Free Phone Numbers with Google Voice

by bluelander  (bluelander@lavabit.com)

The advent of the digital age has opened doors for computer hackers and shut many of them on phone phreakers.

Few of us even have landlines, and payphones sit unused and broken on street corners.  VoIP is taking over, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun with it!  Services such as Skype offer actual phone numbers, but they aren't free.

Fortunately, our good "friends" at Google have stepped in to offer a solution.

I live in the U.S. and haven't tested any of this in any other countries.  I'm not sure how Google Voice acts in your country, or what restrictions are placed on it.  Use at your own risk!

What is Google Voice?

For the uninformed, Google Voice is a service that allows you to select your own VoIP number in any area code available.

Just casually looking for ones that end in fun digits I've found them in Death Valley, Chicago, New Jersey, and Dallas.  After selecting a number, you must enter a working number to tie it to.  This is really just for verification purposes.  In other words, you have to have a phone number to get a phone number.

After verifying your new Google Voice number through "your" phone number, you can place calls from your Google Voice capable smart phone, or from the chat section of Gmail's web client and your Google Voice number will be shown as the caller.

Setting It Up

Google knows that you're a real person with a phone number by verifying through a phone call.  The problem with this system is that you can use any phone number you want!

Now, being the ingenious hacker you are, I'm sure you could use this to your advantage.  Maybe you're at the library innocently browsing your Gmail when you realize you left your phone at home; perhaps the nice librarian would allow you to use their phone for a few minutes?  The scenarios are endless.

One of my friends even suggested having it call a payphone, that is, if I could find a working one.  These days, finding a phone to use is the easy part.  With free long-distance on most phones, very few people worry about letting a nice stranger place or receive a call.

Now obviously, having your own number or the number of someone or someplace near you tied to your Voice account can be less than desirable.  You're not able to delete the number from your account without adding another; it requires at least one number.  Luckily, there is something we can do about that.

Ditch the Real Number

For this trick, all you need is your trusty Flash-enabled web browser and two Voice accounts.

Activate your first account with a phone number.  This is the account we want to keep.  Then activate the second account using the same phone number.  This is our throwaway account.

Now the number is active only on our second account which we can delete by going to: www.google.com/accounts/DeleteAccount

Or just leave it floating around out there for further use later on down the line.

Now you have a Voice account that can call or text any U.S. number for free, with the area code of your choosing, all without having a real phone number tied to the account.

Conclusion

Obviously, Google will likely still have access to IP logs and might even be able to pull up a phone call you made.

The client uses Flash, so anonymity is difficult, since things like the Tor project can't properly use Flash.  If you really wanted to though, I don't imagine it being too hard to get a secure/anonymous browser working with something like Google Voice.

Happy Hacking!