
Living without a SIM card - jhabdas
https://habd.as/post/living-without-sim-card/
======
kaiwen1
I've been without a SIM for over a year. Here are a few more tips:

\- Google Voice gives you a free number that works anywhere and can be used
for texting and 2FA. (There are some exceptions.)

\- Calling with Google Hangouts is free to some countries, cheap in others,
and can be configured to show your Google Voice number as the caller.
Unfortunately, the call quality cans be pretty bad, definitely worse than,
say, Skype.

\- Google Maps offline works great on iPhone.

It feels liberating to have no SIM. I'm not always reachable, and that's a
good thing. I'm not always connected to the internet, also a good thing. I
usually near urban or suburban areas, so free WiFi is everywhere. When I want
to connect, I connect. Easy.

Along with living without SIMs, my family also has a policy of No Screen Day
(NSD) once a week. We all put our phones, computers, etc in closet at 11pm and
don't touch them until 6am two days later. No TV, no going to movies theaters,
no screens of any kind. We love our NSDs. They cause us to do different kinds
of things, sometimes just read books. It usually the best day of the week.

~~~
gormandizer
I'm inclined to argue that ditching a SIM card in favor of Google voice is
simply trading one form of "Surveillance Capitalism" for another.

~~~
jhabdas
The misperception I feel many of us have - myself included - is basic privacy
means nondisclosure. I don't personally trust Google, nor do I have a Google
account. But if I were to have a Google account I'd rather share my data -
whatever it was I chose to share, which should always be opt-in - with
Google's nemesis (Huawei?) and let let them pay us to fight over it.

~~~
TurkishPoptart
Which email service do you prefer? I'd like to transfer away from gmail.

~~~
thefunnyman
Not the person you asked but protonmail has worked well for me and seems to be
widely recommend. There's some small Gmail features I miss like individually
addressable Android notifications but I don't regret the switch.

------
chewz
I envy the OP. Unfortunately since September 2019 living without SIM card
became (practically) illegal in EU.

> most online payments above €30 to go through an extra level of verification
> such as entering a code received via a text message. [2]

Most banks unwisely chosen SMS as Strong Customer Authentication providing
little choice to customers.

[https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/payment-services-
psd-2-directi...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/payment-services-
psd-2-directive-eu-2015-2366_en)

[2]
[https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/psd2](https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/psd2)

~~~
Joeri
Banks in the US and EU are required to have the identity on file for all bank
accounts (ostensibly to combat terrorism), so sharing your phone number with
them shouldn’t change the level of privacy. If it is cost people are worried
about they can get a prepaid card and never use it except to receive sms.
That’s effectively free.

Combined with the push to get rid of anonymous accounts and phone numbers
there has also been a push to get rid of cash. I expect to see a time in my
lifetime where a country will fully do away with all anonymous forms of
payment, effectively making it impossible to be anonymous.

~~~
jowsie
I'm not sure how common it is, but in the UK I've known people who have been
forced to use their 'free' SIM or risk having the number revoked and the SIM
disabled.

~~~
ddalex
What do you mean? How were they forced to use a number they didn't want? Why
would they care if a number they don't what get disabled?

~~~
koolba
> Why would they care if a number they don't what get disabled?

If you gave it as a security contact number to a financial institution you’d
care if it was disabled.

~~~
xorcist
Especially since the number will generally be recycled and given to someone
else ...

~~~
funnybeam
Eventually. Old numbers are held out of use for, I think, five years before
being reissued specifically to address security and privacy issues like this

------
Ayesh
If saving money is the reason, go for a prepaid card. German/Dutch prepaid
cards have far long credit life. I travel full-time nowadays and I can use my
KPN number for less than €1 per year.

German Alditalk credit lasts 24 months IIRC, and topping up extends the credit
shelf life.

Pretty much every SIM card has free incoming SMS when roaming. USSD are also
free with some carriers.

Losing SIM card is less of a hassle with eSIMs.

Perhaps other than tracking concerns, I'm totally not convinced with the
reasoning.

~~~
ferzul
A German/Dutch sim card doesn't help someone living in Indonesia/Malaysia.

Also, the fact that the credit lasts 24 months before they steal it for not
using it is meaningless, since life with a sim that has no data and makes no
outgoing calls or sms is almost identical to life without a sim, except for
the tracking and the ability to be found by others.

So i think it completely misses the message.

