Post: #1

https://www.rt.com/usa/337321-burner-pho...bill/story

Quote:Burner phones, beloved by criminals and TV writers everywhere, could be a thing of the past if a new bill by California lawmakers passes.

The proposed law would require prepaid phone customers to register their personal details before purchasing a burner phone or SIM card.

The Closing of Prepaid Mobile Device Security Gap bill, introduced by Jonestown massacre survivor State Rep Jackie Speier, could make it harder for those hoping to communicate anonymously.

Retailers would be required to verify those details at purchase and keep a record of the details gathered.

Despite hysteria surrounding encryption and its role in terrorism, the Paris attackers used prepaid phones to communicate rather than encryption.

"This bill would close one of the most significant gaps in our ability to track and prevent acts of terror, drug trafficking, and modern-day slavery," Speier said.

Terrorists and others wishing not to be tracked often use multiple burner phones, with some only using the phone once before moving on to another.

While the bill wouldn’t prevent customers from using fake or stolen identification to buy the phones, it would make things more complicated for terrorists who are currently able to buy prepaid phones in bulk.

The bill is the latest in efforts by politicians to crack down on technology that doesn’t allow easy government access.

Earlier in the year, lawmakers in California and New York sought to ban the sale of phones that have full encryption.

Fuck this 1984 wankershit.

Post: #2

Slippery slope is real.

If they do this, they can record the names of people who use their real info to buy a burner phone, and add them to a list.

My family buys burner phones all the time for use on vacations :/

Post: #3

Yeah, it would make things real hard for terrorists. Now they'd *gasp* have to drive over to Nevada to buy them, at worst.



These lawmakers are either imbeciles, or lying about the true purpose of the bill.

Black market for burner phones starting in 3... 2...

Post: #4

Simple, just buy your burner phones from another state.

Post: #5

Don't you already need an SSN for these?

Post: #6

Welcome to the People's Republic of California, where all your rights are belong to us!

The grand irony is, much like the debate about gun control in the wake of San Bernardino, there is absolutely nothing in this bill that would keep criminals from being able to use burner phones. Either the phone will come from Arizona or Nevada, or the paperwork used to acquire said phone will be as genuine as those sold to illegal immigrants seeking work. And in California, the bad guys already have a head start on how to forge IDs.

Post: #7

The usual. Bureaucrats pretending to do real work.

It's their ingenious idea to thwart terrorism.

Post: #8

If you are a criminal, just buy one with a fake ID. If you are a law abiding citizen, you now have to live with more government intrusion into your life.

Post: #9

Because criminals follow the law right politicians, law makers?

I bet this comes under the Patriot Act.

Post: #10

(03-26-2016 03:35 PM)Tim in real life Wrote:  Fuck this 1984 wankershit.

Amen.

Post: #11

Word on the street is there is an easy way to circumvent this law. Just grow a massive beard, wrap your head in a towel, and put on thick vest with wires hanging out everywhere before going out to purchase your burner. The idea that someone with such an appearance could be up to no good is so fucking out there that nobody in his right mind would think to press you for security protocols. You'd have to be a disturbed Islamophobic lunatic to even think about questioning such a man, and thankfully it's the current year so the odds that such a lunatic is manning the particular cash register you go to buy your phone is exceedingly small.

Post: #12

(03-26-2016 03:47 PM)Kickb Wrote:  Simple, just buy your burner phones from another state.

This will work for the short term. If the Cali bill passes, one by one other states will eventually follow.

Post: #13

And on and on it goes... where it stops, nobody knows...

Post: #14

(03-26-2016 10:26 PM)dark_g Wrote:  

(03-26-2016 03:47 PM)Kickb Wrote:  Simple, just buy your burner phones from another state.

This will work for the short term. If the Cali bill passes, one by one other states will eventually follow.

I was thinking that too. California has a long history of starting national trends of passing fucking retarded laws.

Post: #15

Are these California lawmakers trying to get their state on the slippery slope to become Pakistan?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi...story.html

Quote:Cellphones didn’t just arrive in Pakistan. But someone could be fooled into thinking otherwise, considering the tens of millions of Pakistanis pouring into mobile phone stores these days.

