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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

Banks in the US and EU are required to have the identity on file for all bank accounts (ostensibly to combat terrorism), so sharing your phone number with them shouldn’t change the level of privacy. If it is cost people are worried about they can get a prepaid card and never use it except to receive sms. That’s effectively free.

Combined with the push to get rid of anonymous accounts and phone numbers there has also been a push to get rid of cash. I expect to see a time in my lifetime where a country will fully do away with all anonymous forms of payment, effectively making it impossible to be anonymous.

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> sharing your phone number with them shouldn’t change the level of privacy

It's not sharing that is lowering the privacy level, it's having to disclose all the information to the mobile operator, in addition to the hassle of needing an additional contract with a third, unrelated party.

I'm not sure how common it is, but in the UK I've known people who have been forced to use their 'free' SIM or risk having the number revoked and the SIM disabled.

What do you mean? How were they forced to use a number they didn't want? Why would they care if a number they don't what get disabled?

> Why would they care if a number they don't what get disabled?

If you gave it as a security contact number to a financial institution you’d care if it was disabled.

Especially since the number will generally be recycled and given to someone else ...

Eventually. Old numbers are held out of use for, I think, five years before being reissued specifically to address security and privacy issues like this

When I had a prepaid phone you had to buy minutes once a year at minimum otherwise you lost your existing minutes and your number was disabled.

Let's be clear about this. Sorry I didn't make myself clearer in my post that I'd never entertain the idea of doing internet banking from a smartphone or any online PC or other facility (except an auto-teller using my card).

In fact, the last internet banking transaction I would have made would have been at least 10 years ago!

Since the inevitable conclusion is impossibility of being anonymous, I think we should push to ensure full transparency for all. Otherwise, it ends badly for those not in power.

This was John Brunner's solution in Shockwave Rider. So does it work for preventing scammers and telemarketers? I guess it does since you would know who is calling you.

The problem with this is the asymmetry of power relationships - if everything is transparent it is very easy for a powerful group to use that against an individual but much harder the other way around

That’s happening anyway with non transparency. At least with transparency, it can be known, and perhaps acted on.

Exactly. QED.

> I expect to see a time in my lifetime where a country will fully do away with all anonymous forms of payment, effectively making it impossible to be anonymous.

That would mean either the elimination of poverty or a country that so hates its poor, it's willing to remove them from the economy altogether. I highly doubt that will happen, even in the US, where the poor are despised and hated by almost everyone. But then again, you never know.

Many poor people already use digital forms of money. The others will probably have to resort to barter. Money is really hard to kill, though; if cash is unavailable, people will create informal alternatives.

Yeah, fuck them. Just let them resort to barter.

People who assume predictions to be wishes are really tiresome.

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