The phone I have now is half way paid off… I will say it. It is a Samsung S23. I didn’t want it. It is just my other phone literally died from a single drop of water! I won’t get into the details. But I want grapheneOS or the most private OS I can.
Right now I have been carrying my phone less than before. I used to take it even to grocery store trips, but I am just getting sick of the endless monitoring, even if I am a terminally online person. I literally cannot leave my apartment without being on camera since my landlord has all the corridors and exits/entrances on 24/7 surveillance.
I know that a phone can be tracked even when on a private OS. And the EU’s rules on wanting a copy of every single message sent out from all messaging apps (including signal) will still affect non-EU people, too. It fucking sucks.
I don’t personally understand the desire to do this beyond “it’s the principle damnit” or doing illegal stuff but if you really want your phone to not be tracked then just use a verified faraday bag. Or make one yourself if you’re poor and then validate it yourself.
I learned the hard way many, many, many times just what even a simple ‘hello my name is (name), and I am a (job title at company)’ to the wrong person that you’d think could not have had any negative consequences whatsoever ended up causing absolute hell for me. I’ve been robbed, lied about and had my reputation utter destroyed, been a victim of identity theft by people I knew personally, had my family stalked and harassed, and even had multiple hit and run attempts done on me by people actively stalking me. Not to mention how anything and everything I said, no matter how innocent it seemed absolutely can be twisted against you. And I mean ANYTHING.
And I did nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing shady. I just had people calling me antisocial and so I made conversation with them, talking about my day, my studies, what I ate for lunch… and fuck me you would not believe what people can do with simple information like that.
There is a reason some people clam up at even the simplest question posed to them by anyone. I did try to ask simple information about people above, even things as damn simple as what their (real) names were because apparently it turned out they didn’t tell me their real names and they got VERY violent the moment I probed into anything. The people who claim that ‘nothing to hide nothing to fear’ are also the most secretive people who absolutely will not allow anyone an inkling about themselves. This is why.
BTW you want to know how simple info like what ate for lunch can be used against you? I once said that I wanted to work at little overtime because I wanted to earn back the money I paid for an unplanned lunch…
Now you might say ‘how the fuck could that statement be used against you?’. Well the guy said I was acting unprofessionally and said I needed to run to the cafeteria to pay for a lunch I took without paying for it. Basically accusing me of dining and dashing.
Best part? Management believed him… they believed him despite the fact that I had WRITTEN that in a work chat and they presented the screencaps to me. I didn’t say anything during the investigation because… I have no idea what to say. I had already told people I was trying to save money by not buying lunch and also working overtime. But even that was interpreted as an insult by me against them because they thought I was calling them lazy and useless with money. They just kept making accusations like that, and while initially management said ‘wow that guy is an asshole’ they never dismissed what the others said. So after dozens of bullshit accusations my credibility just kept dropping and theirs rising.
And all of this could have been avoided if I simply refused to talk to anyone.
The phone I have now is half way paid off… I will say it. It is a Samsung S23. I didn’t want it. It is just my other phone literally died from a single drop of water! I won’t get into the details. But I want grapheneOS or the most private OS I can.
Right now I have been carrying my phone less than before. I used to take it even to grocery store trips, but I am just getting sick of the endless monitoring, even if I am a terminally online person. I literally cannot leave my apartment without being on camera since my landlord has all the corridors and exits/entrances on 24/7 surveillance.
I know that a phone can be tracked even when on a private OS. And the EU’s rules on wanting a copy of every single message sent out from all messaging apps (including signal) will still affect non-EU people, too. It fucking sucks.
I don’t personally understand the desire to do this beyond “it’s the principle damnit” or doing illegal stuff but if you really want your phone to not be tracked then just use a verified faraday bag. Or make one yourself if you’re poor and then validate it yourself.
I learned the hard way many, many, many times just what even a simple ‘hello my name is (name), and I am a (job title at company)’ to the wrong person that you’d think could not have had any negative consequences whatsoever ended up causing absolute hell for me. I’ve been robbed, lied about and had my reputation utter destroyed, been a victim of identity theft by people I knew personally, had my family stalked and harassed, and even had multiple hit and run attempts done on me by people actively stalking me. Not to mention how anything and everything I said, no matter how innocent it seemed absolutely can be twisted against you. And I mean ANYTHING.
And I did nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing shady. I just had people calling me antisocial and so I made conversation with them, talking about my day, my studies, what I ate for lunch… and fuck me you would not believe what people can do with simple information like that.
There is a reason some people clam up at even the simplest question posed to them by anyone. I did try to ask simple information about people above, even things as damn simple as what their (real) names were because apparently it turned out they didn’t tell me their real names and they got VERY violent the moment I probed into anything. The people who claim that ‘nothing to hide nothing to fear’ are also the most secretive people who absolutely will not allow anyone an inkling about themselves. This is why.
BTW you want to know how simple info like what ate for lunch can be used against you? I once said that I wanted to work at little overtime because I wanted to earn back the money I paid for an unplanned lunch…
Now you might say ‘how the fuck could that statement be used against you?’. Well the guy said I was acting unprofessionally and said I needed to run to the cafeteria to pay for a lunch I took without paying for it. Basically accusing me of dining and dashing.
Best part? Management believed him… they believed him despite the fact that I had WRITTEN that in a work chat and they presented the screencaps to me. I didn’t say anything during the investigation because… I have no idea what to say. I had already told people I was trying to save money by not buying lunch and also working overtime. But even that was interpreted as an insult by me against them because they thought I was calling them lazy and useless with money. They just kept making accusations like that, and while initially management said ‘wow that guy is an asshole’ they never dismissed what the others said. So after dozens of bullshit accusations my credibility just kept dropping and theirs rising.
And all of this could have been avoided if I simply refused to talk to anyone.