In this post, I’d like to present the steps I’d for achieving higher anonymity, and ask if these are still obsolete when using a phone.
my approach
I’m planning to try out both custom roms (GraphineOS) and qubes, as well as routing most of my connection through tor with orbot and whonix.
Why these meassures
As an aspiring dev i use the laptop quite a lot anyway, and as long as my productivity is not heavily restricted on a daily basis, I would like to have as much privacy as possible, and gradually work towards that.
I do not see a lot of downsides of a lot of security measures, and think it could make me actually more productive, rejecting a lot of these services.
It also worries me just how much power, tech companies and the governments supposedly have. From what I’ve heard is that almost all data from online services, even “encrypted messaging apps” is just directly going to the government.
Why not (Questions)
I once had a discussion with someone who said, if you have a phone privacy is not an option, at least modern phones can exactly know where you are at any time. And this location data seems to be very valuable.
Is this still a threat, when not using most of these services, though? Are these measures unnecessary, because of said security problems that occur by just owning a phone with a sim card. Should I rather use a nokia with a less accurate GPS, and only turn on my phone if needed? Will these measures greatly reduce my productivity or my ability to work for/with others?
Thank you for this! I’ve had a look, it was interesting that he used an extra phone to make calls thats turned off normally.
But why would I need a phone without a sim card? I mostly use it to call, but I’m able to message or call even with my laptop in public networks, without a phone.
Not just modern phone, even those old nokia dumbphone is a tracking device. Can triangulate what cell tower a particular sim is connected to, smartphone or dumbphone and whatnot.
At least with those old dumbphone we can still pull out the battery which is almost impossible with modern smartphones. But either way if I’m that worried I’ll get a faraday bag.
Threat model and that thin line between privacy and convenience that differs between people is why people use mobile phones. Privacy isn’t just black and white. Caring about privacy doesn’t mean need to be extreme tinfoil, becoming a hermit living in a cave away from the society and from the open internet.
We find that thin line that works for our threat model and we try to stay within that line. Just because i owned mobile phones and i know its tracking me, i should just not care about my privacy altogether, posting my address my full name everywhere and ready to get doxxed tomorrow without any care in the world. Thats not how privacy works in this day and age.
A lot of issues with SIM cards & triangulation can be mitigated by buying a SIM that doesn’t have your real info attached to it in any way. This is easy in the US, but not sure how feasible it is elsewhere.
To be clear, by “extreme” I’m not assigning an any negative value to it. I’m just saying it’s IMHO, a tough protocol to consistently maintain. One thing that I believe is important to mention, is that increasingly, more and more countries don’t allow buying/activating pre-paid SIM cards without giving your ID. Meaning that they require that you register your SIM card with your full details.
Luckily, there are still countries like the US, the UK, and Switzerland where you can buy and use a SIM without disclosing your identity. But I don’t think that’s the case for the majority of the world.