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Comment by jakebasile | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it's time for me to move providers. This is getting ridiculous, and their service in my area isn't that stellar anyways.

It's just a hassle to move so I stay because of inertia (read: laziness).

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Maybe it's time to regulate privacy to make the retention of personally-identifying information illegal for companies that have no need to retain it. PII should be considered legally radioactive. There's no excuse for a mere wireless carrier to need your SSN.

Or maybe it's time to do away with SSN as a form of authentication. If there is a single person in the US that hasn't had theirs be stolen by now, I'd be shocked.

I can revoke a cert that has been compromised. I don't understand why we don't have a similar procedure set up for my PII.

T-Mobile does not require any identification to get a prepaid phone line. You can submit whatever name you'd like for the line. There's no SSN requested either.

Any requirements imposed at a local store are specific to your State. If you really want to get one without providing any PII, get the line in a different State.

Not providing information is the first step of limiting the blast radius of data leaks.

This is not just about T-mobile. This problem is systemic.

Same. Which provider has the best security track record? I.e. which one has been hacked the least?

https://blog.kraken.com/post/219/security-advisory-mobile-ph...

T-Mobile screams coupon-clipping to me, and that's the entire reason I've avoided it. Sounds stupid, but AT&T has been fine. Worth paying a little more.

Your info probably has been leaked already, so it’s out there, won’t matter if it leaks again lol

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