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Comment by at0mic22 | Hacker News Reader

Starting July 1st all SIM cards in Russia need to have the owner register his biometry and passport details, otherwise the number is blocked. Ukrainians had a window to perform this operation but I doubt they'll have the same approach possible in future.

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I think that as far as a security measure this is really up there with the form the US makes you fill out when you visit the country that asks you to tick the box if you are a terrorist.

There are countless ways around this beginning with just asking someone to buy a sim card on your behalf.

You think hacking SIMS is not possible in Russia?

What do you mean by that? Stealing someone's sim? Doable, but detectable.

Detectable after the attack is not very useful. They could even clone high ranking officials’ sims cards or the sims of just any regular folk…

Quite easy to track though, like double sign-ins from different devices, uncommon locations, location and speed matching - like phone going 25mph in the forest.

And you don't need to permablock it, few minutes would be enough.

Implementing what you are proposing would be very disruptive nation implementing them.

Oh it’s already implemented since 2000, with SORM system. Think they are to extend it to give direct FSB access without pre-request starting from 1st of september

An LLM explains that "SORM (System for Operative-Investigative Activities) is a Russian system of lawful interception used in telecommunications. SORM is mandated by Russian law, requiring all telecommunications providers to install interception equipment".

Pretty much yes. Basically FSB can perform MITM attacks any time they want, but it still requires an order.

It does not help a lot with end-to-end encryption though

No hack needed. You just give some change to poor people and register the cards in their name. This just raises the price a bit but does not prevent anything.

It will work for sure, anything can be managed with the money.

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