How to secure your phone before attending a protest
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I participated in plenty of protests but haven’t made any acquaintances. I think internet is a better space for meeting people.
Not to mention sometimes a protest starts peaceful and then goes to shit.
Taking a look at the Tesla protests it’s just no-impact feel-good thing. Liberals have too much of disdain for non-economic violence.
I think internet is a better space for meeting people.
You have no idea who you're "meeting" online. F2F isn't perfectly safe, but connecting with people you know, or who are at least known by people you know, is far better than some rando online. Even then, you need to learn to compartmentalize and operate on a need-to-know basis. If you want your group to be infiltrated, at least make them work for it. I wouldn't enter into a financial transaction with someone who approached me on the internet, so why would I bet my freedom or even my life on such a person?
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how to secure your phone: leave it at home. Done
Also any other personal electronics like your watch or fitness tracker.
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For a good compromise, use Meshtastic. Long-range radio mesh network for texting that phones can use instead of cell networks.
Can one make a general relay meshtastic node, or are they all private relays?
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Print at a public library?
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Plug in to my burner?
Sure - time they spend there is time not spent on something more incriminating!
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Buy a burner, keep the battery out until you arrive at the protest, remove the battery when you leave the protest. Don't store any phone numbers in that phone.
Not that protesting will do anything anymore, that time has come and gone
There are forms of protest beyond just going on a parade through town
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If it came to that, the SD card would be confiscated and/or the camera smashed.
Send data to a remote location and don't tell them anything about it. No comment to everything before you get legal advice.
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That's long term memory for you. Normal when you get old.
Then I'm afraid I started getting old way too soon.
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I think internet is a better space for meeting people.
You have no idea who you're "meeting" online. F2F isn't perfectly safe, but connecting with people you know, or who are at least known by people you know, is far better than some rando online. Even then, you need to learn to compartmentalize and operate on a need-to-know basis. If you want your group to be infiltrated, at least make them work for it. I wouldn't enter into a financial transaction with someone who approached me on the internet, so why would I bet my freedom or even my life on such a person?
I’m not exchanging financial information with strangers regardless of whether it is online or offline. You’re not IRA, you don’t need this kind of precautions anyway.
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I want to see articles about attending revolts!
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I've been involved in peaceful protests and in other actions. Get out there and attend peaceful protests. It helps develop your situational awareness, you learn what it's like being at a protest, and often you'll get to find out what happens when the police and/or counter-protestors run amok. And even when the corporate media suppresses reports of protests, there are other ways of getting that information out.
As for non-pacifistic direct action, operational security and comms security are even more critical. This thread is probably not the place to discuss it in detail. Just be aware that the few normal constraints on the behavior of the authorities have been relaxed or lifted entirely.
I participated in the biggest protests since the fall of Russian occupation in my country. I helped people organise and prepare, I joined a political party. Results? None, because there was no path to those and leadership up top is mostly concerned about their position. It was actual virtue signalling even though I hate everyone who uses this term.
What is your plan exactly? There is raising awareness but are you actually convincing anyone? Is someone unaware of what’s happening? What I’m seeing is that libs assume everything Trump supporters say is wrong and vice versa, there’s no discussion so how can any of you convince each other? In a polarised world people picked their sides based on criteria that were important to them and then pulled into a boxing match between liberals and fascists.
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how to secure your phone: leave it at home. Done
Not buy one?
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I want to see articles about attending revolts!
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Do not bring your phone with you to a protest.
If you really need a phone on you, get a burner phone with a prepaid card not linked to your person. But remember, MITM attacks are possible and the police can intercept your traffic and in some cases even compromise your E2EE services (if the key exchange takes place on a compromised spoofed network, see stingrays [1]).
If communication is necessary, get a meshtastic device. It's not the most reliable, and the channels can be jammed, but no one will bother with that. Because they work on usual IoT/smart home appliances frequencies, there is so much interference in cities that triangulating your position in a crowd of people isn't very realistic.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/31/protests-surveillance-stingrays-dirtboxes-phone-tracking/
I’ve been using my old(cleaned installed) pixel 1 & 3 with my R1 meshtastics. Very helpful.
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How To Secure Your Phone
- Leave it at home
Why is this even an article? Do not bring your phone to protests, especially under a republican president, especially one like Trump.
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If black people had joined police forces in large numbers for a variety of very complex historical reasons, would you be defending "N****r Wagon" as a perfectly acceptable term right now?
