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  • From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Anonymous cell phones (pay-as-you-go) being dis-allowed
  • Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:17:43 -0700 (PDT)

They always start this stuff in UK, there are also articles , same thing in
India, saudi Arabia, will be here soon........
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"Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, faces a revolt from her senior officials
over plans to build a central database holding information on every telephone
call, e-mail and internet visit made in the UK. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969361.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

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"UK’s Mobile Phone register will require passport to buy PAYG handset
Published by Ewan on Monday 20th October 2008, 12:17 | Related | Filed


You can’t be too careful.

And, er, since it’s electronic, it’s trackable. So let’s track it!

So goes the thinking behind the latest plans here in the UK to protect the
nation.

If you buy a mobile phone on contract, your identity is already confirmed.

If you buy a mobile phone on PAYG — Pay As You Go — you don’t need to prove
your identity.

Ergo huge, huge breeding ground for terrorists. Apparently.

With 72% of Vodafone’s almost 19 million UK customers earmarked as potential
terrorists , it’s essential that they’re all passported the next time they
buy a handset, right?

It’s time for rolling of eyes and acceptance with a wry smile.

The Times of London has the details.

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their
identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively
the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of
identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks
the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in
Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and
crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the
names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with
Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m
prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do
not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.

I hardly think this is going to be very useful for the tracking of would-be
terrorists. Tracking guns, drugs and hand grenades might be a little bit more
effective.

Still.

Everyone needs a mobile phone, right? Even would-be-terrorists. Who will need
to show their fake ID to buy a handset.

Or who will simply steal registered PAYG handsets to make their calls. Like
stealing cars.

Or who will buy unlocked handsets from abroad.

Or who will simply use the millions of unregistered PAYG handsets already in
the country. There’s plenty of them.

I suppose this could potentially be useful. If you think someone’s going to
attack, say, the Houses of Parliament (goodness knows what the folk at GCHQ
are thinking of all the keywords in this post already… WARNING WARNING!), and
you think the baddie is in the vicinity… simply fire up your black boxes and
list every handset operational within 5 miles of the location.

THEN filter out all the ones that are registered to (apparently) real people.
With apparent real IDs.

Then you’ll — theoretically — be left with a list of unregistered baddies.
Some of which will be 62 year old Mavis, the cleaner, who hasn’t changed her
handset for 14 years… and ideally — at least from the point of the
anti-terrorist chaps — you should also see some suspicious looking
possible-nasty folk that want locking up for 42 days.

This kind of privacy-creep is inevitable.

And I suppose, from a commerce viewpoint, if you have to introduce it into
the industry, now’s the time to do it — when the industry is mature.

Think through the ramifications. Every MVNO is going to have a total arse.
You’ll no longer be able to walk into huge retailer, Argos, and buy a phone.
They simply don’t have the infrastructure to check IDs.

Neither does the likes of Tesco or your average petrol (”Gas”) station where
these things are being flogged as impulse purchases. None of these retailers
are going to want to faff about with ID recording.

I suppose retailers could insist you purchase with a Switch/Maestro (”Bank
Card”) or Credit Card — that way all purchases are theoretically trackable.

But I reckon what the intelligence agencies really want is to be able to type
in a mobile phone number and… woosh… within 2 seconds, have the owner’s
identity up on screen together with cross-referenced frequently called
numbers (and their IDs) and so on.

I’d just like to specify that I work in the mobile industry, right? So when
you’re pulling up 07769 658 104, finding the ID Ewan MacLeod and finding that
I have an account on *every* network and oodles of handsets, I’d like that
displayed. Better still, could you cross reference that with a series of
posts from Mobile Industry Review, proving it?

And that record for the Motorola RAZR back a few years ago? Don’t judge me.
It was just a phase I was going through…"




http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/10/uks_mobile_phone_register_will_require_passport_to_buy_payg_handset.html





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  • [Homestead] Anonymous cell phones (pay-as-you-go) being dis-allowed, bob ford, 10/27/2008

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