Begin forwarded message:
From: Esther Dyson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: October 13, 2006 10:19:51 PM EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [email protected]
Subject: Re: [IP] Pre-paid mobile phones
I don;t know about the US, but it *is* a legal requirement in
India, where cell phones were recently used to set off bombs. (As I
heard it, one of the bombs contained a SIM chip and was wired to go
off when the SIM chip was called.)
So now, there are complicated rules concerning the purchase of phones
and prepaid time. The merchant is supposed to physically verify the
customer's address by going to the address listed and seeing if the
customer is there. Just imagine: A whole new business-process market !
Of course, that doesn't mean that ID is actually required in
practice: Many companies buy large quantities of chips or time and
hand them out liberally to employees. And I'm sure that the address-
verification services are not all reliable. Kinda like the TSA.
Esther Dyson
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