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Burner Phone 101

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Re: Burner Phone 101

#121

Post by neilv »

giggyhack wrote: post #114
schoen wrote: post #39

When I was working at EFF, I started writing (but never finished) a couple of essays along the lines of "the degree of trackability of mobile phones is an unfortunate accident, and we should fix it". It basically comes from routing requirements (especially to receive incoming phone calls) combined with billing requirements (to make people pay for their connectivity) combined with the empirical requirement to see whic…

I absolutely understand the sentiment and the goals that citizens should, by default, not be tracked. However, how do you square that with the proof, time and again, that truly secure and encrypted networks are primarily use by criminals (drug/human traffickers, and plenty of other people) who, through their trade, make the world a shittier place for the rest of us?

> However, how do you square that with the proof, time and again, that truly secure and encrypted networks are primarily use by criminals

Do you have a URL for this proof?

(If it's true, that would be good to know.)

Re: Burner Phone 101

#122

Post by xethos »

giggyhack wrote: post #114
schoen wrote: post #39

When I was working at EFF, I started writing (but never finished) a couple of essays along the lines of "the degree of trackability of mobile phones is an unfortunate accident, and we should fix it". It basically comes from routing requirements (especially to receive incoming phone calls) combined with billing requirements (to make people pay for their connectivity) combined with the empirical requirement to see whic…

I absolutely understand the sentiment and the goals that citizens should, by default, not be tracked. However, how do you square that with the proof, time and again, that truly secure and encrypted networks are primarily use by criminals (drug/human traffickers, and plenty of other people) who, through their trade, make the world a shittier place for the rest of us?

If we accept that the right to privacy is real, that not being followed, watched, and monitored every hour of my life, is something democratic societies should strive for:

Why do criminals have more rights than I do?

Re: Burner Phone 101

#123

Post by pabs3 »

> in cash

Cash is likely tracked too these days, if you get it from an ATM for sure, or maybe it is for some modern tills. So learn to busk before you think about buying a burner phone.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#124

Post by tmpfs »

giggyhack wrote: post #114
schoen wrote: post #39

When I was working at EFF, I started writing (but never finished) a couple of essays along the lines of "the degree of trackability of mobile phones is an unfortunate accident, and we should fix it". It basically comes from routing requirements (especially to receive incoming phone calls) combined with billing requirements (to make people pay for their connectivity) combined with the empirical requirement to see whic…

I absolutely understand the sentiment and the goals that citizens should, by default, not be tracked. However, how do you square that with the proof, time and again, that truly secure and encrypted networks are primarily use by criminals (drug/human traffickers, and plenty of other people) who, through their trade, make the world a shittier place for the rest of us?

This is nonsense. By your logic me and the majority of people using Signal are criminals.

As the other commenter mentioned please provide proof for these hyperbolic claims.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#125

Post by mikeytown2 »

Eisenstein wrote: post #67
mikeytown2 wrote: post #34

If you need to communicate with people in your area and not be tracked; MeshCore software with LoRa hardware like the this https://lilygo.cc/en-ca/products/t-lora-pager is something to consider. Text only, completely offline

Except that your texts go out to everyone on the mesh network.

MeshCore has verified public key sharing; see what happened to the other network at defcon. Direct messages are encrypted.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#126

Post by mikeytown2 »

hypercube33 wrote: post #71
mikeytown2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Range is line of sight. If you can see it, even if 100 miles away, odds are it'll work. Seattle area has one of the better networks for MeshCore. Tacoma to Vancouver BC is the range for semi reliable messaging

Don't the different frequency bands change that a lot? iirc these are all lower frequency so they can cut through foliage better than say 5ghz wi-fi

Yes you can get decent reception inside buildings. It operates in the 915mhz band. Similar frequencies to old school pagers. Lora is an interesting RF protocol, it has really good properties for operating below the noise floor.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#127

Post by Mistletoe »

qingcharles wrote: post #98
Ccecil wrote: post #24

One thing I didn't see covered is to never have your "real phone" and your "burner phone" on you (or in the same location) at the same time while powered. Easy enough to say "Gee...these 2 phones are always together or nearby when activated" or "this phone shuts off right before this one powers up". Although, I suspect there are a few other ways to determine identity easier. Such as tracking the device identifier and…

So many online services use the proximity of phones to determine things like related persons and related accounts. Facebook is notorious for this. In one building I lived at Facebook would constantly show me the names of everyone coming in and out as "You might know this person" even though I had no idea who they were.

I have no idea how this isn’t illegal. I’ve experienced the same horrifying loss of anonymity before. People I met long ago and definitely do not want knowing my real name showing up as Instagram suggested friends.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#128

Post by dfc »

bigiain wrote: post #90
Ccecil wrote: post #24

One thing I didn't see covered is to never have your "real phone" and your "burner phone" on you (or in the same location) at the same time while powered. Easy enough to say "Gee...these 2 phones are always together or nearby when activated" or "this phone shuts off right before this one powers up". Although, I suspect there are a few other ways to determine identity easier. Such as tracking the device identifier and…

Also, never power up or down, or switch in or out of airplane mode on your burner while at home (or work). Cellular network disconnection and connection events are rare and hence notable.

I am not sure I agree with this. I don't think that running out of battery or rebooting a phone is that rare.

But more importantly, if these events are noticeable and Alice does what you suggest she is probably going to highlight her location. Especially if she naively waits till she is 15 minutes from home to switch her burner on. Over time there will be a circle around her house of no burner phone network attach events.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#129

Post by numpad0 »

julcol wrote: post #38
numpad0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just don't enforce the exact same restrictions on roaming users. I suppose there are risks of tourists spilling the beans, so to speak, they just don't view that as a severe unmitigated risk.

When you ROAM, you traffic abroad is routed to your home country ( for security reasons among other things) and then off to the internet from there. You can check that your public IP, when roaming, is an IP from your cellco.....unsure if there are any changes with 5G though. You are not bypassing any firewall as your traffic is actually happening at home. If you access local sites, traffic is coming from home.

Not home country, home PLMN(~=carrier). IIRC there were changes in 4G/LTE that lets the GW be at visiting carriers.

I'm suspecting that that post-4G architecture is just formalization of actual commercial deployment. Latency for roaming data was long inconsistent with the 3G diagrams, and exorbitant roaming fees that would be consistent with the diagrams also started rapidly subsiding from late 3G era.

Re: Burner Phone 101

#130

Post by Arainach »

tmpfs wrote: post #124
giggyhack wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely understand the sentiment and the goals that citizens should, by default, not be tracked. However, how do you square that with the proof, time and again, that truly secure and encrypted networks are primarily use by criminals (drug/human traffickers, and plenty of other people) who, through their trade, make the world a shittier place for the rest of us?

This is nonsense. By your logic me and the majority of people using Signal are criminals. As the other commenter mentioned please provide proof for these hyperbolic claims.

>By your logic me and the majority of people using Signal are criminals

False. "The majority of X are Y" does not imply that any particular X is Y.

I don't have data for Signal. I use it extensively. Even setting aside that the American legal system makes everyone a criminal several times a day so that the laws can be selectively enforced against anyone who becomes a target, I have no data on whether the majority of Signal users are criminals, but given that criminals have significantly higher interest in secure communications than the general population it wouldn't shock me if evidence came out that it was the case.

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