Almost all countries require official authentication to activate a SIM card. This seems to me as a huge privacy problem, if the country can track sim cards across cell towers and connect them to a person. It seems like a dystopian system, that we litterely can not hide from our governments without turning off our smartphones. It seems incredibly unnecessary to me and just sets up the system to be abused.
Or do I understand something wrong?
What can we do against this? There are some sim cards that can be bought second hand, but they will not be a long term solution.
The thing is, even if you would not need to link your identity to your sim card, it would still be trivial to identify who you are if you use your phone like a normal human. Thanks to cell towers.
But yes this is just an excuse and does not stop much crime. If you want to break into a bank or hurt someone just leave your phone at home and you already circumvented this measure.
It’s even simpler than that; you probably pay for your SIM credit online / with a card, which is much easier to tie to a person than using cell towers for tracking.
Prepaid and cash is still pretty common though. Even paying for prepaid codes with card might break the identification.
I live in the Czech Republic and I can buy a SIM card in any supermarket. Put on some hat so I can’t be recognized on a camera, wait some time so they delete their camera recordings, and I’m good to go. Not that I do that, though.
Thats why some people are making money by selling czech cards in Poland. A 10CZK sim costs ~25PLN (140CZK) on allegro.pl
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Depending on your activities, 1 month is about the lifespan of a burner anyway.
What payment methods can be used that can’t be tracked?
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Confirming, you can use cash with no problem.
Cash and monero
If you buy an anonymous simcard, don’t put it into a phone where was your (e)sim. The carrier can see all IMEIs of the phone.
Also carrying them together is sus when they connect to same towers at the same time
It seems like a dystopian system, that we litterely can not hide from our governments without turning off our smartphones
That’s basically it.
However SIM cards that aren’t tied to people usually ends up scenarios like the US have where SIM swap attacks are common and you’ve a LOT of identity fraud. Note that we’ve an increasing number of services sending information and validation codes via SMS like banking apps and whatnot and you don’t secure the SIMs anyone will be able to get a replacement SIM because “I got my phone stolen” and you’ll have zero security.
I don’t like it, but I get the point.
I think it’s actually the other way around. BECAUSE phone numbers are linked to our accounts and identities, it makes us vulnerable to SIM swapping. They should only be used for calling and texting people, nothing more. But nowadays we need to link our personal details to them, our accounts, which introduces this vulnerability because then it creates this incentive for an attack
Honestly, it would just be nice if someone made a mobile computing device that wasn’t phone-capable at all. It is outdated functionality to have just one or two services use a totally separate protocol from everything else.
A tablet ?
The ones I had which allow mobile data connections also allow use as a phone. Not to mention that most tablets are the wrong size to carry them around all the time.
If you live in a country where carriers are required to identify phone numbers and do identity checks for SIM swaps they’ll never, ever, allow someone to get a SIM with your number without providing valid govt ID. That’s why it solves the issue and its safe. Just look at the numbers / stats and you’ll find that the SIM swapping attacks happen on countries where no identification is required.
I recently heard the episode of darknet diaries about it. I would think a simple PIN-Code that is mandatory would solve this issue? Or a letter send to the owner of the SIM?
Both solutions would make it safer, but not impossible to get around. Someone can get the PIN Code in some more analog (getting the paper with the PIN) or digital way (interception with physical access to a phone) and getting into the persons mailbox.
Even if those attacks wouldn’t happen there’s always the chance of something more complex like calling the carrier support and saying you’ve change your address and then a week later ask for a new SIM. It can go wrong very quickly, asking for a govt ID is the easy way to solve it all.
To be fair we can have a better solution, we simply force the fucktards that run banks and other places who send SMS codes to use a simple 2FA method without bullshit apps, just provide a QR code and live with it.
Almost all countries require official authentication to activate a SIM card.
Fortunately not in the Netherlands. I don’t think that’s the case in the rest of the EU. I can use free sim cards as much as I want!
When communicating with cell towers, a phone will also broadcast its unique IMEI identifier. So, even if you swap the SIM card every day, your IMEI is still being broadcast the same.
Changing the IMEI of a phone in the EU is illegal, unless the manufacturer consents: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/1
So… I have a Chinese 4G mobile router, and the manufacturer gives me the permission to change the IMEI as it is an integrated feature of the device. I use that for my data. The data codes I purchase small quantities in bulk with cash, and I can access the router via its ip from my phone’s browser to send the SMS messages to activate the data codes as needed. Since WiFi connections are abundant around here I keep these codes for emergencies. I can go a few months some time without activating data codes. I mostly use them when traveling internationally.
Brand of the 4g router?
I have the Tianje MF903 (https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32719535459.html), which I bought early 2022.
But just now I have done a search and I see many more pocket wifi routers now. Unfortunately I can’t tell you if they work well, or if it is also possible to change their IMEI easily. The one I have is functional, but it doesn’t have a very long battery life.
I doubt most of the companies tracking people with their phone even bother trying to get at that data since finding your identity is so easy when there is some tracking in almost every app.
Totally, but the government does not really have access to this data, they would have to know what apps to look for first
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of people here don’t have such a threat model. Our threat model is mostly preventing corporations like Google and Facebook from accessing our data. If your threat model is so advanced that you need to prevent tracking via connection to a cell tower (i.e state actors targeting you), the only thing you can do short of putting your phone in a faraday cage/taking out the cellular radios/ not having a phone at all is to turn on airplane mode. This is because your phone still maintains a connection to a cell tower without a SIM card.
Use a phone with no Sim card and just connect to a WiFi hotspot when you need internet?
Counter point: I don’t want an untraceable phone used as a detonator. There’s a reason that these things are linked to real-world identities.
With wireless systems like LoRa, you can send totally legally, basically untraceable data across over 50 km.
This is not a real problem.
- SIM swap attacks for identity fraud,
This. It’s about crime. You couldn’t sign up for landline service without providing the same info as any other utility, and it was tied to an address. I’m fine with cell service being traceable, with a warrant or court order (and not a secret rubber-stamp FISA court, a real one).
I don’t have this much trust in the system anymore to be honest. If the data is available, it can be misused or leaked or hacked. Maybe I am paranoid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Payphones have existed for decades. They would still exist if not for cell phones.
