Hacker News Reader

Comment by btgeekboy | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, no mention of those of us who traveled abroad to Australia somewhat recently and got an Optus SIM.

Optus are trying to contact everyone that's been impacted, and it sounds like it's only a small percentage of their total customer base. So at this stage you may be fine.

"a small percentage"

Yeah, 2.x% sounds like a small percentage of the ~10M records.

It's still 2.x million people's records.

That last sentence - the answer is an order of magnitude smaller.

2.x% of 10M is ~200,000 not ~2 million.

Yeah my math sucks -- off by one (order of magnitude) error.

Also the 2 million number was what I had heard in the news, seems the number is actually 3.8 million records having a document number, according to this screenshot[1]

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-27/optus-data-breach-cyb...

i assume for people buying prepaid roaming sims or whatever there's no personal data? or is this not the case?

ACMA [1] state you just need name, DOB, and address for prepaid service.

Post-paid generally is a lot stricter e.g. most telcos want 100 points of ID with at least one primary document such as driver's license or passport [2]. Not sure if that's a legislative requirement though, or just good business practice.

[1] https://www.acma.gov.au/acmas-rules-id-checks-prepaid-mobile...

[2] https://www.telstra.com.au/support/account-payment/id-check-...

Post-paid involves a credit-check. That's what they're using the ID for.

They won't let you open a post-paid account if you've got a history of non-payment.

I understand that, I had been under the impression there was also legislation requiring telcos to verify customer identity (so you couldn't have an anonymous phone plan, or easily have one under a false identity). But I can't seem to find it, or it may not have been real to begin with.

In the 10k leak, there were 151 overseas passports included.

So about 1-2%.

All sims need personal data - otherwise overseas could be a loophole to get a ghost sim.

"ghost sim" damn they really sold y'all that koolaid huh? in America anyone can go buy an el cheapo prepaid sim at a gas station with no ID, in cash, and it's not a "ghost sim" it's just a prepaid phone (or a burner if you're fearmongering). i hate terms like this that beg the question that the default state is the government knowing who you are and anything else is a "ghost" sim/gun/whatever and is "dangerous".

*>ghost sim

Do all countries require a ton of personal info to get a sim?

Why do we accept it as a given that the government must know who owns a phone? Is this necessary?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com