An almost throwaway sentence in the paper stood out to me:

>Because transactions take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Eventually criminals will learn, as some terrorists have, that mobile phones and crime don't mix well.

Well, except for IEDs.

Even then, one has to pick a carrier carefully; I've heard that at least one person blew themselves up with a promotional text message from carrier.

Source?

Mark I Eardrum. I heard it from someone.

That someone was probably retelling this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351673/Spam-text-me....

The same technique has caught bank robbers in the US: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/how-cell-tower-du...

If they were smart enough to do all that micro hardware hacking, why did they use persistent SIM cards?

>Because transactions take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Because political rallies take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Because visits to planned parenthood take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Because Alcoholics Anonymous meetings take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Because worship services take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Because union meetings take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Because gun shows take place at well-defined geographic locations and at well-defined moments in time, intersecting the IMSIs of SIM cards present near the crime scenes immediately revealed the perpetrators’ SIM card details.

Who else feels safe?

Something something ballot box, something something bullets? Is that where this is going?

Politically correct people, people who don't care and people who don't understand.

Which is why real-names policies are a bad thing.

What does this have to do with real-names policies in the slightest?

Exactly that: The chilling effect of all kinds of monitoring etc hits those smart, dissenting people who has something to lose worst.

Real-name policies enables monitoring by friends, relatives, people who has something against you, current and future employers etc etc.

Previous discussion from the Wired article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414375