I’ve gotten prepaid sims for things but obviously that’s not really a feasible method for your main life phone.

I recall hearing a story about law enforcement identifying an otherwise-anonymous phone by other phones that pinged the same cell towers at the same times. Essentially, the person had two phones on them, so they were able to uniquely identify the individual based on the shared location history of the two devices.

So there’s that, too, assuming my memory isn’t just some CSI bullshit. (It seems reasonable that this attack vector is technologically possible, though, and it may not matter if it’s legal if the identification technique isn’t used as evidence in court.)

Reminds me of this doc I watched a couple weeks ago.

TLDW; psyco travelled across the country to kill his mom, then drove back. He bought a burner phone at the start of his trip, but kept his normal phone with him the whole time. The cops were able to track both devices as they each connected to the same cell towers while traveling together from the west coast, to the east coast, and back again.

I believe this was used to some degree in the case of the alleged serial killer Rex Heuerman

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