Greg Cohn has the solution for those who might not like the idea of putting those 10 digits out there to the larger community: use a fake number.
He's the co-founder of Burner, the app that describes itself as a "privacy layer" for your phone. Cohn was my guest recently on the audio edition of #TalkingTech, where we spoke about how apps like Burner can be one of many steps used to protect your online identity.
In the wake of recent attacks against Anthem health insurance, Home Depot, Target and others, "a lot of our data is out there in the world, and it's vulnerable," says Cohn. Folks need to be "aware of what information they're giving out." Like your social security and phone number.
Because so many of us have ditched the landlines, and live now on our cellphones, "we're all consolidated around this one device," says Cohn. "Now everybody is calling us and texting us here all the time, and we need ways to partition that a bit."
Consider Burner as that other number you give out when you don't want to hand out your real one--or be connected forever.
Hence the name "burn." When you're ready, you can "burn" the number and get a new one.
Burner competes with Google Voice, which offers a secondary phone number for free, and the Line 2 app, which charges $9.99 monthly for a second number.
The costs are incredibly confusing, and based on paying for credits that will give you more time to use the phone. They start at $1.99 for 3 credits, which will get you 20 minutes of talk time over 7 days.
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