>Signal is a good thought. I don't know enough about its design to say whether its end-to-end encryption would hold up to a MITM on an untrusted network.

Sure, just as long as you verify the "safety numbers" and keep them verified. As per normal...

Everything does TLS these days so there would not be much of a difference if you are specifically concerned about surveillance of "the last mile" network.

I see dozens of brand new models out there with them as I type this. Back in the day, it was a feature! You could have a few charged ones and stay texting by swapping them out as the day wears on. We lost something with locking those away.

Untrusted wifi networks could also be doing device fingerprinting so there is the potential for location tracking.

These may be acceptable risks.

You would definitely want to uninstall or revoke background permissions for any apps that could send telemetry. That's probably the most effective first step you could take in any case.

Gotcha! Lol. They can track you through WIFI also. 🤪🫣

Title: Unveiling the 7 Ways Your Phone Tracks Your Location

Location tracking, microphone listening, gyroscope movement tracking, keyword tracking, keyboard tracking, search tracking, camera tracking, network tracking,

DazSolar.com (dazsolar.com)

But you're correct that it will still ping cell towers and I would expect that metadata is still available to law enforcement & government.

Yeah I was thinking any kind of regular cell phone will still silently ping cell towers. I dont trust the OS on phones to respect the software command to turn off cellular activity.

Im unsure how the form factor of the phone changes that. Eg does a flip phone physically disconnect the battery when its closed or something?

Even with a wifi device you'd want to only enable the radio when in range of trusted networks.

I go off grid a few times a year and it is incredibly freeing but my normal day to day responsibilities wouldn't allow me to do so for hours of every day year round.

If you can get by with only async communications then the rest of what we use phones for has workarounds.

It means I have to carry an mp3 player around, but honestly that has upsides too. It's genuinely nice to listen to music and not expect a focus-interrupting push notification at any moment.