this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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What about buying the cheapest SIM card in a convenience store and activate the service with it using a dumb phone?
That might work in most places, but there are countries that only sell pre-paid cards with ID registration.
Protip: in those countries, go to the tourist hot spots and walk into a SIM selling shop. Use a thick foreign accent.
There's always an industry for anon SIM cards for tourists.
That won't work in Australia. You can buy the SIM anywhere of course, you just can't activate it. You'll need proof of ID on line to do that.. There are only three operators (the rest are resellers). I am sure there are ways around it but not the one you suggest.
When I was last in NZ you didn't need ID must buy a SIM and good to go, not sjre thats still the case though?
The way you work around it is the shop keeper probably uses their own ID. There's always a market for tourists
What about a virtual phone number?
Not all of them work, and most require some details to create.
Usually those numbers fall back into the provider's pool after a time of not regular usage and get sold again, at least here in Europe.
The twist they've introduced in this article is they're using the registration lock feature, which means you have a signal pin enabled, so as long as the account doesn't go idle for 7 days even somebody who gets the phone number can't use signal.
7 days?!? Jesus can we get at least a few years?? Thats worse than WhatsApp's 2 weeks.
The fundamental problem is the signal foundation sees the phone number as the identity. If you don't have control of the phone number, you don't really have control of the identity.
The good news is, they let you change your phone number and maintain your contacts. But if the phone number the account is currently registered to get assigned to somebody else and you don't change it, then you're playing the 7-day roulette
It's fine for a temporary signal account, but if you let the number expire, then someone else gets assigned that number, and that new person wants to use Signal, they'll get your account.
They can't see your old messages, but they'll get any new ones instead of you.