How to secure your phone before attending a protest
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Or just... memorize them?
(Does nobody do that anymore?)
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Buy a camera. Record. Then when you get back, scrub the exif, then upload.
(Hopefully you got a Tails USB ready)
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Can we revive radios?
I mean, yes they can triangulate transmissions, but (As far as I know) they don't have IMEIs, and you talk in code to obscure meanings.
You turn it off before going home, and there's no tracking, don't transmit from home and its fine.
For evidence, bring a camera.
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I still remember some of my school friends' phone numbers form 30+ years ago, but I have difficulties remembering new people I meet. My brain is weird.
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I heard prints are unique and have a hidden pattern which can be mapped to a single printer. Not sure if this is true.
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What, you don't have a portable clean room with you all the time? Amateurs...
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That's long term memory for you. Normal when you get old.
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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.
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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/
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Yes the article says to leave your phone if you can, and to use a burner phone otherwise.
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Bringing extra meshtastic nodes to a protest could be really helpful. Extra nodes would allow information to more easily find a clear path out of a hot zone to routers in safer locations, and it’d do so without using any telecom infrastructure. The encryption’s pretty good too.
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I have 1 number committed to memory, and it's the only one I need if I get arrested. Until that happens I prefer to stay in touch with my people
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how to secure your phone: leave it at home. Done
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Stil secure it, in case the pigs search your home after arresting you. But don't take it to a protest
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You'll need to make sure you encrypt your radios which might be illegal depending on your country.
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This is the answer.
There's just no fucking way you should go to a protest with your daily driver, secure or not.
I also wouldn't go without any form of communication. You need to be able to receive information from organisers. Maybe go with a buddy who has a burner and not take anything yourself, but expect to get separated if you're in a larger group.
I personally wouldn't be too spooked beyond that, but of course it depends on the level of "activism" you're going to be involved in. As in I wouldn't dick around taking the battery out, and I'd save relevant contacts in the phone.
They're not going to go all CSI miami on your device and your contacts. If they ask you to unlock your phone they will just be looking for selfies of you doing something incriminating.
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I was going to complain in the comments that the article doesn't mention anything about lockdown mode on iOS, but thankfully this eff one does. Thanks for sharing a superior article!
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LAAAND OF THE FREEEEEEEE
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if the government is using printer tracking dots to track you down for participating in a legal, democratic protest, you should not be protesting, you should be doing civil war.