In one of the world’s largest — and fastest — efforts to collect biometric information, Pakistan has ordered cellphone users to verify their identities through fingerprints for a national database being compiled to curb terrorism. If they don’t, their service will be shut off, an unthinkable option for many after a dozen years of explosive growth in cellphone usage here.

Prompted by concerns about a proliferation of illegal and untraceable SIM cards, the directive is the most visible step so far in Pakistan’s efforts to restore law and order after Taliban militants killed 150 students and teachers at a school in December. Officials said the six terrorists who stormed the school in Peshawar were using cellphones registered to one woman who had no obvious connection to the attackers.

But the effort to match one person to each cellphone number involves a jaw-dropping amount of work. At the start of this year, there were 103 million SIM cards in Pakistan — roughly the number of the adult population — that officials were not sure were valid or properly registered. And mobile companies have until April 15 to verify the owners of all of the cards, which are tiny chips in cellphones that carry a subscriber’s personal security and identity information.

In the past six weeks, 53 million SIMs belonging to 38 million residents have been verified through biometric screening, officials said.

“Once the verification of each and every SIM is done, coupled with blocking unverified SIMs, the terrorists will no longer have this tool,” said a senior Interior Ministry official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the government’s security policy. “The government knows that it’s an arduous job, both for the cellular companies and their customers, but this has to be done as a national duty.”

As Pakistan’s decade-long struggle against Islamist extremism has stretched on, residents have grown accustomed to hassles such as long security lines and police checkpoints. Now they must add the inconvenience of rushing into a retail store to keep their phones on.

“I spend all day working and sometimes have to work till late in the night. . . . I cannot afford to stand in line for hours to have my SIM verified,” said Abid Ali Shah, 50, a taxi driver who was waiting to be fingerprinted at a cellphone store. “But if I don’t do it, my phone is my only source of communication that I have to remain in touch with my family.”

Though Pakistan’s first cellphone company launched in 1991, there was only sparse usage until the turn of the 21st century. Since then, the number of cellphone subscribers has grown from about 5 million in 2003 to about 136 million today, according to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority.

The mobile phone subscription rate now stands at about 73 percent, roughly equal to the rate in neighboring India, according to the World Bank. It’s even common for Pakistanis in remote or mountainous areas, where electricity can be sporadic and few have access to vehicles, to own a cellphone.

With 50 million more SIM cards left to be verified, phone companies are dispatching outreach teams deep into the countryside and mountains to notify customers of the policy.

“It’s a massive, nationwide exercise with a tight deadline, but hopefully we will be able to verify our customers by the April deadline,” said Omar Manzur, an executive at Mobilink, which has 38 million customers in Pakistan. “We have sent out 700 mobile vans all across Pakistan to reach out to these far-flung areas, the villages and small towns.”

One region that appears largely unaffected by the plan is the immediate area around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where many Islamist militants have historically sought refuge. Pakistani cellphone networks generally do not provide service to those areas, and residents try to get coverage from Afghan networks, officials said.

Cellphone owners’ fingerprints are being matched with those on file in a national database the government began creating in 2005. Those whose prints are not in the database must first submit them to the National Database & Registration Authority. Some residents, including several million Afghan refugees not eligible for citizenship, also have to obtain a court affidavit attesting they will properly use their cellphones.

Over the years, several countries, including South Africa and India, have implemented broad systems for obtaining and storing residents’ biometric information. But analysts and communications experts say they can’t recall a country trying to gather biometrics as rapidly as Pakistan is doing.

“In a country like this, where the infrastructure is not available in many areas, this looks unprecedented,” said Wahaj us Siraj, the chief executive officer of Nayatel, a major Pakistani Internet supplier.

Once the nationwide verification process is complete, police and intelligence officials will have a much easier time tracing the origins of crimes or terrorist attacks, said Ammar Jaffri, the former deputy director of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency.

Jaffri noted that cellphones have often been used to detonate explosive devices in Pakistan. Authorities are also struggling to curb extortion carried out by criminals, often affiliated with banned militant groups, who make threatening phone calls demanding money.

