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Comment by woodrowbarlow | Hacker News Reader

<tin-foil-hat> ultimately, i think the endgame is to require government ID in order to access internet services in general, a la ender's game. </tin-foil-hat>

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Many countries (including in the EU) already required ID to use a SIM card: https://forestvpn.com/blog/news/countries-sim-card-registrat...

Funnily enough, when the Philippines did this, it was decried as a violation of human rights [1]. But usually, media are so silent on such things I'd call them complicit. One already cannot so much as rent a hotel room anywhere in the EU without showing government ID.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_Registration_Act

I'm in NL and had my wallet fall out of my pocket once at one of the bigger train stations. I realized within ~5 minutes, and basically as soon as I realized got a call from an anonymous number. It was the police, who had found my wallet with my ID in it and were calling me to inform me about it. Luckily I was still at the station and could just meet them and got my wallet back.

I couldn't help but feel extremely creeped out, and my girlfriend still to this day doesn't understand why I felt uneasy about it. "But you got your wallet back!", she says. "Of course the police know your number!". Having 0 privacy has been completely normalized, and I'm afraid we're far too late to do anything about it.

To be fair, your phone number has never been considered private information. You can open any phone book and find that info. They likely just looked up your name in the population register.

yup, and this gives the ability to look up per-citizen location data.

sidebar: i've been trying to raise awareness about "joint communications and sensing" wherever i can lately; many companies involved in 6G standardization (esp. nokia) want the 6G network to use mmWave radio to create realtime 3d environment mappings, aka a "digital twin" of the physical world, aka a surveillance state's wet dream.

https://www.nokia.com/blog/building-a-network-with-a-sixth-s...

Not only rent, but in Spain there is a central database where your details are sucked in real time when you rent a room or a car, and no oversight how this data is used.

You can buy (and top up) a SIM card without an ID in the EU.

That depends on a country and for once there is no visible pattern or usual suspects in who requires it or not

Please walk me from scratch how you would access the internet on your own right now without any form of Government ID

Walk into a coffee shop. Look at the wifi password, usually a sign near the register. Log onto the wifi network using the wifi password. Browse in peace.

Is this sort of flow normal elsewhere? It's certainly normal where I live.

???

I'd walk to a local library and use their wifi. Or walk to a local McDonalds and use their wifi. Or walk to a friend's/family's house and use their wifi. Or...

I know right. There are entire business models where “comfortable place to connect to WiFi” is an important part of the strategy.

I'm in the US. I do have government ID, but I don't recall showing it to my network providers. Certainly, some telcos want a social security number to run credit; but that's often avoidable. I'm pretty sure could also wander down to an electronics store (maybe a grocery/drug store too) and pick up a prepaid cell phone with internet access, pay for it with cash, and get that going without government id in the US. It's a bit of a hike to get to the electronics store from where I live, but I can get part of the way there with the bus that takes cash too.

Prepaid SIM from one of the EU countries that still has them, such as Denmark. Purchase in cash from a kiosk.

Prepaid 5G phone bought with cash and activated by dialing 611.

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