When cell phones first started to become popular it was strange to see how you could buy them without having to provide much in the way of ID, particularly with

When cell phones first started to become popular it was strange to see how you could buy them without having to provide much in the way of ID, particularly with PAYG phones. One would have thought that it would have made more sense to have a reasonable amount of identity checks going on, after all we wouldn't want to have the bad guys able to do things with mobile phones,would we? However, if all of the phones are bugged anyway, if they all work like tracking devices and if the carriers (e.g. Vodafone) are completely happy with being complicit with that, then it makes sense to have phones available for a low price and with not lot of background checks going on. The only safe way to use a phone (if you have something to hide) is to not have one and social engineer others into 'lending' you there phone on a fake pretext of your battery being dead etc. and then to call a number where there is no expectation of bugging going on.