Jaffri said Pakistanis should just accept that a SIM card “becomes part of you” and that any privacy concerns do not override government regulation of airwaves.

“We have new technology now, and we shouldn’t be afraid of these things, we should face it,” said Jaffri, president of the Pakistan Information Security Association. “Watching people when they move, it’s natural: Every country does it. ”

As they show up at cellphone stores, some Pakistanis are learning firsthand just how lax Pakistan had been in tracking SIM cards.

At a Mobilink office in Islamabad, Muhammad Safdar, 30, was told that six different SIM cards were attached to his name.

“I think some of my friends had my ID card number,” Safdar said. “Earlier it was very easy to simply redeem that number and get a SIM issued in that name.”

Ghulam Rasool, a 24-year-old Afghan citizen living here, waited in line only to learn that the SIM card he had bought at a fruit market four years ago was now illegal.

“Before, no one asked, but now they are, and it has to be in my name,” said Rasool, who emerged from the Mobilink office with a new phone number. “Everyone has my old number, and now I have to contact hundreds of people” in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Still, many Pakistanis are taking the process in stride, saying they are willing to do whatever it takes to reduce terrorism. They are skeptical, however, that this will be the answer to ending a war that has killed more than 50,000 Pakistani residents and soldiers over the past 13 years.

“If this can bring peace, it’s okay,” said Khan Gul, his thumb still stained with blue ink. “But I am wondering how a mobile phone verification can bring peace.”

Post: #16

(03-26-2016 04:06 PM)storm Wrote:  Don't you already need an SSN for these?

No, it's a prepaid phone. What would the SSN be for? There's no credit check. There's no need for personal information at all.

I've activated a quite a few prepaid sim cards/phones in the US from Tmobile and others. Usually it's an automated system, you punch in the numbers. Sometimes it's a person. Once I was asked for SSN, I said no thanks. It was fine. They just want a way to verify you are the owner of the account if you call in- most have you create a PIN in lieu of personal info.

Post: #17

People keep willingly giving up their freedoms for a little more of the government's security blanket. It's sickening.

Post: #18

So it hasn't passed, correct? I wonder if it would be smart to get one now. Hopefully, they grandfather you in or would they still make you provide info?

Post: #19

Its already like that in Australia.

Full ID for any Sim, even a mobile datapoint sim.

Post: #20

Imagine how much easier it would be to thwart terrorism if the government had a direct video feed to every American citizen 24/7, whether they be eating, sleeping, or fucking? Maybe it's something to look into next. I'm sure some right wing extremists may take issue with that, but it's a small price to pay to help protect our Muslim community from the vicious Islamophobic backlashes that always come hot on the heels of every nothingtodowithislam terrorist attack.

Post: #21

We've had this Australia wide for a long time.

The only way to acquire a relatively untraceable phone is to get some welfare bum to buy it for a small fee (don't take delivery near security cameras) or just buy a phone second hand on the proviso that the sim card comes with it.

Of course, if you ever travel with it turned on, particularly in proximity to your other phone(s) then you might as well not bother.

We've also had nation wide voice recognition for a long time here, so for the most part the spy shit is not worth the effort unless you're really into some seriously naughty stuff.

edit: Our most recently famous terrorist was on every watchlist conceivable and they still weren't there in time to stop him. All fucking pointless.

Post: #22

Carlos Slim loves this idea.

Now he can just strap a bunch of his burner phones onto the illegal Mexican's bringing in drugs and steal even more of our US dollars.

Post: #23

(03-27-2016 02:59 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  We've also had nation wide voice recognition for a long time here, so for the most part the spy shit is not worth the effort unless you're really into some seriously naughty stuff.

edit: Our most recently famous terrorist was on every watchlist conceivable and they still weren't there in time to stop him. All fucking pointless.

What if they're not allocating their resources trying to stop terrorists, but instead are focusing on tracking and profiling political dissidents?

Post: #24

Post: #25

This shit is getting out of control.

Can we start Rooshland yet?