Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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Is there any reasonable/not a huge pain in the ass way of paying for your phone contract without it being in any way tied to your real identity? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago by communism@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I've gotten prepaid sims for things but obviously that's not really a feasible method for your main life phone.

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[–] blindsight@beehaw.org 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I recall hearing a story about law enforcement identifying an otherwise-anonymous phone by other phones that pinged the same cell towers at the same times. Essentially, the person had two phones on them, so they were able to uniquely identify the individual based on the shared location history of the two devices.

So there's that, too, assuming my memory isn't just some CSI bullshit. (It seems reasonable that this attack vector is technologically possible, though, and it may not matter if it's legal if the identification technique isn't used as evidence in court.)

[–] spectre@aussie.zone 3 points 4 months ago

I believe this was used to some degree in the case of the alleged serial killer Rex Heuerman

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

Reminds me of this doc I watched a couple weeks ago.

TLDW; psyco travelled across the country to kill his mom, then drove back. He bought a burner phone at the start of his trip, but kept his normal phone with him the whole time. The cops were able to track both devices as they each connected to the same cell towers while traveling together from the west coast, to the east coast, and back again.