I don't know about you, but where I live (Western Europe) it would be much harder to come up with an anonymous SIM than an anonymous phone. I could walk today

I don't know about you, but where I live (Western Europe) it would be much harder to come up with an anonymous SIM than an anonymous phone. I could walk today in any second-hand shop (selling used CDs, videogames, books, coffee machines etc...) and buy a crappy old unlocked Nokia, for less than 20 bucks, cash, no ID required. But if I would need a SIM card, even if top-up, I would need to go to a service provider and give at least a valid ID. The weak link would still be the SIM, not the phone. A place where you could easily get anonymous SIMs would be a definite advantage in order to mantain anonymity, so I guess the author has a point.