As a thought experiment in reducing my exposure to being surveilled:
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As a thought experiment in reducing my exposure to being surveilled:
What are the practical limitations of a wi-fi only (no sim card) phone-shaped device (a device not only with no active cellular connection, but also no hardware to silently ping towers) in living my day to fay life, and how much would it reduce my surveillance footprint?
I hear some people still live without cell phones so it must be possible, but a balance?
#privacy #enshittification #infosec #askfedi #showerthoughts
@ike I think the crux of this is, can you live day to day without being reachable by phone or text?
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.
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@ike imo the answer is to start relying on things that aren't embedded into your phone, and just switch to a flip phone that can, at best, send a text message.
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.
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@intrepidhero @ike wasn't the stated goal _reduced surveillance_?
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@intrepidhero @ike wasn't the stated goal _reduced surveillance_?
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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?
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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?
@ike @mitch It's not the form factor that's important but a dumb phone will at least eliminate tracking via app telemetry and web advertising, since it has neither.
But you're correct that it will still ping cell towers and I would expect that metadata is still available to law enforcement & government.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@ike I think the crux of this is, can you live day to day without being reachable by phone or text?
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.
@intrepidhero I was thinking that Signal can send messages and conduct phone and video calls. As long as there is wifi, there is both sync and async communication.
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As a thought experiment in reducing my exposure to being surveilled:
What are the practical limitations of a wi-fi only (no sim card) phone-shaped device (a device not only with no active cellular connection, but also no hardware to silently ping towers) in living my day to fay life, and how much would it reduce my surveillance footprint?
I hear some people still live without cell phones so it must be possible, but a balance?
#privacy #enshittification #infosec #askfedi #showerthoughts
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)
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@intrepidhero I was thinking that Signal can send messages and conduct phone and video calls. As long as there is wifi, there is both sync and async communication.
@ike 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.
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.
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@ike @mitch It's not the form factor that's important but a dumb phone will at least eliminate tracking via app telemetry and web advertising, since it has neither.
But you're correct that it will still ping cell towers and I would expect that metadata is still available to law enforcement & government.
@intrepidhero @ike just to chime in, yes, flip phones are absolutely the last electronic left with a battery that is intended to be user replaceable. You can just yank it when you want to. No trust involved.
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.
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@ike 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.
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.
>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.
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