~~~
Ayesh
You can receive unlimited amount of SMSs for free.

------
dangus
To me, the price paid to a cellular provider is actually preferable to relying
on other people's WiFi networks.

Using someone else's WiFi isn't a security advantage, it's the opposite.
You're bumming off of someone's network and not even paying them - so who
knows what their motivations might be. Who knows if the network that the SSID
claims to be is _actually_ that network.

Is Starbucks Free WiFi actually run by Starbucks or is it a malicious router
placed in the same vicinity? I don't actually know until I connect.

I would suggest the alternative of using a pay-as-you-go plan on a SIM card,
something that doesn't cost a lot with low usage. If you want to be more
disconnected you can simply turn on airplane mode. In almost any country in
the world you can pay less than $10/month to maintain a phone line and SIM
card.

~~~
sandworm101
>> Is Starbucks Free WiFi actually run by Starbucks or is it a malicious
router placed in the same vicinity?

Both. The Starbuck Free WiFi is _also_ a malicious router. All routers should
be seen as malicious. That threat model is why we have secure websites. That's
why VPNs are always a good idea, or Tor if you are really worried. But even
then, those routers too must be deemed untrustworthy. At no point should one
ever trust middlemen, be them routers or used car salesmen.

~~~
Nextgrid
The entire Internet is based on routers aka middlemen. Even your VPN provider
is a middleman.

If I had to choose, I'd trust a known compromised access point that doesn't
know my identity over Yet Another VPN provider to whom I paid money and gave
valid billing details.

Both are shady, at least the first only gets small bits of traffic that happen
to be unencrypted here and there and doesn't have my identity and can only
snoop when I'm at the location of the AP, the other one has my valid identity
and billing details, e-mail address and happens to snoop on me _all the time_
I have the VPN on regardless of my physical location.

~~~
jhabdas
VPN services such as Mullvad (and I believe Nord as well) accept cash and
crypto in exchange for their service. And both allow WireGuard, which is
coming to the 5.6 Linux Kernel. Additionally, Mullvad has no referral model in
place to attempt to track individuals via social graphs.

------
hasfhashdahsd
So you freed yourself of the hassle of paying for a SIM, but constantly rely
on others who have a SIM to get around?

German Freenet Funk offers one-day-one-euro prepaid SIM; you can cancel any
day.

Satellite.me gives you a German mobile number through an app for free (SMS
support is in alpha, though).

------
grecy
Five years ago I quit my Software Engineering job, and I got rid of my dumb
phone. I've not had a SIM since. My sister gave me her ~4 year old HTC One
phone, which I take out and power on about once a month to use as an alarm or
use google authentication or some such.

I'm a person who is a little addicted to the internet, so for me I think of it
like an alcoholic not walking into bars - I'd be that guy constantly reaching
for my phone in social situations, so it's simply better if I avoid the
temptation and just don't have one.

A few thoughts:

\- Yes, I occasionally ask humans for directions. It's actually kind of novel
and always starts a conversation.

\- I had to talk to my bank for an hour to let me use email as my verification
option. Works fine now.

\- I have wifi at home, so I have tons of contact with my family using my
laptop and video chat, messenger, etc. I spend more than enough time online.

\- I have a large social media presence, but it never 'bothers' me. I do it
for 15 minutes a day on my laptop, then I put it away and I never get a single
notification during the day.

\- I thoroughly enjoy sitting in a bar or other social setting and looking
around the table to see who wants to make eye contact and talk vs. who is
staring at their phone. Many times I'm the only person at a large table not
using a phone.

\- Sometimes I miss out on social stuff because friends are organizing on
whatsapp or even messenger an I don't open my laptop so I don't see it. I
honestly think this wouldn't change if I had a phone, because I'd turn off
notifications and only look at it a few times a day.

\- I've saved a lot of money over the years

\- It certainly is inconvenient at times, and I'm currently flirting with the
idea of getting a SIM for the old HTC so I can take creit card payments. So be
it. I probably won't install any apps.

------
goblin89
> …it's the only thing which has prevented me from having to continually make
> international calls from a friends phone

By relying on other people it is possible to do without many things.

However, unless you have other ways of signaling sufficient status or wealth
(such as being a digital nomad living abroad in a lower income country),
people you continuously rely on for essentials might start treating you with a
little less respect.

