Post AbLML6PYKMTcJ5a4wK by yawnbox@disobey.net
 (DIR) More posts by yawnbox@disobey.net
 (DIR) Post #AbAPDBWyCqa6bYrPwu by thenewoil@freeradical.zone
       2023-10-26T16:00:04Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Without a Trace: How to Take Your Phone Off the Gridhttps://themarkup.org/levelup/2023/10/25/without-a-trace-how-to-take-your-phone-off-the-grid
       
 (DIR) Post #AbAQmqiLBAS4QFkUoi by yawnbox@disobey.net
       2023-10-26T16:17:45Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @thenewoil this is terrible advice
       
 (DIR) Post #AbB0Lt2A2kBU9ESj5s by thenewoil@freeradical.zone
       2023-10-26T22:56:15Z
       
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       @yawnbox Why do you say that? I don't agree with every word of it, but overall I found it to be interesting and mostly solid advice. Which parts do you contest and what would you recommend instead?
       
 (DIR) Post #AbCJ1gpXnZDQnLbUlU by kzimmermann@fosstodon.org
       2023-10-27T14:00:06Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @thenewoilThis is how you properly do it.
       
 (DIR) Post #AbF2gVBCu8AWmtUVrk by yawnbox@disobey.net
       2023-10-28T21:41:14Z
       
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       @thenewoil sure!at the very beginning, they state "phone anonymity" which is a categorically false assumption when they clearly want to have a phone number in use with a baseband processor (cell phone)achieving an "an off-the-grid phone" is impossible when the specified threat actor (the building of an over-generalized threat model) is the US federal government. this is the most dangerous part of this article, and the premise for the articlemany issues contribute to this, including Obama's Executive Order changes to 12333 broadening which agencies have access to raw signals intelligence"the federal government traced my phone number back to me and blocked me from communicating with incarcerated people" - it doesn't matter what phone number is calling incarcerated people (jails), the State or the Feds will simply block a number, no surveillance required, therefore any notion of privacy is not necessary and will only be temporary and can trivially be addressed with getting a new phone numbershe enlisted an "IT support specialist" which, i'm sorry, does not have the expertise to address issues of cell phone surveillance"In order to make an anonymous purchase" - that's hilariously false. using cash to buy a SIM card is not adequate. SIMs are trivially tracked back to point of sale, city cops accessing video recordings of these purchases are trivial let alone the fedsa pre-paid SIM, while temporary, might achieve the goals or protecting against - "the reader used my phone number to do a reverse look-up search, and found my address"but they don't clearly link that specific threat to that specific response, and doesn't go into any detail how to safely maintain that phone number. pre-paid SIMs cannot have longer-term security mechanisms put in place like Account Takeover Protection, and if this person plans on keeping this number long term, most people will resort to using digital payments to maintain it. they don't go into any detail here which is critical
       
 (DIR) Post #AbLML6PYKMTcJ5a4wK by yawnbox@disobey.net
       2023-10-28T21:49:34Z
       
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       @thenewoil the entire section of "Wipe the Phone" is categorically false and for many different reasonswiping an iPhone does not change hardware identifiersonce an iPhone (or any cell phone) does register (a tie between a SIM and an IMEI and the physical location of these things, the physical location tied to the physical location of other cell phones, etc) it's trivial for a threat actor such as "the feds" to quickly determine where this phone is and who uses is. pre-paid SIMs have higher scrutiny too (more surveillance) by intelligence agencies because there's no hard ID tied to the devices.plainly put, you cannot have anonymity with a cell phone, especially when the defined threat actor is the US federal governmentmaybe it's possible to do all these things for making a single phone call "anonymously" (still hugely debatable) and then burning the phone. but this article does not do that whatsoever. they insinuate that this elementary planning will support anonymity long term, and the target audience is journalists. crazy
       
 (DIR) Post #AbLMLIQhduWja8DAOm by yawnbox@disobey.net
       2023-10-28T22:00:48Z
       
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       @thenewoil if you'd like to read a technically detailed article looking at having a "secure" communications device for journalists, one that can have aspects of "anonymity" if done correctly, i'd recommend my article that i maintain and check facts with folks in the security and privacy fields"How to Use an iPad as a Secure Calling and Messaging Device"https://yawnbox.com/blog/how-to-use-an-ipad-as-a-secure-calling-and-messaging-device/but this is not for making legacy phone calls, that is a unique challenge
       
 (DIR) Post #AbLMLNVqkCcBLXeqcC by thenewoil@freeradical.zone
       2023-10-31T22:49:44Z
       
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       @yawnbox Thanks for sharing your thoughts.