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The protester's guide to smartphone security

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Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#231

Post by bArray »

Delk wrote: post #217
bArray wrote: post #211

Potentially this is where the likes of the PinePhone should thrive [1]. As well as the methods suggested, you could have full disk encryption and just have the phone switch off if it suspects any shenanigans. If you want, it could still boot into an OS, but it just denies knowing about the encrypted disk. Done right, the image itself could be difficult to discern from something like a corrupted video file. > Your Ris…

Regarding #2, I thought AT commands were something you could send to your modem from your attached device. I'm not aware that they could be sent to a modem by another remote modem over the network link. Is that also possible?

You are correct, it's just there to give you an idea of the capabilities of the modem, what sorts of information it holds and what the cell tower may query.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#232

Post by ants_everywhere »

h0l0cube wrote: post #228
ants_everywhere wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I think you're being less than honest with yourself. A group organizing 60 protests is organizing at scale because they want to create the perception of a movement. > There's an aspect of this reasoning that delegitimizes real protest movements Who cares? Our goal is to tell the truth, not to legitimize this or that. The fact is Russians organize a lot of protests in our country. And they're not the onl…

> I think you're being less than honest with yourself Are you sure that's me? > A group organizing 60 protests is organizing at scale Again: what scale? Are we talking all protests? Some? Half? What is "a lot"? > > delegitimizes real protest movements > Who cares? You would, when the protest is about something that matters to you. The very thing that divides so-called Western democracy from the evil Russians is the r…

Yes I'm quite sure

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#233

Post by mdhb »

scarface_74 wrote: post #190
Animats wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have two phones both turned on and they both move around similarly, they can be associated later.

They also tell you to keep one off until you get to the place. Never have both phones on at the same time. This is all well documented https://www.offgridweb.com/preparation/burner-phone-basics-h...

This is advice for a world that doesn’t exist any more and hasn’t for a long time. The only thing you are going to do following this advice is to stand out immediately amongst a sea of data that you are someone who is taking very unusual security measures and worthy of a closer look. It’s a very easy to identify signature and it’s very literally the opposite of what you should be doing in 2025.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#234

Post by diggan »

AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #148
diggan wrote: post #3

If 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…

.....please don't rely on cell towers being too overloaded to track you. The rest of the advice is solid.....but the premise is just gonna get you v&.

My note about overloaded towers is not about that they'll be unable to track you, but you'll be unable to use public internet to communicate with the rest of your group.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#235

Post by 542354234235 »

quesera wrote: post #111
dghlsakjg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you force a phone into using more battery through external means?

If you ever forget to put your phone in Airplane Mode when flying (and you survive the flight!), you will notice that the battery is surprisingly depleted. I think it has to do with the phone constantly renegotiating with cell towers along the route. I've seen similar behaviour when a hurricane took out power to a local tower, and it was intermittently restored. It might be possible to emulate that in a controlled en…

Not exactly. The phone needs to transmit with enough power to communicate with the tower. When connected to the tower, the tower is constantly monitoring the signal and sending back information to the cell phone to tell it how much power it needs (without using more than it needs and wasting battery life).

If a phone isn’t connecting to any towers (like on a plane) it assumes it is out of range and is blasting out max power trying to find something to connect to. During hurricanes, many towers are down, which can overburden adjacent towers as well (since each tower only has a certain number of slots/channels it can handle). It means that you may not be able to communicate with your closest tower, since it is down, but you also may not be able to communicate with the next nearest tower, since it at capacity for current users, which puts you in a longer distance higher transmit power situation.

From what I have heard, those Stingrays act as fake towers, so I would assume they could set them to always tell the phones it needs max transmit power.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#236

Post by 542354234235 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #97
echoangle wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as having a strong pin to help protect you, it won’t protect you from rubber hose decryption. I wonder why no one adds a „decoy pin“ which looks like it unlocks the device but secretly deletes sensitive data. Probably, most people don’t see rubber hose cryptography as a real threat, and in most cases, they’re probably right.

I don’t have any trust in the police or even more so the various 3 letter agencies.

It isn’t about trust, it is about how likely you are to encounter a risk and how big that risk, if encountered, is. Do you own a hazmat suit? A nuclear bunker? Did you install a 5-point harness and wear a helmet when you drive? Could you be tortured for information by the police? Yes. Is that in any way likely at all? No. Taking reasonable precautions against likely actions by law enforcement is better than acting like all things are possible so no point in doing anything.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#237

Post by 542354234235 »

gruez wrote: post #57
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #49

Old phones are an underappreciated resource, imo. I keep a few handsets around for apps I don't want on my daily driver (ex:food ordering, 2FA). More in line with the article: For alternate cell/SMS service I have a RedPocket SIM. (note: I see now it's $45/yr on ebay. I'm paying less, prob grandfathered).

>Old phones are an underappreciated resource, imo. Not really. Old phones don't receive security patches and can be trivially unlocked to extract all relevant information. Sure, it might not have your nudes or bank login, but if you're using it to coordinate the protest that's plenty of incriminating evidence for the police. >For alternate cell/SMS service I have a RedPocket SIM. (note: I see now it's $45/yr on ebay.…

It depends on the threat model. A local police force vacuuming up cell data looking for easy targets and ways to intimidate protestors is different than a targeted investigation by a state actor to identify everyone at all costs.

The Jan 6 insurrection is a good example of how difficult it is in a real world scenario to ID specific people in a large protest, and many of them got caught because they talked about it afterward on Facebook. If you are cell phone 2,347 on a spreadsheet of 33,422 phones and the number has no associated locational data, open source information, etc. you are way safer than bringing your regular phone, while not being an easy target and being able to communicate if you need to.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#238

Post by 542354234235 »

tehjoker wrote: post #12

If you're this worried, don't bring your phone lol. If you need to take pictures (and don't take identifiable pics of people without consent), just bring a camera. Otoh, the main function of protests is to get media attention, so if they don't get publicized there was basically no point unless they evolve into direct action. If you're interested in this second point, read https://www.amazon.com/If-We-Burn-Protest-Rev…

>If you need to take pictures (and don't take identifiable pics of people without consent), just bring a camera.

If you record police brutality, it doesn't do any good if the police come and smash your camera and then deny it. Being able to live stream or to live backup photos and video can be useful.

Also, many recent causes have used social media to provoke "big media" attention. The Arab Spring used social media to circumvent government crackdowns on communications and bring international attention. The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag was started locally after the Boko Haram kidnappings and incompetent government response and brought global pressure and resources.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#239

Post by Onawa »

uoaei wrote: post #163
Onawa wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both 'sap' and 'zap' work in this context, and zap might be the better option because 'sap' can have the additional meaning of moving the energy somewhere else, whereas 'zap' can just mean to remove in general.

"zap" has never meant to remove anything, in general, where are you getting this?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zap

zap: 2 of 3; verb zapped; zapping; zaps

transitive verb 1a: *to get rid of*, destroy, or kill especially with or as if with sudden force

I was using the "to get rid of" portion of the definition.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#240

Post by uoaei »

Onawa wrote: post #239
uoaei wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"zap" has never meant to remove anything, in general, where are you getting this?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zap zap: 2 of 3; verb zapped; zapping; zaps transitive verb 1a: *to get rid of*, destroy, or kill especially with or as if with sudden force I was using the "to get rid of" portion of the definition.

That implies you've detonated or otherwise destroyed the battery, not merely drawn the energy from it.
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