~~~
njitbew
My sister’s former boyfriend used to carry a phone without a SIM. His mom
ended up calling my sister or our landline to check up on her son. It was
annoying AF.

Feel free to live off the grid, but please make sure you don’t leech off of
those around you.

~~~
neiman
> His mom ended up calling my sister or our landline to check up on her son.
> It was annoying AF.

What you call "annoying AF" was reality for many many years, and yet people
were not constantly annoyed..

~~~
Spooky23
It was a different time. The cost of communication is near zero, so if you
can’t be bothered, people get annoyed.

~~~
ken
I would say this demonstrates that the cost of communication is _not_ near
zero.

------
paper-boat
I've also tried going SIM-less for a few years. Wifi hotspots are frequently
around you rarely find yourself in a situation needing a data plan.

But the main problem is 2FA many services force you to use now.

Going without a data plan is wonderful, but every now and then, having a
couple minutes are SMS services is great.

~~~
kome
I lived SIM free basically all my adult life, but I had to buy a SIM last
September, because a new European banking regulation that requires 2FA.

SMS 2FA is a joke tho.

~~~
Ayesh
> SMS 2FA is a joke tho. Yes, everyone knows. But it's better than nothing.

~~~
ryukafalz
Not always. If the provider can be social engineered into granting you access
to the account after proving access to that number then I’m not sure “better
than nothing” is that solid.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
It's potentially worse than nothing because you can steal someone's sim card
and then use that to reset their account password. This is because (as in
almost every company that uses text messages for 2fa) you use the sms to
authenticate the reset.

------
whorleater
This is modern minimalism to its peak: getting rid of your stuff by relying on
others

~~~
luckylion
Wasn't that modern minimalism from the get-go?

~~~
teddyh
It has been so ever since Thoreau lived at Walden Pond and waxed poetically of
self-reliance and living alone, but had his mother take care of washing his
clothes.

------
dathinab
My First reaction was that it sounds awesome and I want to try it for a view
month.

Then I realized that most German delivery services require a phone number and
email address (like when you order a new shelf or phone or computer or ...).

Then I realized that the messenger I use to communicate with my family bases
identity on the phone number (not my choice, but nothing I can easily change).

Then I realize that my main relevant usage is to get live information about
public transport.

Well I guess I'm not quite ready for it yet maybe when I managed to convince
everyone to switch to a non phone number based messenger.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
> Then I realized that the messenger I use to communicate with my family bases
> identity on the phone number

It is only required upon registration or a change of a phone. Most messengers
don't require (nor really have a way of figuring out) whether you have the
same simcard in the phone, or whether you have a simcard in it at all.

~~~
icebraining
In fact, I used to use Whatsapp on a WiFi-only tablet. The Simcard was on a
featurephone that didn't have any support for installing apps.

------
eeZah7Ux
Nobody is pointing at the elephant in the room:

GSM, WiFi, TCP/IP, SIM cards, debit cards could provide strong privacy for
everybody by default.

Requiring random, temporary, untracked addresses by law is possible and
achievable.

Yet, society accepts corporate surveillance for the masses and privacy for the
powerful and wealthy.

------
torh
Without a SIM card it would be a lot harder to do my taxes, access my online
bank, check my insurance, etc., because the SIM card is used to veriy my
identity using a solution called BankID.
([https://www.bankid.no/en/company/](https://www.bankid.no/en/company/)) It's
a lot easier then the alternative with OTP codes, especially since BankID is
now supported by a lot of different sites and services. From government,
banking, phone companies, etc.

~~~
pjc50
How has Norway solved the "slamming" problem, where attackers ring the phone
company and get a duplicate SIM?

~~~
kiloreven
The BanID SIM-application has to be installed over the air and activated
through online banking. It's bound to one physical SIM, so an attacker would
need to get into the online banking in the first place to reinstall the SIM
app onto the new card. I believe the auth keys are stored on the SIM as part
of this solution, and regenerated every time it's reactivated, invalidating
the existing SIM.

