[HN Gopher] Lawmakers Prod FCC to Act on SIM Swapping ___________________________________________________________________ Lawmakers Prod FCC to Act on SIM Swapping Author : mikece Score : 32 points Date : 2020-01-09 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (krebsonsecurity.com) (TXT) w3m dump (krebsonsecurity.com) | AmericanChopper wrote: | There's a lot of opportunity to tighten up controls around sim | swapping. But I'd be cautious about this idea being used to | introduce phone number registration legislation (outlawing burner | phones). Legislators have tried and failed to do this at least | two times that I know about. Legislatively, this could even be | achieved indirectly, by creating the correct liability | regulations for service providers. | im3w1l wrote: | Doesn't _creating liability_ typically cause a lot of undesired | side effects? Like poor and marginalized people being unable to | swap since they everyone knows people like that are up to no | good. | | Seems better to mandate a reasonable process. Like if you have | connected your sim to your identity you prove your identity to | swap. And if you have not, then you can swap by physically | presenting the old sim. | AmericanChopper wrote: | Regulating in general causes a lot of unintended side | effects, but creating new liability is certainly one of the | more effective ways of generating them. | | In this specific case (depending on how cynical you are), you | might see such a side effect as simply a potential unintended | consequence, or you might see it as a potential opportunity | for law makers to stealthily pass legislation/regulation they | have previously failed to pass. | | There's no way to say that any changes will even come from | this letter at the moment. But if you think compulsory phone | number registration is a bad thing (and there's plenty of | reasons to be against it), then I'd suggest you pay attention | to how this issue develops, as it would be the perfect | opportunity to sneak it in. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-01-09 23:00 UTC)