In my dream, SIM cards were kept in a central “Proton SIM hub” of some sort. When someone dialed your number, the hub would reach out to you through an internet‑based app—such as SimpleX voice chat—without ever learning your personal identifying information. You’d answer the call, and the hub would then route the SIM‑based connection to you. Because you were using SimpleX together with a Mullvad VPN, there were no triangular antennas tracking your location. When you wanted to place a call, you’d paste the other party’s number into the Proton SIM chat in the SimpleX app, and the Proton SIM hub would dial that number from its SIM card, establishing a voice chat in SimpleX on your end while connecting a cellular call to the person you’re trying to reach.

Payments to the SIM provider were made in cash, just like Mullvad’s payment method. At present you can’t pay for Proton services with cash, but in the imagined scenario you could acquire a Proton SIM card without supplying any personally identifiable information or tying it to a Proton account.

Would this be feasible in practice?

  • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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    3 days ago

    What.

    There is a physical SIM or an eSIM (which registers with the device and network) in every cell-connected device.

    You can interact with a SIM over the Internet, but you still need to, y’know, connect to the Internet.

    • eleijeep@piefed.social
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      3 days ago

      If only there was a way to connect to the internet without using a mobile device. Oh well, I guess I’ll just sit and home and dream about it.

      • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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        3 days ago

        If you are connecting to the Internet without a mobile network device then why would you involve a SIM card? Do you understand the point of this post?

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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            2 days ago

            Oh I get it. In this scenario you’re not solving a real problem, you’re committing fraud so you can run a robocall farm.

            There is still no way to take triangulation out of ths chain, so OP is asking Proton to explicitly be a known facilitator of crime.

            • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              2 days ago

              Why in the world are you jumping to conclusions that far out of the discussion? It’s like accusing someone who wants to make cash only transactions of trying to buy heroin to sell to kids in the preschool.