Fair enough, and I see where you're coming from. Point remains that 33 bits will identify any given person among the 8 billions now living, and a phone number

Fair enough, and I see where you're coming from. Point remains that 33 bits will identify any given person among the 8 billions now living, and a phone number itself, plus ancillary leakage (activity patterns, location) are an exceptionally poor basis for an anonymous or pseudonymous identifier.