Randahl FinkApr 6

Russian Telegram videos now show how ordinary citizens are stopped and having their phones searched.

During these searches, the police writes down their phones' unique International Mobile Equipment Identity number to log their real identity and this number in a database. So every time a citizen turns on his phone, the dictatorship then knows which citizen it is, where he is, what he is doing online, and who he is talking to.

This is not a country. This is the largest prison on earth.

Show threadMattApr 6
@randahl Why do you think pretty much all of us have to show an ID the moment we buy a SIM? Information like that has been hoovered up and stored for decades, here's a story that goes back to 2003:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-04/bali-bombers-caught-with-australian-intelligence-involvement/102362158
The Russians either still have a significant share of unregistered SIMs so they can't associate an IMEI to an owner via the IMSI without even asking, or/and they do this as an intimidation tactic.
How spies used a shard of an exploded Nokia phone to expose the Bali bombers

Political editor Andrew Probyn reveals Australian intelligence's critical role in undoing the men who committed the 2002 Bali bombings — and how a shard from a Nokia phone brought them down.

Show threadLukefromDCApr 6

@menos @randahl At least in the US ID is not needed to buy a SIM. I have never had one purchased wirh a credit card eirher. Never do they get my name.

I would refuse to unlock my phone for cops regardless of law or risk if that brcomes a factor here. Thid in fact is a good use for data-wiping duress passphrases

Show threadMatt
@LukefromDC TIL it's not mandatory in all of North America. Surprising what with PATRIOT et al but it's probably just too hard to implement for lack of standard IDs. It's been rolled out over most of Europe, Australia, Asia and parts of Africa in the last 20 years though. No such thing as an anonymous, legal IMEI in most of the world.
@randahl
Apr 7 at 5:38amWeb
Show threadLukefromDCApr 7

@menos @randahl What happened in Mexico (this is as I recall reading of it years ago) was probably what kept it out of the US. The goverment tried to force registration w ID of all existing SIMS, but was met with mass refusal to cooperate. The government had the choice between abandoning SIM registration or cutting phone service to a large part of the population, and they folded.

In the US, they probably find it easier to buy this shit from data brokers, from Google, Apple, and Facebook. Those this will miss (such as myself) are often high value targets but also tough ones likely to find workarounds to almost anything.