Sex Worker’s Little Black e-Book Improperly Disposed Of

A VoIP service was reassigning temporary, disposable phone numbers instead of expunging them and their contacts.

This faux paus was discovered when the service issued Neohapsis Labs security consultant Rob Beck a number of an escort – “and her clients clearly thought she was still at the same number,” ZDNet reports.

A "burner" typically refers to a throwaway prepaid cell phone, often used by drug dealers to evade wiretapping.

A burner app, like the one tested by Beck, lets users purchase disposable phone numbers for temporary use. Beck declined to name the app.

The tool offered caller ID. “I had the phone numbers they were using to reach me,” he said. "This situation now not only posed a risk to the previous owner of this phone number, permitting me access to their contacts who had reached out to her, but exposed her clients and potential clients to exposure from an unknown individual now in possession of their information.

“Going based solely on the contents of the SMS messages received, as well as some of the voicemails left on my trial number messaging service, the previous owner was also a specialized professional who is use to charging an hourly rate; lets just say that her chosen profession was of a much more discreet and intimate nature,” Beck said.

Only 48 hours after Beck activated the burned number, "I was presented with text upon text message asking if he/she was available, what their hourly rate was, as well as a few much more graphic explanations of specific requests the potential clients would like performed,” he added.

Burner numbers apparently also can be used for exchanging SMS photos.

"What was more surprising, and traumatizing," Beck said, "was that some of these individuals had chosen to send naughty-gram picture messages of their previous work with this professional, personal pictures in admiration of this person, and well, you have an imagination."

Unlike traditional phone providers that can leave deactivated numbers out of service for a while, apps must have a pool of numbers readily available ahead of time.

“If the service is intended to be used as this sort of ‘burner’ one-stop shop, they’ll inevitably have to recycle their numbers at a much more rapid pace just to stay ahead of their users’ needs; this doesn’t permit them the ability to really offer the deactivation period to signal to others that the number is in flux,” Beck said.