~~~
wtmt
How does this actually work on something like iOS, which I believe is a lot
more restrictive and may not allow access to the SIM except through carrier
services (which are in turn susceptible to attacks, including bribes, social
engineering, etc.)?

~~~
kiloreven
The carrier is involved in transmitting and triggering the challenge as well,
and I'm pretty confident that it works on iOS, though I've never tried myself.

The authentication works like this:

1\. User fills out form with enough public and semi-private infoemation to
securely identify the user (usually phone number and date of birth or social
security number) 2\. The user is presented with a random two-word string 3\.
The same message appears on the user's phone. If the words are the same, the
user proceeds to input a PIN. The PIN is only stored on the SIM, and is chosen
by the user. 4\. A response is sent from the phone and the user gets logged
in.

I assume that the challenge response employs asymmetric authentication,
storing a private key for the SIM and public key for BankID on the SIM.

I'm not familiar enough with how the underlying crypto works to guess what
kind of attacks they'd be suceptible to, but considering that the
authentication is used for most public services in Norway (including taxes,
welfare, medical records and document signing) as well as some private
services (banking, insurance), I'll believe that the proper due diligence has
been done.

There is a big focus on using these platforms securely, and BankID recently
ran an at campaign with some TV spots, telling how people should never share
their BankID login, not even with their loved ones - [https://youtu.be/OFJmX7A
--w4](https://youtu.be/OFJmX7A--w4)

------
rook24
What about [https://crypton.sh](https://crypton.sh)? I saw they do SIM cards
(also with encrypted storage), servers in Iceland and privacy stuff.

~~~
jhabdas
"CRYPTOCURRENCIES SUPPORTED", says the page. I cannot wait to try this.

------
dktalks
I would say that this does not work in third world countries and the author
also mentions this subtly by saying.

>>If you're in Southeast Asia and in need a taxi service, you can ask someone
to hail you a Grab. I've done this numerous times in Kuala Lumpur by kindly
asking Coffee shop baristas. The feeling of moving around without your
whereabouts being constantly beamed into a database can be quite liberating.

Imagine asking strangers to book you a cab in a country you cannot speak the
language of.

While these countries and all first world countries have the ability to hail
cabs for instance, asking strangers is basically not the way anyone goes
because they don't have a sim card. For example, I do use a data-only SIM in a
country I am visiting right now from Google Fi just to do basic things like
ordering an Uber, checking bus timings etc.

However, I cannot without a local number 1\. Order Food Online 2\. Get Any
services which require mobile number valid in the country for any services

I am used to doing all this because I have a phone number in my country, but
can't do this in another country, because logistics involve delays and they
have to be communicated and a local number is the best way to do it. Without
wide-spread messaging only services which work out of the box for every app
there is no way any establishment can contact you.

Everything is a step in the right direction, for example, people would call on
WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger etc, but you don't expect micro-economy people in
third world countries to have the skills to do that, they will want a phone
number to do it.

------
peterburkimsher
I live without 3G on my phone, though I still have a SIM card for receiving
"emergency" calls. I haven't topped it up though, so I can't call out.

It's been wonderful to make me focus on face to face conversations with
people, rather than checking notifications all the time. I ask them to add me
on Facebook, or make a note of their email address. If I can get online, I use
mbasic.facebook.com with no ads, which loads quickly on an old phone.

My phone wakes me up with an alarm, but I'm not flooded with depressing Apple
News first thing in the morning.

On the bus, I read books (the Bible and others, Edward Snowden's autobiography
last year, currently The Shockwave Rider). I also browse offline Wikipedia
(personally Wiki2Touch, but I've heard good things about Kiwix). I use Galileo
Offline Maps with MOBAC-scraped tiles, without turn by turn directions.

Battery life is significantly better without 3G, and makes the old iPhone 4S
quite usable.

Google Voice is often allowed for 2FA, and I use that when I need to receive
SMS (e.g. TransferWise).

I could go without a SIM card entirely, but for the rare occasions when I do
need to receive a call (e.g. I agree a place and time to meet someone, and
they're late), then I still keep it in my phone.

It worries me to read that the US immigration department are using anonymised
cell tower histories to trace people, but I don't know if removing the SIM
card would solve that.

~~~
llampx
> I live without 3G on my phone

> My phone wakes me up with an alarm, but I'm not flooded with depressing
> Apple News first thing in the morning.

So you turn off wi-fi before going to bed?

~~~
wtmt
Not GP, but I turn off WiFi completely (not the intermediate “disconnecting
nearby WiFi until tomorrow”) so that I control when I’m connected and when I’m
not.

------
overgard
If it's for privacy, wouldn't a burner phone make more sense?

