Comment by dredmorbius

Your previous question was "I'm not sure why you need to assume that it will be linked back to your real identity?"

If it's not possible to buy a phone without a strong attestation of identity, as is the general case in at least one country, then the identity relationship is baked in.

It's probably possible to buy a burner phone even in South Korea. But for those who are using their standard-issue phone with Signal, the problem most certainly exists.

And even in countries where there isn't some national phone-as-identifier policy, effectively most people's phone numbers tie them to their real-space identity even if there's no explicit personal data association[1], and in most cases, phone number, IMEI, AAID, and/or billing data (credit card payment authorisation) provide far greater assurance.

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Notes:

1. <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymo...>

2. IMEI: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mobile_Equipment...>, AAID: <https://support.google.com/authorizedbuyers/answer/3221407?h...> <https://noyb.eu/en/buy-phone-get-tracker-unauthorized-tracki...>