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Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by blah5432 on Thursday April 21, 2016 @09:21AM (#11541868)
Resistance to ID is just an americanism. There are no practical negative consecuences and a lot of good ones.

Identity is a right that government must warrant, not something dirty that should be buried.

Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by creshal on Thursday April 21, 2016 @10:08AM (#11542227)
> Resistance to ID is just an americanism.

I literally just explained how it's not.

> There are no practical negative consecuences

Assuming an ideal, benevolent government.

(Presumably residing on an infinite frictionless plane, feasting on spherical cows.)

Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by jarman on Thursday April 21, 2016 @11:22AM (#11542808)
Government will identify citizens anyway. It's not choice between ID and no ID, but between simple ID and ad-hoc scheme (Name/Surname/Birthdate/Residence composite, or issuing separate id for each institution).

While IDs do have negative consequences, I see zero downside in replacing VATIN, passport number (linked list of "previous document" in worst case, down to birth certificate), army id number, employment record book number and "$surname $name $patronymic, born $birth_date at $birth_place, registered $registration_place" official title with single citizen ID.

Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by throwanem on Thursday April 21, 2016 @12:58PM (#11543600)
Centralization and slack are inversely proportional. If everybody is reliably and unambiguously identified from birth by a single government-issued and -maintained key, and that government turns against its citizens (or is overthrown, compromised, et cetera), you're basically hosed.
Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by jarman on Thursday April 21, 2016 @02:03PM (#11544118)
That data is already centralized and interlinked. There is no 'slack' (ambiguity and leeway) as far as government is concerned.

I am not arguing for using government-issued IDs for non-government services (as in original post), and consider enforcement of such use a direct attack on citizen freedom, but only for having single ID for use in state-person relations.

Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by creshal on Thursday April 21, 2016 @03:10PM (#11544599)
> That data is already centralized and interlinked.

Not in all countries. Germany used to have explicit laws against combining state and federal record bases, they were only recently eroded to "fight terrorism".

Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by blah5432 on Thursday April 21, 2016 @12:07PM (#11543185)
You need to assume nothing. Your government is spying on everybody without an ID. Your explanation just doesn't qualify, sorry.
Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by jjgreen on Thursday April 21, 2016 @10:59AM (#11542633)
So why you create temporary accounts to comment?
Re:Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] by blah5432 on Thursday April 21, 2016 @11:59AM (#11543129)
Because this lovely customer I'm working in MITMs the HTTPS. You know, it's so cool to read gmail on the phone.

BTW, shame on Chrome for allowing it without a warning :-/ Firefox totally refused to connect.