Man Possessing 100,000 Unregistered SIM Cards Arrested In India(chiphazard.com)
chiphazard.com
Man Possessing 100,000 Unregistered SIM Cards Arrested In India
http://www.chiphazard.com/2011/07/25/man-possessing-100000-unregistered-sim-cards-arrested-india/
9 comments
There may be state-level laws on this, but in general I've never needed to provide authentication to buy a prepaid cell phone. (Although you would need to pay cash to be anonymous). I know that some lawmakers are trying to change this.
See this link: http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=9546 for non-information. Basically unregistered communicaitons are harder for law enforcement to track/monitor/etc. So there will be efforts to make them illegal.
While it's easy to quickly speculate that the only purpose of 100,000 "unregistered" SIM cards is to "do bad things", I have to wonder: Why does a SIM card need to be registered to begin with?
SIM cards need to be registered so that the Indian police can track criminals. Personally I disagree with this. Criminals will disregard this law so it will usually only apply to law abiding citizens. Try explaining that to the Indian CBI though...
Never bought a SIM in India, but if it's anything like, say, Argentina where it takes 30 minutes and several pages of paperwork just to get a SIM... I'd opt to go with the guy that doesn't require all that paperwork too, just to avoid the hassle. Can't jump to the conclusion that all the renters are intent on "doing bad things".
In Portugal you don't have to register or show any documentation to buy a SIM card, and I know it's the same thing at least in The Netherlands. You can buy a prepaid card at any phone store and you can use it right away.
criminal possession of more than an ounce of Schedule 2 dr.... err... integrated circuits.
Interesting that they emphasize the "possession", not that his business itself is, very likely, unlicensed wrt. some law.
Interesting that they emphasize the "possession", not that his business itself is, very likely, unlicensed wrt. some law.
Point is even if your a criminal why do you need 100k sims? The only business which involves so many sims is VoIP
What the hell was he doing with 100k SIM cards?
That's a lot of gmail accounts.
u can expect from india
Yet another claim of "You don't need privacy if you have nothing to hide." Does anyone know if the US requires all SIM cards to be "registered"?