yes, will need this in the upcoming class revolt.
The protester's guide to smartphone security
121–130 of 246 posts
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#122Unfortunately this is a topic that attracts LARPers. Remember that if things get spicy, you are not going to settings nerd your way out of a bad interaction with the police. Tech advice for legal and illegal protests is pretty much diametrically opposite, and advice for countries like the United States is much different than for somewhere like Egypt. It's complicated!
What a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the protests are organized by people who do not care if you get hurt, arrested, or die. In the US, Russian operatives organize a lot of the protests that turn violent. They also organize the counter protests.
In other countries, protests are often organized by foreign entities. The organizers will have good opsec, but everyone else is just (metaphorically) cannon fodder as far as the organizers are concerned.
It's been this way for decades. The Soviet Union organized protests in other countries for pretty much its entire existence. The US helped the Polish anti-authoritarian Solidarity movement and several others.
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#123Unfortunately this is a topic that attracts LARPers. Remember that if things get spicy, you are not going to settings nerd your way out of a bad interaction with the police. Tech advice for legal and illegal protests is pretty much diametrically opposite, and advice for countries like the United States is much different than for somewhere like Egypt. It's complicated!
What a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the protests are organized by people who do not care if you get hurt, arrested, or die. In the US, Russian operatives organize a lot of the protests that turn violent. They also organize the counter protests. In other countries, protests are often organized by foreign entities. The organizers will have good opsec, but everyone else is just (metaphorically) cannon fo…
[deleted]
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#124If you're attending a large-scale protest, it's likely that the cell-towers (or stingrays) won't be able to handle everyone who is connected anyways, so worth planning to use apps that can chat over P2P WiFi or Bluetooth together with the rest of your friends. This also allows you to continue using Airplane Mode the entire time, while being able to communicate with people nearby. Alternatively, investing in walkie-ta…
"investing in walkie-talkies that have encryption can be worth it as well" Generally not allowed in many bands in the US. Motorola sells some AES walkies. They're really the only ones I know of, and they're very expensive.
I don’t understand under what logic AES encrypted radio communications (walkie-talkie) differ from AES encrypted radio communications (mobile network).
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#125If you're attending a large-scale protest, it's likely that the cell-towers (or stingrays) won't be able to handle everyone who is connected anyways, so worth planning to use apps that can chat over P2P WiFi or Bluetooth together with the rest of your friends. This also allows you to continue using Airplane Mode the entire time, while being able to communicate with people nearby. Alternatively, investing in walkie-ta…
> so worth planning to use apps that can chat over P2P WiFi or Bluetooth together with the rest of your friends
I can't even get Bluetooth audio to work reliably in a crowded cafe, are you sure these other protocols would fare better?
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#126Unfortunately this is a topic that attracts LARPers. Remember that if things get spicy, you are not going to settings nerd your way out of a bad interaction with the police. Tech advice for legal and illegal protests is pretty much diametrically opposite, and advice for countries like the United States is much different than for somewhere like Egypt. It's complicated!
What a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the protests are organized by people who do not care if you get hurt, arrested, or die. In the US, Russian operatives organize a lot of the protests that turn violent. They also organize the counter protests. In other countries, protests are often organized by foreign entities. The organizers will have good opsec, but everyone else is just (metaphorically) cannon fo…
> What a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the protests are organized by people who do not care if you get hurt, arrested, or die.
I mean, that’s kind of a given even for the protests that are legitimate. They really only happen when people reach a point of no return, and the organizers are more likely to be fanatics in the first place.
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#127If you're attending a large-scale protest, it's likely that the cell-towers (or stingrays) won't be able to handle everyone who is connected anyways, so worth planning to use apps that can chat over P2P WiFi or Bluetooth together with the rest of your friends. This also allows you to continue using Airplane Mode the entire time, while being able to communicate with people nearby. Alternatively, investing in walkie-ta…
> so worth planning to use apps that can chat over P2P WiFi or Bluetooth together with the rest of your friends I can't even get Bluetooth audio to work reliably in a crowded cafe, are you sure these other protocols would fare better?
Messaging doesn't have the same real-time requirements. It's still often flaky.
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
"investing in walkie-talkies that have encryption can be worth it as well" Generally not allowed in many bands in the US. Motorola sells some AES walkies. They're really the only ones I know of, and they're very expensive.
I don’t understand under what logic AES encrypted radio communications (walkie-talkie) differ from AES encrypted radio communications (mobile network).
Encryption allows you to use a public resource (GMRS, for example) for exclusive private use. To have private use of a frequency, you gotta pay.
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the protests are organized by people who do not care if you get hurt, arrested, or die. In the US, Russian operatives organize a lot of the protests that turn violent. They also organize the counter protests. In other countries, protests are often organized by foreign entities. The organizers will have good opsec, but everyone else is just (metaphorically) cannon fo…
> What a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the protests are organized by people who do not care if you get hurt, arrested, or die. I mean, that’s kind of a given even for the protests that are legitimate. They really only happen when people reach a point of no return, and the organizers are more likely to be fanatics in the first place.
I don't think that's really true. If you made a list of all the protests in the US that happened in the last, say, 70 years and threw a dart I think you'd almost certainly hit a protest that was mostly performative. Essentially people LARPing, to use the parent commenter's term.
Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security
#130It's called a burner phone. Learn from the professionals...