Problems with privacy

In our mobile phone-oriented lives, we often face problems that bring up several complications in our personal lives and disrupt our peace of mind. It could be a person making unnecessary calls on your cellphone or on any of your family or friends’ cellphones which can create an aura of insecurity for both you and them. Similarly, if you are calling someone untrustworthy and you want to hide your personal information and number so they are not able to use them for negative purposes. On any given day we do try to keep our privacy and personal data as secure as possible and try our best to not give out any hint to anyone unknown and protect ourselves and our close ones as much as possible.

What are private calls?

You must have seen in movies where it appears a name ‘private number’ without the actual phone number digits. You must have wondered whether it’s an actual phone number that you have to purchase or you can get such a thing done for your phone number as well. Private calls are secure network calls which you make when you want to hide your identity and prevents your phone number from appearing on the phone screen of the person you’re making a call to and the phrases like an unknown number, private number, unknown caller, and no caller ID appear on their phone. Today we will discuss just that how private calls are made as well as different terms associated with it such as CLIR, VPN, etc.

Why private calls are needed?

In any case, private calls bring a whole new level of security and peace for a person who is a little paranoid or anyone else as well who feels the need to keep themselves secure. It also helps in dealing with issues on your own terms without leaking your identity. Private calling is a great thing to learn for anyone so in any given circumstance you will have the upper hand all the while solving professional or personal issues.

Use of Private Calls:

Many telemarketing companies and other big businesses tend to keep their phone number private to keep their intel safe.

Identity theft and scamming:

Nowadays however many scammers are using this method to trick people and they pretend to be someone else to fulfill their agendas. Hence beware if you get such a call then it could be some hacker or scammer and you have to confirm their identity in some way to protect yourself.

Private calls: Explained

Phone Service Provider:

If you want to make your number private on just one call then you will have to add a prefix on the dialing pad before adding the number. In the case of the USA,  For example, if their number is 333-4444, you should dial *67332333444. You can also go to caller id settings on your mobile phone and go to supplementary settings from where you can click on ‘show caller id’ and hide the number, which will effectively make your number private

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Virtual Private Network is a service that enables you to surpass firewalls and other restrictions on certain websites and enjoy completely free and unlimited access to anything you want to watch or read.

VPN on windows:

Online what VPN does is give you a new IP address that is similar to the network you are accessing so when you are trying to watch overseas channels and which display that it’s unavailable in your region, VPN copies their IP address and makes yours similar to their region and you can watch the channel or the podcasts to your leisure. You can access VPN on your windows by following instructions in the link down below. How to Connect to a VPN on Windows

Making Private calls through VPN:

Now, coming to the current issue of making private phone calls through VPN. If a VPN network can do so much then it must also be able to make private calls but as its main job is masking IP addresses, it doesn’t work that well with complete streamed actions like voice calls.

VoIP:

 

But with the advancement in technology, you can now purchase or upgrade to a specialized VPN version that allows you to access VoIP (Voice Over IP). This has made phone calls over the network quite possible but there are some programming issues that may develop especially if your internet connection is not very strong. You may notice some problems in the voice call like unstable voice, jitters, and the call dropping suddenly.

QoS:

Hence the quality of services must be included when you are upgrading your VPN with VoIP. This also however depends on the frequency of calls you will make, the area you want to make calls to, and other parameters as well.

Other Functions:

VoIP can also help us make skype or any other application-based calls to a place where this app is not available. Hence you can contact your provider, discuss your options and needs to establish a secure and steady VPN connection for voice calls privately.

Caller Line Identification Restrictions (CLIR)

CLIR is sort of a service that you can get from any operator on your phone which restricts people from accessing your phone number. Many celebrities and famous people tend to have this setting for their phones which saves their personal information from being leaked out as they have eyes on them at all times. CLIR service works in such a way that when the phone service provider gets your outgoing call, it restricts your phone number and then transfers it to the person you are making the call to. This way your information, identity, and phone number remain secure.

How to Attain it:

CLIR can be purchased by anyone who wants it but there are a few things we need to check off our list before we are eligible for it. You will need an

• The affidavit which can be easily purchased and states why you need this service
• NOC which you will get from your nearest police station of a high ranked officer
• A signed letter from a political person or someone with power in the city which states that they know you personally

After these three documents are prepared you will go to your phone company and fill out some forms to get this service on your phone. You will have to renew it after a year and there is a fee for it as well. In the image given below you can see that once you have the CLIR, you have this option to show or not show your caller ID which you can change whenever you want depending on who you are talking to.

CLIR needs:

You should only get CLIR if you really need it as the procedure is very intricate and even a small mistake or fake documents can cause issues with the authorities which you don’t want.

Online Websites

The next thing you can do for making private calls is to use an online website that hides your phone number when you are calling someone.

Example:

An example is a site named ‘RevealName’. There are a few simple steps to follow if you want to access the function of the website:

1. First, go to google and type RevealName and when the results come, select the topmost option.
2. Once the website opens you will have to scroll down to see the following part as shown in the image.
3. You will go to call and select your country. Once the country code appears, you will type in the number of the person you are about to call and press call. Allow use of the microphone on the popup.

The call will be transferred to the person with a made-up phone number and your privacy is safe.

Setbacks:

The only minus point in this is that you can only call for short intervals only a few times daily using this website. Because of this hang-up, we can look for other options.

Phone App:

We constantly see many applications on the android play store which make a private call possible. All you have to do is download them and follow the instructions which enable you to call any number without revealing your own identity.

How to use:

Using mobile applications is simple enough to make your number private but it does require some constant attention and work on your behalf and you may also need a VPN connection in the background for some of these applications to keep the call going.

Example:

An example is the app ‘Free Call’which you can download from the play store. On this application, you need credit to make a private call and every country has a different number of credits needed which you will find out.

1. Download the application and open it on your phone.
2. Go to the ‘Çall’option at the end of the screen and select your country and dial a number that will show you the credits you need to make the call within a certain time limit.
3. On the main page, you can see that your current credits are shown and you can get more credits through different options. If you are having trouble getting enough credits then you may have to turn a VPN of any other country on and try again. Sharing with friends gets the most amount of credits.
4. After getting the desired credits you can proceed to make the call keeping in mind the time you have.

Setbacks with phone app:

The minor setback we do face with such applications is that these calls are very short and you hardly get to the main point of conversation when either the call drops or it continues while showing your real number.

No long time calls:

If you want long-time calls with such applications then you will have to either purchase some credits or pay money for an upgraded version which will allow you to make long-time calls. Even then they’re apps with glitches and a lot of ads which make the whole process bizarre for you and even though you are able to get your required work from it, it takes a long time and a lot of setbacks to reach there.

Conclusion:

In the end, I would like to conclude by saying that it isn’t easy to make private calls and get private numbers. You have to go through a lot of hustle to be able to make private calls and even then the calls aren’t long enough to get through the whole conversation.

Subscriptions:

Hence it is advised that if you really need to make these calls and its necessary for your job or your security then its better to get a proper subscription from a provider which will allow you to pay a sum of money and get the work done for you and it’ll be much easier to access as well. You can get any of the above subscriptions based on how and what you need these calls for. You can then enjoy a tension-free life in which you know that your security is being taken care of by the service provider.