[semi-extrinsic]

FWIW, in the UK you can buy a burner phone and SIM in cash without giving away any personal details at most supermarkets (at least Tesco and Sainsbury's). With the new EU regulations removing roaming charges, you can fly to London on holiday, and buy a UK burner phone anonymously with two years of data on it that's enough for heavy Twitter use in all of the EU for £240 + phone cost.

If you're under enough surveillance that your adversary will follow you on holiday and track all your supermarket purchases, you have bigger problems.

[zepolud]

> If you're under enough surveillance that your adversary will follow you on holiday and track all your supermarket purchases, you have bigger problems.

Problem with modern surveillance is not that somebody is actively tracking you, it's the ability to retroactively track you back with perfect accuracy soon as you become become an inconvenience.

[semi-extrinsic]

Sure, for digital surveillance I get this concern. But when we're talking about identifying that "on holiday, subject X spent some of that cash he withdrew on a burner phone at a random supermarket he visited, not just on ice cream and beer", then you really need significant HUMINT resources.

[gknoy]

> for digital surveillance I get this concern

In the context of maintaining digital anonymity against a state-level adversary, I think that considering retroactive unmasking as part of the threat landscape is quite reasonable.

The situation one is trying to avoid is:

- Tyrant in power - You try to be anonymous - You fail, because you didn't take enough steps to protect your tracks (when buying the phone, leasing the VPS, accessing the VPS, etc) from retroactive investigation - You are now fired / jailed

Surveillance is ubiquitous enough that I suspect anonymity is nearly binary in nature.