If black people had joined the air force in very large numbers and abused other ethnic and socioeconomic groups as a way to ingratiate themselves to the crackers and we decided to call them "smackers"? I would have zero problems and would whole heartedly say that.
And if someone suddenly decided that "black helicopter" is more a reference to African American pilots? I would do some research, figure out that is instead referring to night flight painting, and probably still avoid using the phrase while not caring all that much.
Speaking of: What are your thoughts on the term "cracker"? Because you clearly don't understand the difference between a slur that is meant to degrade a human being and one that is meant to refer to an oppressor.
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I’ve been using my old(cleaned installed) pixel 1 & 3 with my R1 meshtastics. Very helpful.
I'll have to look into this. I have an old Pixel 4a I use occasionally, and it'd be nice to make it more useful
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If black people had joined the air force in very large numbers and abused other ethnic and socioeconomic groups as a way to ingratiate themselves to the crackers and we decided to call them "smackers"? I would have zero problems and would whole heartedly say that.
And if someone suddenly decided that "black helicopter" is more a reference to African American pilots? I would do some research, figure out that is instead referring to night flight painting, and probably still avoid using the phrase while not caring all that much.
Speaking of: What are your thoughts on the term "cracker"? Because you clearly don't understand the difference between a slur that is meant to degrade a human being and one that is meant to refer to an oppressor.
I have no problem with cracker, because exactly as you say, it's a reaction against institutional power, not an exercise of it.
But "Paddy" has a long history as a term of racist abuse against a deeply disenfranchised racial minority. I'm not sure if you're even aware that it was widely used outside of the context of the phrase "Paddy wagon." From the way you're discussing this, it seems like you're not.
If a black cop arrests you it's not suddenly praxis to refer to him by racial slurs just because he's a cop. Call him a pig or a narc or whatever anti-cop term you like, fucking go off, but excusing racism when it's specifically against cops is just saying that it's OK to be racist sometimes, and that's not something I can remotely agree with.
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Irish people were actually considered “non-white” throughout most of the history of race as a concept.
That's a myth. I've seen the Ellis Island records of my Irish ancestors' arrival in the US. There's a Race box, and what was filled in for them (and others with Irish surnames that I noticed) was WHITE.
Note that Irish immigrants could own property, get bank accounts and credit, and could vote. They held public office from early in the wave of immigration. In the Western US, the earliest English-speaking settlers included a large percentage of Irish-Americans (including several of my ancestors). There was prejudice in hiring, and
It's perfectly possible to be classified as white but still oppressed for other reasons. In the US in the 19th and early 20th century, that reason was mainly anti-Catholic prejudice, followed by classism. The KKK were against the Irish because of their Catholicism, as is shown by contemporary pamphlets and records of speeches. And those were the same reasons the English were so virulently anti-Irish-- those and the fact that the Irish were living on some land that they wanted to steal.
This does not mean that it’s impossible for Irish people to be racist themselves
The Draft Riots in New York city during the Civil War provides an illustrative example of that. Also memoirs of some of my ancestors (one was quite proud of his role in making his town in New Mexico a sunset town). Anti-Chinese racism was also widespread and violent in the West.
You need to read up on the history of the Irish in the UK and how they were treated by the English very much as a distinct race, and one that they thought it was very much OK to abuse.
The Irish have been the targets of military occupation, police abuse, disenfranchisement and genocide, all on the basis of what the English very much considered to be their "race."
Again, America is not the world. There are whole layers of complex interactions of identity happening out there beyond your borders.
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Gosh, how many people here, who are proposing that people leave their phones at home have actually been to a protest in real life?
My strong guess is: None. Neither has the author of the article been to one.
As someone who attended my fair share protests,including ones in fairly oppressive countries:
Take a fucking phone with you, but please use a designated burner phone.Reasons to have a phone:
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Communication is necessary and paramount - from reorganisation (we are blocked here, so we meet there)to warning (the cops are coming from there and block us off here) people communication is the major aspect that has enabled people to protest effectively and not fall into traps. We can only protest effectively if we are united. And that requires information.
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Let's face it: Pictures and videos are important. Not only in a "the cops are beating us to pulp situation" (their use there is limited), but also to mobilise others, show the extend of the mobilisation (the other side will usually downplay the size of the protests), feed social media (which is important), etc.