Otherwise leaching off everyone around you to save a bit of money... seems
like it would get old pretty quickly

~~~
smoovb
The 2 device solution seems best. One device for connectivity and essentials,
the other device for personal stuff.

Prepaid sims are so cheap, can't see how this is about saving money.

~~~
reportgunner
I have been using this for the past two years and I'm very happy.

One dumbphone with 5-7 days battery life that does only SMS and Voice calls.

One smartphone that I use for browsing, google authenticator, twitter and some
apps and occasionally as a hotspot.

Usually the battery dies in either of those, not in both at the same time.
This means that when my phone dies I'm left with either only SMS and Voice or
only Internet.

Both phones have dual SIM support so I can keep swapping the prepaid SIMs when
needed.

------
MarkusWandel
A reasonable compromise is to just have a SIM card with a basic prepaid phone
(and SMS) plan but no data. Lots of people I know do that. Phone is online at
home, in the workplace, at restaurants etc, and you can communicate.

------
cproctor
Getting rid of my SIM card is attractive to me for financial and political
reasons, but it would not be compatible with my loved ones' expectations that
I be reachable in an emergency. Here's a compromise I have been thinking
about; I wonder if anyone has experience making it work (or knows why it
won't) on an unlocked iPhone 6:

    
    
        - Buy a pay-as-you-go SIM card with support for SMS and data, but no voice, for when I'm not on WIFI. 
        - When I am on WIFI, use VOIP for calling, and SMS and data as usual.
    

Possible challenges/questions I need to research more:

    
    
        - Will iPhone permit a SIM card without voice?
        - Can I receive SMS via WIFI when connected and via the burner SIM otherwise?
        - What service should I use for VOIP when connected, and for accepting voicemails when not connected?
        - I know Apple overlays its iMessages over SMS (which causes terrible headaches when someone switches from iPhone to Android, and no longer receives iMessages). How should I manage this?

~~~
cproctor
It looks like I can get most of this through Twilio if I'm willing to do some
programming. One issue will be that Twilio is blocked from some 2-factor-
authentication systems.

------
neilkakkar
Not trolling: How does your life feel different knowing your data is not being
stored in some database?

Losing out on all those conveniences sounds miserable to me.

~~~
deugtniet
It's called peace of mind. Some people worry about their privacy being
violated. Without the sim, there is less tracking, so less to worry about.

~~~
sarakayakomzin
>It's called peace of mind

Is it? because from my perspective you've taken yourself out of a few
databases (AT&T / Verizon / Telco) and plopped yourself into a few other
databases (2nd Line, Grab) without having a whole lot of benefit.

------
acd
Being offline is good for your privacy and training concentration span.

------
nmstoker
One major advantage is the impact on phone battery life - partly because
various services aren't repeatedly pinging over the mobile network (especially
in "notspots"), WiFi tends not to burn through battery. And partly because it
tends to change your behaviour to do more focused things (the phone isn't
constantly trying to distract you as it often can't, so you don't then waste
time and power on these distractions).

I don't think I'd abandoned a SIM card in the near future but having used my
old phone without the SIM as an alternate for my new phone on a few occasions,
the old phone battery went from being awful to lasting way longer than my
brand new phone of comparable specs.

~~~
Ayesh
You can always use the phone on flight mode (to turn off radio), and
selectively turn on GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc).

~~~
RupertEisenhart
Flight mode is the only way of living

------
hilbert42
My smartphones NEVER have SIM cards in them—as I'm not that stupid so as to
become just another easy target of surveillance capitalism! Instead, they
connect by Wi-Fi to external portable routers that do have SIMs installed in
them. As such, these phones can connect to the internet but cannot be used be
used to make telephone calls. Thus, there cannot be any cross-reference
between my actual telephone number and my internet activity.

In addition, my smartphones use LineageOS without any Google Apps (GApps)
installed and their browsers always have JavaScript disabled. Right, I have
absolutely no need for social media, Facebook etc, and I never use any of
Google's services such as Gmail—except perhaps search via an anonymous
metasearch engines such as DuckDuckGo.

So how do I actually communicate? I use a separate dumb phone that has no
internet access.

Oh, BTW, I never order stuff online via a smartphone, nor do I use smartphones
for email.

So, am I a Luddite? Definitely not, I've always been a high tech worker, I was
an early adopter of mobile phone technology, and I had one of Motorola's
"bricks" the moment they came on the market decades ago. Moreover, if you saw
the complex configurations of my smartphones and the ways they have been
rooted (with the latest Magisk super-user software, LineageOS and firewall
configurations to stop app software phoning home) then you'd realize I'm more
a mobile communications platform than a person with a smartphone).

You may well ask why do I go to such lengths. It's principle really: as I see
it, when I bought my first Motorola "brick" the telephone service was
essentially anonymous with the option of users being listed in the telephone
directory. Since then governments have deregulated and sold out our phone
systems to Big Tech without any of us users ever having had a say in the
matter—the damn hide of them! Nowadays, not only has Big Tech (Google,
Facebook, Microsoft etc.) usurped our internet but they've also fucked our
phone networks by actually integrating their corporations' businesses into our
telephone systems—and they've essentially done so without anyone's permission.

