Privacy question for those who ditched landlines (old)

[newt]

I just moved and am considering a landline for my new place. After reading this forum, it seems that many of you have ditched your landline, or never had one. One issue I never see discussed, is privacy.(I'm not talking about government tapping, just plain old criminal eavesdropping to gain personal information.)

Do you talk to your bank, or provide other sensitive information like credit card numbers or SS numbers over your cell phone or VOIP? I'd love to not pay $35 dollars a month for a landline, just so I can use it maybe 2 or 3 times a year when I call my bank, but I'm under the impression that cell phones and VOIP are inherently unsecure compared to a landline.

[blktoptrvl]

I use my cell.

If someone wants to listen to hours of my conversations just to gather the little pieces they can get (can they really? Research: intercepting cell conversations is relatively easy but still not a big concern to me because I have other safeguards in place) though each individual call, then I say go for it. Anyone that determined to get my information has plenty of other - and much easier - ways of doing it.

[kharing]

If you are concerned about criminals bugging your phone, why not just walk into your bank the 2-3 times a year?

Paying almost $400 a year to make three phone calls is a waste.

I don't have a land line phone by the way.

[OwlKaMyst]

I have not ever had any problems with privacy and my cell phone in regards to calls. Have not had any problems with my cell and privacy in other ways (smartphone/internet). But my son, who has had his phone for a short time watched as a hacker went through his emails. But he does not worry about it because he does not have any personal info in any of his emails.
If you are seriously worried about privacy then do everything in person.
But I think a cell phone for calling your bank a few times is not going to be an issue. And most bank should be on top of any sort of someone poking into their customers info.

[joe moving]

Short answer is that cell phones are more secure.

The easiest thing in the world is to tap your analog phone line at your house where it goes into the building. If someone wanted they could hook something up when you are not there, which either records or relays your calls by RF somewhere where they can record or listen.

I don't know of anyone who knows how to listen in to any cell conversation, let alone a specific one, without physical access to your cell phone.

[flyonpa]

Honesty Taping a LandLine is much easier then taping a Cell/VOIP Line.

Cell & VOIP calls are all digital They would have to find the Right packets of data from the air and/or Internet connection. Then put them all back together from the millions of packets that are flying thru the tower / Internet.

A Lineline is analog not encrypted in the clear conversation.

Also there are much easier way of getting your credit card and other personal info then monitor for few minutes of a cell/voip call every few months.

[Garthur]

From the stand point of privacy, it only takes ONE id theft to ruin your life.

I keep a land line (not for privacy) for emergencies, privacy is not an issue for me. The average cell site can only handle maybe 50 connections at a time. During 9-11 cell phones were hit or miss because everybody was trying to call some one, and the sites were over loaded, but land lines worked fine.

I listened to a government official live that said that right after the Boston bombing he had ordered that the cell sites be shut down (bombs may have been triggered by a cell phone), later the same officials said that they did not turn off the cell phones, but word was that call phones did not work for a while.

Cell phone sites have no more then 2 hour battery back-up, so if the power goes out forget the cell phone. Land line phones have an emergency 4-6 hour battery back-up and most of the telephone companies have emergency generators.

BTW in an electrical outage only plug-in land line phones will work. The portable land line phones will be dead.

[newt]

I'm a lot more worried about ID theft or gaining access to my bank account rather than emergency or 911 issues. When I read stuff like this: How Hackers Tapped Into My Cellphone For Less Than $300 : All Tech Considered : NPR, I get kind of nervous. By the way, I can't just walk into my bank, it's in another state.

[OwlKaMyst]

So your bank is not a major bank?
If what you are really worried about is identity theft and not so much phone security, there are several ID protection services that you can subscribe to.
Probably more expensive than an extra phone line, but might be worth being worry free.

[ocnjgirl]

Originally Posted by newt

I just moved and am considering a landline for my new place. After reading this forum, it seems that many of you have ditched your landline, or never had one. One issue I never see discussed, is privacy.(I'm not talking about government tapping, just plain old criminal eavesdropping to gain personal information.)

Do you talk to your bank, or provide other sensitive information like credit card numbers or SS numbers over your cell phone or VOIP? I'd love to not pay $35 dollars a month for a landline, just so I can use it maybe 2 or 3 times a year when I call my bank, but I'm under the impression that cell phones and VOIP are inherently unsecure compared to a landline.

I use my cell for personal info. To me landlines are less secure. My ex and I had a police scanner and we used to hear our neighbors landline phone conversations (as well as people near baby monitors) all the time as if they were right in the room.