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Swiss to Name Mobile Phone Users
elmacho writes "In what is surely a knee-jerk reaction, the Swiss parliament has banned anonymous mobile phone usage following the revelations that Al Qaeda members were using the phones in other countries. Wasn't it established the other day that, considering they were caught, the anonymity provided by the phones is limited? What purpose will this serve, assuming that any terrorists who need a mobile phone will simply purchase one in another of the many countries that do provide anonymous mobiles?"
I mean if you have something important to say common sense would dictate not to say it on something shady like this, cause some agency is prolly monitering it. /me sits back and waits for all the civil liberties groups to start bitching...
Erin Go Bragh!
Nothing new here; you need the passport AND registration to buy a pre-paid card in Germany. As a tourist there is no chance to buy a pre-paid card in any decent shop. Of course, there are quite a few shops with turkish (?) people and you could buy _anything_ there. Or you could buy one off the ebay, or from flea market. I wonder how could they ban the flea market ...
...you would know that feds only knew where to look after someone tipped off the CIA.
Some al-qiada kiddie told a cia agent (got a ton of $$$$ for it too) where that now captured terrorist lived and what his cell phone number was. we all know the result. this concept has been part of espionage since the days of Ceasar.
nsa didnt just scan phone after phone until they found something interesting, they were simply told where to look.
Mobile phone theft, ID spoofing, and black market handset sales in Switzerland skyrocket.
Because of course now that anonymous cell phone usage is illegal, only criminals can protect their IDs on cell phones.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
> What purpose will this serve, assuming that any terrorists who need a mobile phone will simply purchase one in another of the many countries that do provide anonymous mobiles?
What purpose does outlawing child pornography serve? People could just go to a country that doesn't outlaw child pornography.
Point being -- people don't want it happening in their own backyard and they don't want it happening on their watch. I sympathize with this sentiment.
Think of it this way - there are lots of stupid, yet successful criminals out there. These criminals may not yet know or understand that they can be tracked via anonymous phone usage.
By illegalizing anonymous cell phones, the Swiss Gov't is simply saying to the criminals, "Hey, we know what a tough business it is keeping up with all the cloak and dagger stuff you guys have to do to stay free. Rather than letting you fall on your sword, er, cell phone, and get caught, we'll keep up with the latest technology others are employing against you, and ban common thieving tools which are vulnerable, thus saving you valuable time which you can spend in more productive pursuits, such as larceny, or our favorite, GTA 3."
The upside for criminals is that they'll have to work a little harder to get an anonymous or fake identity phone, but echelon will now have to check a much larger pool of phones for suspicious activity, instead of focusing most of its efforts on anonymous phones.
The upside is that switzerland != the world, so anonymous phones are still available elsewhere.
-Adam
What purpose will this serve, assuming that any terrorists who need a mobile phone will simply purchase one in another of the many countries that do provide anonymous mobiles?
I'm not saying that I agree with the Swiss, but I hate to see flawed logic go unadmonished. Obviously they hope to set a precedent that other nations would follow. You can't expect the entire world to change their laws together so you have to act in steps. It's like saying that there's no sense in using Linux in order break MS's monopoly when there are lots of other people still using MS. Yes I know it's a bad analogy but I can't think of anything else without more thought.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Even if the Swiss did require some personal information to get a phone card, I highly doubt it would have helped catch Al Qaeda operatives sooner. It can't be that hard to fake information.
What purpose will this serve, assuming that any terrorists who need a mobile phone will simply purchase one in another of the many countries that do provide anonymous mobiles?
Not that I support them for doing this, but how many countries would have any laws at all if they really considered that people could always find another country to do whatever activity they are outlawing?
Um, 14 of the 15 hijackers weren't caught.
Maybe it will serve to stop terrorists from buying mobile phones in Switzerland.
Doesn't sound like a bad objective, does it?
Sheesh. Do not mod interesting, mod Funny.
Can somebody give me some examples on why anonimity is needed in cell phones? I figure is anonymity is needed once in a while one can always use a public pay phone. So I'm guessing the people that complaint are the ones who need anonimity most of the time or often at least. Why?
Hey if you arent doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear from the government watching your every move right?
Its all in the name of national security so its all ok, right?
Now dont you feel so much safer now that you have given up another bit of personal freedom?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
More then 90% of purveyors of illicit pharmaceuticals use pre pay cell phones, which - when you think about it - makes a lot of sense to them and their customers.
I mean: Use of anonymous Swiss prepayed cards in Pakistan is - to put id mildly - highly unusual. And since a the phone serial #, the network operator and the sim type is very easily identifiable in realtime (regardless if you make calls or not) the spooks would probably be mighty interested in any anonymous sim, which pops up in countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan. Also, what hinders Evil Q Terrorist to pay a junkie 50 francs to buy a prepayed card or use fake identification. I don't think that the kiosk woman is well equiped to identify a fake id card from BoraBora.
