A technical note: the actual SIM card, while helpful, is not essential
for tracking. What is far more useful and harder to circumvent are
identifier associations and turning patterns into identifiers:
1. If you ever use a particular cell phone (IMEI), a browser with high
entropy fingerprint, a particular IP number, credit card, car with a
license plate, you will be forever associated with them. So using a
different SIM in the same phone (or a friend's phone) is as pointless as
deleting cookies or as using a different computer from the same house.
Not only that, others using the same will be forever associated with
you. I don't need to mention that using the same e-mail address to
register to multiple services is out.
2. If you carefully avoid #1, and, for example, buy brand new computer
for cash and then start using it in the same way as you did the old one,
you are back in the network: computer use patterns are highly individual
(check this web site, then this e-mail, then ...). Or if you buy
pre-loaded credit card for cash, and start buying the same food at the
same supermarket (BTW, did you know that cash-paying supermarket
consumers are as easily tracked as those using credit cards, as most
have discerning patterns? Even more if you usually buy with cc, and then
buy once with cash, it is very likely that the cash purchase record will
be de-duplicated and consolidated with the credit card purchase history,
if you buy the same stuff at the same time of the day/week.)
3. If you buy new cell phone and SIM card, then walk with them past face
recognition posts long enough to correlate GPS tracking (or cell tower
tracking if you were paranoid enough to disable GPS) with your movement
on the street, you are back in the network.
The above is not the future - it's the present. It's just not in the
popular press yet. The psychological barrier is the problem - it's too
horrific, so it's more comfortable to write it off as conspiracy/lunacy.
That could even be a rational choice, as it results in better mental health.
The future of tracking will not rely on any consumer-replaceable things
such as SIM cards; that's old school. It will be mostly biometric, so
start working on your split personality skills. Develop new gait, for
the start (hint: the easiest way is to start a slight limp.)
On 1/7/19, 09:08, Adam Burns wrote:
local German voice numbers, Freifunk offers open wifi connectivity, and
with the right app, smart phones work for calls and SMS with no SIM card
over WiFi. The setup is by no means perfect in terms of connectivity,
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