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posted by takyon on Friday February 03 2017, @08:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the security-through-obscurity dept.

Not that long ago you could buy a prepaid cell phone with cash, an unlocked cell phone with cash, and a sim card with cash, without having to show any ID, in the USA. As far as I know this is now impossible. Every store now requires ID when purchasing these things. Is there any way to obtain a cell phone that respects my privacy and therefore security in the US any longer? Are these rules about showing ID state-specific? I'm curious if anyone else has recent experience trying to do what used to be the norm. Obviously any sim card or phone tied to an id, credit card, etc., offers no privacy. Thanks!

takyon: People IRL and on IRC are telling me that no, you do not necessarily need an ID to obtain a prepaid cell phone. You might want to get it months in advance of doing anything with it so that store CCTV footage is erased, and you might want to put it in a faraday cage (several layers of foil can also be used) before it is anywhere near your house or primary identity-tracked phone(s). In fact, you could do that in the parking lot of the place you buy it. Here are some related stories:

How Two Escaped Killers Could Completely Disappear Off the Grid
Bill Aims to Identify U.S. Prepaid Cellular Users
Thailand Plans to Track All SIM Cards Sold in the Country


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04 2017, @04:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04 2017, @04:21AM (#462744)

    Definitely. In most cases that security camera footage gets deleted before too long. A company isn't going to bother storing thousands of hours of footage that they don't need on the off chance that 6 months from now somebody will be interested in something on it. If they don't see something about the transaction now that causes them to save the video, chances are that within a month or two it'll be wiped.

    I think the place I used to work only kept the footage for a month or so. In most cases, there isn't the manpower to review all of it anyways. Any review of the footage is based upon when they think something is relevant and probably no spot checks either.