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> Or you can go to a corner shop and buy a Lyca or Lebara SIM with cash. No need to give them your address. You can buy top ups in cash as well. At least in Western Europe this is available everywhere, pretty much.

This is not legal in Norway.

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There are many countries it isn't legal in, which is a shame. The ability to get an anonymous phone ought to be something people care about preserving.

It's illegal in the vast majority of countries [1] including Germany, France. Attempting to build a safe secure communication system around phone numbers that is suitable for situations like this, relying on them as being somehow anonymous, is just a complete non-starter. Even if you don't have to register the phone number, the cell provider will still know your location history. I think it just shows how America-centric Signal is.

[1] https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3018/timeline-sim...

Then just setup your own Signal-Server, if you don't want a connected number at all, OTR over tor is the way to go.

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