Hi, I'm Ryan Levy.

Hi, I'm Ryan Levy.

Hi, I'm Ryan Levy.

Welcome to Cyber reasons's malicious life. Right now as we publish this podcast, hundreds of thousands of people in the Southern African

country of Namibia are faced with a choice. At the end of next month their phone

service is going to be shut off permanently. To prevent that from

happening they'll have to give up their data privacy.

Take all the cyber crimes out there, denial of service against websites,

using smart devices in a botnet stealing someone's bank account

password and a hundred others. Of them all you'd have to say that sim-related crimes

are some of the worst.

The subscriber identity module card that identifies and authenticates your phone to a cellular

network can be weaponized to carry out some really nasty identity theft.

We've probably never done a scarier episode on this show than number 204 about Sim swaps the attacks that happen without you realizing it

and can lead to impersonation emptying your bank accounts and even greater traumas

than that.

As powerful as they are in the hands of an attacker, you figure, Sims are also a useful tool

for law enforcement.

Imagine investigating crimes where you could directly tie perpetrators to the phones they

used to purchase illegal goods and coordinate their misdeeds. The phones they carry on them at crime scenes and

when they're trying to hide. It's no wonder then that so many countries make the citizens

register the Sim cards.

...