Privacy stalwart Nicholas Merrill spent a decade fighting an FBI surveillance order. Now he wants to sell you phone service—without knowing almost anything about you.
  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    0·
    2 months ago

    He’d sometimes come across anti-surveillance hard-liners determined to avoid giving any personal information to cellular carriers, who bought SIM cards with cash and signed up for prepaid plans with false names. Some even avoided cell service altogether, using phones they connected only to Wi-Fi.

    So if this is already possible, what is his new company providing that’s new?

    What’s the problem he’s trying to solve?

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        De facto, no.

        Yes, there are still some services where there are absolutely zero questions asked and all you need is a prepaid card that doesn’t need to be activated at all. Those are quite rare and have a very limited number of phone numbers allocated to them and pretty much are all flagged as spam/bots by every single system out there.

        The next tier up are services where you technically don’t need to provide any ID to use a prepaid card… but the store you purchased it from needs your ID/credit card to activate the card when you buy it. Those ALSO tend to have the same problems with burned numbers.

        What most people have as burners these days are just the same phone service as anyone else. They just pay a rebranded t-mobile at the start of the month rather than the end of the month. And those have all the same restrictions, and capabilities, as “real” phone plans.

        • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
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          2 months ago

          Interesting. I thought it was more like in Czech Republic. Buy a prepaid SIM, put it into phone, it activates with the first call and there you go.
          When I checked one from T-Mobile, name and surname get automatically pre-filled in the personal data card, as “Anonym Anonym”, that is.

        • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          It really didn’t used to be this way. I remember distinctly walking into a metro PCs store in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s and being told by the guy there they didn’t care what your name was, you could write down bugs bunny and they’d still take your payment and activate your service. But because of that lots of… Less than reputable people did just that and things kind of ended up how they are now.

          I think there was at one point a switch to VOIP because of that change, and after that VOIP providers started tightening things down, so now your best bet is probably to pay someone in crypto to import an already activated phone.

  • ApeNo1@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Is there a reason they used an image of a phone with a screen smeared with what looks like rendered goose fat?

    • TheOneCurly@feddit.onlineEnglish
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      2 months ago

      i think it’s fingerprints…?

      Like a pun on data fingerprinting. But that’s not exactly what this service protects against.

  • solrize@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I’ve bought and activated several prepaid phones over the years, paid cash, fake name, no ID. Last was several years ago, idk if you can still do that.

    • quick_snail@feddit.nl
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      2 months ago

      You can still do it.

      Just buy from a heavily trafficked grocery store. Arrive by foot. Wear a good covid mask. Pay with cash. Wait a few weeks after purchase before use.

      Before you turn it on, cover all cameras with tape and disable the microphone if you can (or plug it with a cutoff headphone jack).

      Cut a piece of paper and wedge it between the battery leads. Only pull it out and turn it on in a public place far from your home. And you have to burn the phone after every service you activate.

      • lib1 [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
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        2 months ago

        It’s not possible in any corporate stores purely for the fact that they use facial recognition extensively. Doesn’t matter if you can technically get away with paying cash and using a fake name. You’re being tracked the moment their cameras can see you and they have extensive profiles on people even if you’ve never used a debit card, given them an email, or given them a phone number.

        • chillpanzee@lemmy.mlEnglish
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          2 months ago

          Also, the ones I’ve seen in stores lately hare only the trial offers that are only good for a couple days and have to be “replenished” with an online account to stay functional for more than a couple days. Mint wouldn’t even activate initially with an email alias. I called support and they said “we can’t activate it with that email, we need your real email.” I then told them no worries, I’d just return it to best buy. Then they “found a way” to activate it, but I would have needed to give a credit card if I wanted it to stay active more than the 3 days. Best buy didn’t carry any longer duration prepaid card in the stores.

        • krolden@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Pay some guy to go in and buy them.

          Or have them mailed to someone you know

          Or use prepaid esim, paid with prepaid debit card

  • ray@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    2 months ago

    You don’t even need a zipcode if you use https://silent.link/ then you can pay with whatever crypto and have an esim where the balance never expires and it works in most of the world. I’ve used it a few months and it’s pretty good if you don’t need a phone number.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Please can he start working in Europe too? We need to support his resilience.

    • icelimit@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      What stops anyone outside the us from using this service? The postcode doesn’t need to be verifiable, if needed, just use a VPN?

      • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
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        2 months ago

        Great idea, we have some slight difference in frequencies but probably worth trying if the sim cards allow international roaming without breaking the bank.

        • icelimit@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          I was just thinking as a phone number for all those services that ask for phone numbers to sign up.

  • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Very impressive.

    When will this service be forced to change or shut down? I think five years. Possibly less if a major case hits the news where a bad actor used the service.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 months ago

      seems like a boon to swatters and the shitbags of the world… sure, privacy minded people, ICE trackers etc., yeah, but also… the shitbags…