about STD's and partners. There was no way I was sleeping with her again.

- Antibiotics? Labs? Why was my wife in the hospital for a day? More digging showed a procedure that gave her away. It was an abortion.

- He made several deposits to his crypto currency account from our savings account. What was he hiding?

- She had been blowing up my phone with text messages and voicemail messages. Fortunately, I'm not stupid enough to delete them because you never know when something irritating might actually be useful.

- Our cell phone bill didn't have actual message contents, but it did have sent and received information so I could tell he was still texting his secret lover even though he deleted the evidence from his phone. Idiot!

- I found a photo album on his phone. The dumb-ass was constantly adding pictures of his fuck-buddies to his album. I bet he thought he was being clever. So I shared his photo album with me so I'd always see his updates.

Let's not forget something major like: Geotagged Pictures.

For those unfamiliar with geotagging, that is embedding GPS coordinates inside a picture to show where the picture was taken. Standard EXIF information would include date and time of the picture, the camera device, shutter speed and F-stop. You could also call this 'metadata'.

- I looked at the picture of a hand, not mine, inside my wife's pants. The metadata said it was taken six days ago just before 4 PM, when my wife was supposed to be in a company meeting. What was even more distressing was the location information. She wasn't in New York City like she said. She was in the Florida Keys. My attorney was going to have a field day with this.

- The kidnappers might really be this stupid. The ransom picture still had the GPS coordinates of where they were holding my baby.

- They were smarter than I thought. They made sure to remove any data from the picture that could narrow down my search. All that was there was the date and time.

Finally, a cell phone is a computer, susceptible to malicious software. Add to this a built-in QR code reader and you have an easy way to gain remote access to a phone. If you're not familiar with QR codes, a quick search will give you tons of information on these next generation barcodes.

- "I don't need to put my number in your phone. I have a QR code for that." She displayed this fancy barcode on her phone that, as soon as I pointed my camera at it, said it was adding her contact information.

- We PI's have our tricks. I approached the most gorgeous creature in the bar and quietly asked if she'd like to make a quick thousand dollars. She was suspicious even after I showed her my PI credentials. She asked me what she had to do. I told her all she had to do was show a QR code to as many people in the place as she could. It would say her name was Candice 'Candy' Sorensen and leave a fake phone number. I didn't tell her it would give me access to her phone and every other phone she 'infected' for me.

- She handed me her phone so I could put my contact information in it. I quickly opened her browser and went to one of my special malware websites and installed back-door software so I could see everything about her life anytime I wanted.

- It was simple. I had a bunch of business cards printed up with an AI generated image of a naked hottie. The card simply said, 'discreet hook-ups' with a QR code that would install my special app. I'd plaster these cards in mens rooms, leave them on the ground in parking lots, anywhere I could hope to get someone to scan them.

- I knew something was going on when my phone scanned a QR code and my security software identified an attempt to install malware. I quietly informed my security detail and they took it from there.

Many times you can substitute 'virus' for 'malware'. Most people won't know or won't care about the difference.

This is by no means comprehensive and it's not meant to be a definitive guide. I hope you found little gems to help improve your writing and find new ways to do things with phones.