101
I have an Indian colleague who told me he was threatened with arrest after a traffic stop for having element and conversations installed on his phone as the cop told him those are used by terrorists and he should just use WhatsApp
He thought terrorists also use email and drink water, but decided not to tell the cop that.
And that's the truest, just unpleasant, answer to all the talk about new messenger services and emerging replacements.
Power doesn't care about rules. Power does care that you don't have a way to communicate freely. Power punishes you if you try to find a way.
Social problems are not solved by technical means. Or, for the sake of correctness, - they are, but those technical means are called weapons of war. To change the balance of power so that your wishes were respected.
Why would a traffic cop be looking at his phones chat apps?!
They were trading pokemons in pokemon go?
Do you want new messenger services? Because this is how you get new messenger services.
As someone who only uses a phone without a SIM card this would suck for me.
Are many new phones being made with Sim slots? I assumed physical cards were fading.
Pretty much all phones still have SIM card slots.
It's really mostly North American models that have been releasing with no SIM card slots lately, but they usually release it in other markets with one.
I think a bunch still do. I don't have it because I just purchased the phone with no cell plan. I just use wifi and if I go out I use my work phone Hotspot to provide wifi to my personal. I use Google voice so I have a number and some of those chat apps that my friends use to keep in touch. Im in my 40's and have never had a cell phone bill still. Outside leaving the house, I honestly cant believe people are paying $60-$100+ dollars a month when you can get everything it does these days off wifi. For the minor inconvenience ive ran into sometimes I still think it's worth it for the price.
I just pay 15/month on mint for the lowest plan. Just so I can get directions and basic Internet while I'm out.
Pretty much all phones still have SIM card slots.
It's really mostly North American models that have been releasing with no SIM card slots lately, but they usually release it in other markets with one.
@HeyJoe @schizoidman it's time to migrate the planet to #signal and ...
Signal was also part of this as well
Signal seems unlikely to comply. It will be interesting to see how they respond. A way to register without a phone number would be ideal.
Or Matrix, no need for a phone number and good luck having all instances to comply.
"to protect against foreign cybercrime"
Mate your country is famous for allowing cybercrime in your borders
Gotta protect the domestic cybercrime industry, they wouldn't want that work going to some other country
US iPhone have no sim slot. How that work in inida?
eSim
physically inserted SIM card
Esim is also considered as Sim inserted. During registration apps sent a SMS to mobile number, but with this the device will sent a SMS out to the chat platform. This ensure the number is verified. The message sent will be automated by granting the app SMS privileges. The Sim inserted/loaded will be noted by the app. During app startup it will check if the Sim inserted or loaded as esim is same Sim as before. Then it will work, else a Sim change warning will appear.
Source: UPI payment apps in India already mandates this approach. They want all other apps to do the same.
What do they achieve from this?
Whenever you don't know, the answer is money.
Control of dissent, rather.
I think that SIM physical presence in the terminal adds just a bit more of difficulty to the main abusers but a lot of pain to the non ones, the apparent bind to univuqous real identity is illusory and fragile, by now we should assume WhatsApp and Telegram as potentially anonymous and spam as a mail account...
Well it's hard to circumvent as it is some network apis provided by the telecom operators. Whatsapp will ask your device to connect to a url using your mobile data bearer to authenticate and the operator will tell them if you're actually who you declare to be.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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