Today - in 20Minuten (a free daily crap rag, polluting the streets throughout Europe) I red the most ridiculous reasoning to date:
With introduction of camera GSM phones kiddie pornographers could anonymously upload evil, evil stuff on the web via their phones. I leave it as an excercise to the reader, why a guy arguing this way or writing this probably can't distinguish his ass from a hole in the ground.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
This reasoning is bogus. Pre payed cell phones don't cease to exist. The only difference is that you have to show identification when purchasing your 10$ phone at Walgreens. It has no impact on your ability to call anybody and it doesn't force you to buy into a plan.
Also no problem there. You can buy an additional pre payed card on the side. On a GSM network you don't even need an additional phone, you just swap cards and the calls will never show up on your "real" bill. Another alternative (and if it's that touchy an issue) is to toss a quarter into a completely anonymous public phone. Bernstein and Woodward didn't need a cell phone contact to deep throat and one can argue that the "company" in question doesn't only have very deep pockets, but also a virtually limitless supply of spooks and technology.
The whole point of prepayed sim cards is that you don't have a billing address. The only difference to todays status quo is that you will need identification to purchase a sim card. A passport does not contain the address and your identity card has likely your husbands one and of very limited use. When you're truely, truely paranoied you can argue, that the pi could track your location data. Technically this is feasible of course, practically there's no way in hell to pull this off. Unless you have a court warrant.
I respect that, if you have objections to the registration process on principle. The scenario outlined however doesn't make it impossible or even majorly inconvenient to move with the scenario described. If registering one sim requires 2 minutes, then registering 100 sims requires also two minutes.
I grant you that one. But not in the case of Switzerland (or any other country in the EU - of which Switzerland is not a member and of which most have even more st
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
were holding onto their strict banking privacy laws, hiding WWII era Nazi funds. The same Swiss who hold anonymous most banking information, even from law enforcement, unless it can be shown that the money in the account came from illegal activities. This is patently ridiculous. Way to go Switzerland!
I see far too many posts in this thread asking the same question (or reflecting the same attitude) in relation to anonymity:
If you're not doing anything wrong, why do you care?
What a dangerous world we live in where the /. crowd, a collection of people that I would for the most part deem to be of higher average intelligence than the general population, don't seem to have a problem with this logic. Ask yourselves a few questions, and actually take the time to think about the answers.
The need for brevity limits the above list to four points; I could go on forever. The biggest problem with a lack of anonymity in a democratic society is that democratic freedoms can be quickly eliminated. If you still have fairytale notions that an unwanted power can be removed from power through the elective process, you are sadly mistaken. Those with power are unwilling to see that power eroded by choice. Look to any judge subject to criminal investigation (In Washington State, a judge convicted of impaired driving not only believes she shouldn't have to step down, she thinks the charge will make her a better judge!); any politician looking for public support when facing criminal probes (in British Columbia, the Premier, akin to a Governor in the US, was charged with impaired and dangerous driving in Maui and will plead "No Contest". He retains his job with all its duties and responsibilities while Cabinet Ministers even suspected of malfeasence are asked to step aside from their legislative duties.) to see that those with power will refuse to let go, despite overwhelming public pressure to do so.
Just because the things you enjoy are legal today, does not for a moment mean that they will, ipso facto, be legal tomorrow. Despite our collective thoughts to the contrary, it is not the majority that decides laws, it is special interest. Why else do we have Kevin Mitnicks in jail for 5 years, while Enron Executives walk free? Don't think that somewhere, somehow, someone isn't proposing to illegalize something you enjoy or support; be it alcohol, gambling, television, or even the rights of minorities. Would you not want the ability to fight these forces anonymously? If you're living in what amounts to a police state, would there be any effective way to? Your calls could easily be monitored and traced back to you. If you participated in efforts to remove those in power you could easily be picked off the street, condemned as a traitor or threat to the greater good. Still feel safe in the world you're willing to allow?
Say, for arguments sake, in the interests of national security, it's deemed that anyone who has a beard as of a specific date would be forever required to check in regularly with the Police. Since: some terrorists are Muslims, all Muslim terrorists are devout Muslims, all devout Muslims have beards (I know this is not necessarily the case, I'm demonstrating a flawed thought process for a point). You're neither a Muslim, nor a terrorist, nor a Muslim terrorist, but because of something you have chosen to do, that was perfectly legal and would not subject you to any further scrutiny on one day, makes you public enemy number one the next. This is not a purely hypothetical example; think Prohibition, and that was a mere 70 years ago.
I honestly couldn't care if it was cell phones or dental floss that you have to register for to purchase. The moment the database starts collecting information, a thousand lobbyists can't stop it. This is the first step in a very long road, and it's an easy one to take. But the step itself is not frightening at all, it's where the road leads that is truly terrifying.
For the record, I completely agree with the quote at the beginning of this post, but only when it's referenced in its entireity:
If you're not doing anything wrong today, why do you think those in power won't care about what you are doing tomorrow?