~~~
jhabdas
Best comment in the thread. Thanks for keeping it real, chief.

~~~
hilbert42
Thank you Sir.

------
valgeirg
use tor, brave, vpn whatever. use prepaid unregistered sim. get online when
you want, live :-) or just cut off you leg to fix your toe.

~~~
AdrianB1
Getting a prepaid unregistered SIM is no longer possible in an increasing
number of countries. I think most of Europe requires identification to buy a
prepaid SIM.

~~~
wh1t3n01s3
Have you ever heard of LycaMobile?

~~~
dtmf-io
Most likely they have heard of the MVNO/"service reseller" LycaMobile, but how
does that respond to their comment at all? LycaMobile still require you to
register your ID with them in countries that have that rule.

------
ppafin
Mobile without cellular and therefore without SIM:
[https://github.com/xxlsec/proteusdevice/wiki](https://github.com/xxlsec/proteusdevice/wiki)

------
Mike_Andreuzza
I had been living without a sim card for almost 2 years, and just use wifi.
Loved it. No I have to because I am starting my own company and have no
choice, otherwise I would have removed tphone completely.

But I will do it

------
joshlk
What the point? It’s so much hassle for no reason. If you want to be not
dependent on something then don’t use a smart phone. But having a smart phone
without a SIM seems the worse of both worlds.

~~~
icebraining
Why? Smartphones are just pocket-sized computers. Does a computer really need
a cellular modem to be useful?

~~~
hilbert42
A good point that I've not made in my post above. When people learn that I've
no SIM card in my smartphones they inevitably remark why bother having one.
The fact is smartphones are excellent computers and I use them as such all the
time in applications where cellular modems aren't necessary.

------
peterwwillis
Oof. I honestly don't know which is less secure: SMS or e-mail confirmation.
_Probably_ the former, but the latter is probably easy to downgrade into
plaintext, and can/does does go through random middle boxes. You can add
mitigations all over the _client_ but I'm not aware of any requirement for
strong authn+z in the protocol.

As a _second factor_ , SMS is better, _unless_ that 2FA e-mail is allowed to
be different from your primary e-mail, and you only every sign into it from
your phone.

------
reportgunner
> _Finally, relax. The world isn 't going to end if you don't respond to every
> message instantly. And your friends and family will come to know you weren't
> actually trying to ignore them when you didn't respond right away._

So much this. Applies to IMs as well.

------
dmos62
I used a dumb phone until recently. It was only possible, because my partner's
phone could fulfil both of our "smart" needs. It's not easy to get around
that. If there's just 1 service that requires a smartphone that you can't do
without, you have to get one.

~~~
nicky0
An iPod touch or iPad/Tablet will also suffice to access most "app only"
services.

------
markus_zhang
Living without SIM Card is actually quite doable (I haven't made phone calls
for a while and non of previous ones was mandatory), and you can always get a
number using IP Phone or something else.

Living without Internet, on the other hand...

------
thorwasdfasdf
I have plan that only costs me 8$ a month. I get 150 min, 150 text messages
and no Data. it's USmobile, they're awesome. i have no affiliation with them
other than being a customer.

------
saint_angels
What if mobile operator can give you a fixed mobile number, and periodically
changing ones, that forward SMS/calls to fixed one? Give fixed number to
relatives, variable to fb. Would you pay for this service?

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Probably. But the whole thing is, I don't want every service to use my mobile
number to track me as I register for my grocery card frequent customer (10
cents of lettuce), I want that to be anonymous. Instead it's not, they must be
centralizing that. I want something like a virtual sms provider on my phone
that (1) protects my privacy (ha), (2) hands out virtual sms numbers for
services. It knows that at say costco I'm sms number 1234, and at safeway I'm
sms number 456. I use the app on my phone to manage this. Another user on this
service gets a different number at safeway than I do (but it's unique for
them). Because there aren't an infinite number of these, the numbers the
service has get randomly shared among the users. So someone else would
eventually get 456 for a service that use, but it's not "me".

------
jhabdas
Be the burden you wish to see in the world.
[https://getsession.org/](https://getsession.org/)

------
Shalle135
He mention the risk of having stuff injected in the header while being
connected to an isp. But doesn’t care about public hotspots? Personally I
would rather trust a couple ISP’s than random hotspots.

