If you need to coordinate your criminal activities all The Wire-like, why not just use some form of encrypted communication using the phone you already have? Maybe just get one for criminal activity only to be extra safe? Aren't all these problems solved by some 2048-bit encryption? I guess the phone company can see which IP you're making a connection too, but that doesn't seem like much. Why do we have to waste this much perfectly good hardware just to be anonymous?
I guess the phone company can see which IP you're making a connection too, but that doesn't seem like much.
It may not seem like much, but it's actually everything. Social network analysis gives a significant amount of information about peoples' activities, even if those activities themselves are encrypted.
One good reason to use a different phone is geolocation data (determined from which cell towers you connect to) which is classified as "metadata" and potentially stored indefinitely. If your cell is turned on, your phone company knows where you are.
