My Near-Foray Into Digital Vigilantism

In midtown yesterday, during the throes of a typical Friday rush hour pedestrian quagmire, I overheard a woman talking on her phone. She said “My phone number is 347-###-####.” I immediately memorized the number. Based on the manner in which she spoke it it sounded like she had been asked to recite her number as part of a customer service interaction.

Despite the density of the pedestrian traffic I managed to follow her, both from behind and by getting up ahead of her. I never got a good look at her, and as engrossed as she was in her phone call she had no idea our paths had joined.

I encountered a LinkNYC kiosk as she waited for a crosswalk signal to change. I dialed her phone number from the kiosk, ringing her phone as the crosswalk signal changed and she started crossing the street. She stopped walking, looked at her phone, and exhibited a momentary expression of perturbment. She ignored the incoming call from 617-216-9781, a number she likely did not recognize but which all LinkNYC kiosks send out as CallerID, sometimes accompanied by text matter like “LINKNYC” or “LINKNYC KIOSK”.

She continued with her call in progress.

All I wanted to say was “I just heard you read off your phone number on Third Avenue and thought I’d give you a call.” Hey, who knows where such a connection might lead, right? My intentions were honorable, I think. I believe people should know when the personal information they scatter about the ephemeral realms of public space get snapped up by someone with ears to hear. I guess you could call it a form of digital vigilantism.

After four rings the call went to voicemail. Through the LinkNYC loudspeakerphone I and others around me heard her full name, which she clearly articulated on her outgoing voicemail greeting. Her distinctive name and presence on Third Avenue made it easy as hell to find her online and determine without question that she worked as a financier at a nearby bank, lived in a high rise off First Avenue, formerly made a name for herself in theater before going into banking, and so on.

About an hour later, behind the shroud of caller ID spoofing, I called her again. This time CallerID showed the call coming not from a LinkNYC kiosk but from a midtown payphone that no longer exists.

Wouldn’t you know it, typing that old payphone number into any search engine leads you directly to this website, which has seen its linkrank deteriorate thanks to copycats and site scrapers, but which ranks #1 on all the SERPs for at least one bit of information most would consider classically useless: The location and number of a payphone that no longer exists.

I called her from behind that spoofed caller ID, rang her phone just once, and tailed my access_log.

Within a minute of my spoofed call I saw pageviews coming from a Fios IP address, the fully qualified hostname ending in “nycmny.fios.verizon.net”. I could not find a reverse IP lookup resource that turned up anything useful, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes an IP address can reveal very precise information about the person using it, such as their exact geographical location. I already had her exact street address from other sources.

What interested me about her IP address is that it revealed what other content she clicked on at this website. She didn’t stop at the old payphone number listing page where she landed. She went to the home page, clicked on a couple of stories, then went over to my landing page, which has my contact info.

She did not contact me. But given the right circumstances it’s not hard to imagine a scenario like this in which someone essentially sets a trap by using these forms of telephonic subterfuge to lure an individual into voluntarily accessing content on websites under their control.

I abandoned any kind of determined pursuit. Harassment is not my goal. But once in a while I think it’s worth understanding just how far one can go with this kind of randomness, and the possibilities it creates. I do feel a little bad about intruding on this woman’s serenity, and for possibly opening a gently nagging void that lingers after an unfamiliar number appears on one’s personal cell phone. I know that feeling well. But then so does everybody with CallerID on their cell phone.