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Comment by _DeadFred_ | Hacker News Reader

Burner phones aren't safe. Security through obscurity worked with the 1990s cell network but not with today's vast logging/geolocation tagging.

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The idea is that they can’t tie the phone to a person. You also have to make sure you don’t get the burner phone some place with cameras.

While true, I'm kinda wondering if that's even possible ...

Once the phone is on, they can tie it to a person with geolocation. Either directly if you do it at home, or indirectly when traveling in a vehicle associated with you.

The rule is that you don’t use your burner phone at home, you use it when you are at the protest.

If you have two phones both turned on and they both move around similarly, they can be associated later.

They also tell you to keep one off until you get to the place. Never have both phones on at the same time.

This is all well documented

https://www.offgridweb.com/preparation/burner-phone-basics-h...

This is advice for a world that doesn’t exist any more and hasn’t for a long time. The only thing you are going to do following this advice is to stand out immediately amongst a sea of data that you are someone who is taking very unusual security measures and worthy of a closer look. It’s a very easy to identify signature and it’s very literally the opposite of what you should be doing in 2025.

Buy a burner phone with cash without taking your main phone and stash it somewhere. Then, before protest, take phone from stash and bring it with you

Sure the phone can't be tied to a person. But try getting phone service in the US without giving away your identity. Can't be done.

Can you still buy phones with sim cards that don't require ID to get working? Not in Europe, UAE or Australia.

> Not in Europe

In Estonia, you could buy a prepaid SIM card in a convenience shop a few years ago, without any sort of ID verification. Not sure if that’s still an option but I think it’s not a priority there. You can then use it all over the EU.

And of course, buying a phone without a contract doesn’t require ID either.

Anonymous prepaid cards still available in any corner shop

The countries I am familiar with in Europe (NL to name one) you can buy sim cards without any ID. Additionally there's at least 1 provider I know of that's giving them away for free while for the majority you pay 1-5 EUR but get some data after activation. There's no limit on how many you can purchase at once either.

Some countries still allow that: https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist...

Just break your phone in two part after your call and you'll be safe /s

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