As long as basic precautions are taken (no faces/identifiable information, no crimes, change position after you post it) this actually helps the cause and maintains the narrative (it's mighty hard to brand protests "full of rioters" when social media shows 100k people protesting peacefully). Mainstream and foreign media relies on this as most media outlets to not have actual coverage of critical protests (and if they do, they usually are behind police lines). -
Especially for larger protests you will often work in uncommon areas. Cities you have never been before. You will need reliable map services and geo location (where is the next hospital? Which shops are open? Are there any shopping malls we can slip into if needed? Where can we sleep? Is there a metro station we can use nearby?) This information is not only vital,it can be time critical. A friend of mine is only alive because his peers knew the way to the next hospital - neither of them was from the city, the ambulance stopped responding hours before that,etc.
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Phones are good transmitters - the cops will find any media you have on you if they really want (and they will search very well if they want), don't think you can hide a micro SD card somewhere. Some countries(including the US) have started to x-ray their new inmates to make sure they don't hide media within their bodies. (Official excuse: Drug packaging and "welfare") So often the best bet is to get all evidence, all media the other side doesn't want to see out before they have access to your phone. (Which I wouldn't count on to get back)
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They can also be a liveline to get one out of prison. The fact that relatives and fellow activists "know" that their loved ones are being arrested is essential for getting them out and prevent charges. Even in very democratic states the cops will be overstretched for days after a mass protest and people will be locked up without much identification and records. And none will know if Person A is locked up, in hospital, vanished due to something else (e.g. hiding or being a victim of something completely different - I know a girl who got offered a place to sleep after a protest and was locked in their basement for two days with their desire to make her their sex slave communicated), etc. Additionally,in the more oppressive countries,the other side will often use the "we don't know anything, the person didn't even attend" excuse to prevent people from getting legal help in time.
Now,the article has a bit of bad advice:
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It is a horrible idea to simply wipe your old phone after backup. Storage doesn't work that way. It is a easy task for any forensic expert to restore most if not all information on the phone. And as it was not used with all data privacy considerations before,there is a good chance they will find leads.
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It can be problematic to use VPNs, especially in a situation like this and if people use public VPNs. Remember,people know that VPNs exist and the other side usually has control over the telecommunications infrastructure. In at least two cases I know of, the use of a popular VPN within a certain cell tower range was used to differentiate between protestors and average citizens. People therefore should make an informed decision if they rather use normal "semi encrypted" communication (nothing unusual in using Signal,Bluesky,Twitter or Facebook in most countries) or if they want to use a VPN to tunnel their traffic but also are more susceptible.
Some better advice:
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Get a burner phone - do not get a used phone,do use your old phone - I literally bought a old phone from a radical neo Nazi on eBay once - the restored data showed massive illegal activities. You can get new phone with a reasonable secure OS for around 100 bucks these days.
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If possible get a prepaid card that is not linked to your name. Bonus if you can use a roaming card - a card from a different country. It is far more difficult for a country to access identifying information then. Do not use that card for anything else and do not set it up at home.
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Create designated social media accounts for protesting and do not use them from home (unless proper precautions are used) and only use them for that.
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Never log into any private accounts with the burner.
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Do not store anything incriminating on the phone - in your mind you must always be treat it like a device the other side might have full access to. Because if they want to,they will. (Yeah, I know, some countries still protect that information - but even there I saw cops overstepping their borders and simply force people. And once they are in,they are in)
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Degooglefy/Desamsungfy your phone as much as possible and make sure things like location based tracking,etc. are off.
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Consider using Briar and make it popular amongst your fellow protesters. Briar can be used without any mobile phone coverage, as it works with WiFi or Bluetooth only (via ad hoc connections). A single phone hidden in a public place can be used as a relay and inform thousands. But it requires a certain amount of users to work effectively.
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Once the other side got their hands on it consider it burned. Because that's what it is.
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Keep your phone on, charged as much as possible,, but in full(!) airplane mode (unless you use Briar,then keep BT on) but keep your GPS activated (again: remove location tracking services). Preload the relevant maps onto the device, ideally with satellite picture if available, these can be helpful). Keep relevant documents (e.g. timetables, partner organisations,etc.) in another encrypted file.
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Keep a reasonably encrypted file with a minimum number of contacts - lawyer, some civil rights organisations. If you want to have the number of a loved one find one of the countless online SIP providers(ideally in another country) and forward from there.
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Most phones allow a number of numbers to be accessed without unlocking the phone. Save a lawyer/protest organisation number in there so you can access it without unlocking.
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