Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to depend a lot. It's kind of hard in Germany - they wanted my permanent address. I didn't find France as difficult. Iceland didn't care. Italy wanted my passport. Chile, you virtually needed to be a citizen, as I recall.
> Chile, you virtually needed to be a citizen, as I recall. I heard something similar about Russia after recent changes actually, it could as well be impossible for non-residents so tourists just stick with international roaming and public wifi. IIRC there's a catch-22 situation where you need a Gosuslugi (online government services portal) account to buy a sim, but you need a Russian phone number to sign up for one.…
FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
241–250 of 417 posts
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disjoint issues really. Phone scams mostly rely on the shoddy/lack of verification of caller id info as calls transit the network where it's not verified so they are unblockable (because they just use a different fake number every time). They're actually calling from one or a pool of numbers but you can't block and report them on the receiving end because the number your phone thinks it's blocking isn't theirs. This…
Hardly disjoint. Most of the scams come from foreign networks.
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#243This was the case in Belgium a couple of years ago. Everybody had to go to a store and have their ID read by the system, and if they didn't, the phone number would be shut down. Unsure how that worked for MVNOs though. Now I live in the USA and am well-familiar with the spam calls. I wonder if this new rule will reduce/prevent them. I think in general the ability to spoof numbers should be banned / controlled. Someon…
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#244As a Russian: huh, you guys could still just buy a sim card without any kind of identification? Impressive. We had that ID requirement introduced way back in the 00s. Even EU countries seem to require an ID now. When I traveled to France and Belgium in 2024, I bought a French tourist sim card, and the carrier kept sending me some rather insistent messages that my line would get disconnected if I don't upload my passp…
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I find most concerning is that this isn't a bill or law. Unelected government officials at the FCC can apparently just decide to do this .
You want to have to vote for every single decision maker in the government?
One of the things that appeals to voters is the argument that too many decisions are made by unaccountable bureaucrats. Trump has been as effective at fixing this as with "drain the damp," and our elected officials clearly haven't been great about writing policy either. But one of the grievances that gets people to vote is "look at all this shit that some guy in Washington just decided."
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the specific proposed rule to reference: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-seeks-comment-enhanced-know...
What I find most concerning is that this isn't a bill or law. Unelected government officials at the FCC can apparently just decide to do this .
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#247Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#248Something about no taxes without representation
Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#249Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
#250No more anonymous driving, thanks to Flock. Soon, no more anonymous calls, thanks to the FCC. Your bank already knows everything about you; why not your operating system, too? Soon your ISP will only let you online if your OS sends them the "right" information: your government ID. We should also abolish cash while we're at it. The government needs to know every purchase you've ever made, no exceptions. Of course, the…
> We should also abolish cash while we're at it. Why do you think all the rich people (and by extension the oligarchy running this country) are pushing Crypto?