~~~
madamelic
Nor the fact that they recommend using free services that monetize through
ads, especially call and text providers.

Any free service should ring major, major alarms for any one advocating for
privacy.

~~~
icebraining
On the other hand, any paid service _must_ be tracking you, at least for
billing purposes, whereas you might be able to reduce the tracking that free
services do.

------
runesor
In Norway (and rest of the world for all i know) banks offer ID auth which is
linked to your SIM for online banking. Are there any similar service available
without SIM?

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melling
When I travel overseas, if I can’t get a cheap SIM and data plan, I’m living
for days trying to find public WiFi.

Colombia has lots of free WiFi in parks, for example. We should be doing this
everywhere.

~~~
dtmf-io
The problem is that free public WiFi is wildly variable in quality, whereas 4G
is usually quite good. Most of the time I just tether even if there's WiFi
available since I can use my data plan in most countries and the WiFi is
usually disappointing.

Also, many countries now require public hotspots to verify the user by getting
them to receive an SMS. In some countries it even has to be a local number,
because they have compulsory SIM registration, so requiring a local number
lets them tie the Internet usage to an identity.

------
Kipters
For maps: Here Wego (new name for HERE Maps) can work completely offline once
you download the necessary maps (even directions).

It's been a lifesaver in the pre-EU-roaming era

------
T_ADD
Can only wish i could do that but working for a local telco i have to have a
"live" SIM all the time. Because i do callouts 24/7

------
spicyramen
Good luck if you have young kids and a wife

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dana321
I first thought this might be about eSIM; the electronic SIM that doesn't
require a physical SIM card.

~~~
smoovb
Your phone sees this as normal SIM and connects to cell towers in the same
way, so not sure what this achieves?

------
Causality1
>The feeling of moving around without your whereabouts being constantly beamed
into a database can feel quite liberating.

Hate to break it to you buddy but you're still being tracked and your database
updates every time you connect to wifi. Frankly you're being tracked much more
precisely than I am with my GPS and wifi turned off.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Not true if your phone randomizes your mac address. Comes automatically on my
phone. The next level is services on your phone logging in an saying "hey this
is fred", you have to block that. Which thing were you referring to?

------
therealmarv
and how not to be independent. The essence is to be sometimes/often dependent
on other people.

------
Broken_Hippo
Some of the inconveniences listed aren't really a thing: For example, you can
use google services on devices with no sim so long as you have it connected to
wifi. I figured this out because i had a new phone that wouldn't accept the
SIM size, so I carried both that and the working phone with the sim for a
short time. Google Maps and Open street maps works offline, but you need to be
online to, say, get driving directions. Google will still give turn-by-turn
directions offline, though. It simply won't have the same features of your
choice of maps.

I think facebook still works so long as you have signed up from a computer,
but I might be wrong. I've only considered having it on my tablet (that has
never had a sim), but never bothered to install it on my phone.

So many things depend more on the device being on the internet (through
whatever means) than having the sim card. The main thing you need it for is
phone calls, SMS, and roaming internet - and sometimes, banking, but not
always. I've realized this because my phone has roaming internet turned off by
defaut - I use wifi as my primary phone internet and as it turns out, I pay
minimal amounts for the phone (I'm not willing to go without, even though it
is rarely used).

~~~
josteink
> For example, you can use google services on devices with no sim

Considering there have been WiFi-only Android tablets since _forever_ this
cannot possibly be news to anyone?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's news to me, I thought you needed (in the UK) a phone number to register
with Google. They send you a text message as part of onboarding (or did last I
tried). That's common to most online social apps now, perhaps all of them?

~~~
NotSammyHagar
they have a kind of dark login pattern where it looks like you have to use
phone number but you don't have to at least in my country.

