Hacker News Reader

Yeah I mean a prepaid SIM + top up with cash is < $30 USD.

It just feels like they're taking advantage of people.

Although now that I think about it I wonder how they do E911? Sounds like a liability

I worked at best buy many years ago and we had to scan IDs when selling prepaid cards.

It wouldn't be hard for someone to resell SIMs (even pre-activated SIMs for a premium) to have less data on you recorded at time of said secondary transaction?

But the reseller still has to have their ID on file so they will constantly get deposed in cases where a sim card they sold was used and now the police are trying to identify the buyer. It would be a huge pain for them and I don't see it actually protecting the buyer much.

The location data alone is enough to personally identify people.

It could still be improved upon, e.g. by swapping sim cards every N days.

Perhaps a writable (auto-updating?) sim card could make this process easier and faster.