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The protester's guide to smartphone security

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Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#31

Post by DicIfTEx »

qwerty_clicks wrote: post #7
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…

What apps do you recommend with p2p messaging?

Here's a guide to PET (peer-to-peer, encrypted, through Tor) apps, focussing on Briar and Cwtch: https://itsgoingdown.org/the-guide-to-peer-to-peer-encryptio...

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#33

Post by Groxx »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #24
tehjoker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery thing can be important. One strategy law enforcement uses is to force your phone into a high energy state and zap the battery very quickly.

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

(I have no information and thus no opinion on this being a thing that happens but)

constantly keeping the cell antenna and CPU awake would probably do it. it's a BIG part of why weak cell signal and lots of noise at e.g. conventions drains your phone many times faster than normal, even when you're not using it. you could probably do that just by sending junk data to everyone occasionally, or delaying valid data to prevent going into sleep modes for longer periods.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#34

Post by uoaei »

tehjoker wrote: post #13
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…

The battery thing can be important. One strategy law enforcement uses is to force your phone into a high energy state and zap the battery very quickly.

Nitpick: it's sap the battery, as in sapping energy.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#35

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Th smartphone is the greatest mass surveillance device ever conceived, although AI monitored camera networks will probably exceed it very soon.

There are basically no countermeasures. Which means freedom is truly at the discretion of the powerful, because once the government goes North Korea there is no going back.

I actually think the biggest threat to humanity in the Great Filter sense is authoritarianism, more than nuclear Armageddon, grey too, or super AI.

Nothing can stop by he centralization of power that AI provides to the powerful, and the fact the elite have been brazenly antidemocratic and anti- institutionalism in public and podcasting platform is this election cycle is frightening.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#36

Post by upofadown »

fph wrote: post #30
upofadown wrote: post #27

Briar messenger is specifically designed for things like protests. I think I would prefer it over Signal. The article says: >Signal has responded to 6 government requests since 2016, and in each case the only information they were able to provide was at most: ... That is the all the information they claimed they had. We have no way to know what they actually collect. Briar runs P2P over Tor so they can't collect data…

Signal is open source and ships with verified builds, so yes, we have a way to know what they actually collect.

I meant at the server. We have no way to know that is running there.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#37

Post by unethical_ban »

It's unfortunate that Briar is android-only. I know it is due to Apple restrictions on battery usage (afaik). But it is decentralized and can operate locally over wifi and Bluetooth.

These seem like good practical steps.

GrapheneOS has duress pins (type it in, and the phone is wiped). It has secondary pins for biometric - the intent being that your real password is a long passphrase, and "quick " unlock is bio+pin.

I would add to this list some method of uploading video live to another service, in a way that the video can't be deleted via the phone. I know those exist for the express purpose of civil rights, I think the aclu has a list somewhere.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#38

Post by DaSHacka »

dinosaurdynasty wrote: post #22
Cpoll wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing in this context it means drain the battery. I haven't heard of this technique, but it seems plausible, by tricking the phone into constantly transmitting over WiFi or cell.

I wonder how useful purism phones are for this (all external communication, including GPS, has hardware shutoffs). They are expensive though...

Couldn't you achieve the same by just enabling airplane mode or similar on regular devices? I don't think niche devices with hardware killswitches should be necessary

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#39

Post by mmooss »

diggan wrote: post #19
qwerty_clicks wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What apps do you recommend with p2p messaging?

Lots of groups have used https://briarproject.org/ successfully in the past, I've heard. Assumes you're using Android though which if you're using a burner, you most likely are.

> successfully

Successfully in terms of communication or in terms of security?

Successful communication is easy if you don't worry about security. Just post it on Instagram.

How do you know if your security is successful? How do you know if your messages were intercepted and read, your app was hacked, data was extracted from it, etc.? The attackers (authorities or otherwise) are not going to tell you.

Re: The protester's guide to smartphone security

#40

Post by mmooss »

tehjoker wrote: post #13
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…

The battery thing can be important. One strategy law enforcement uses is to force your phone into a high energy state and zap the battery very quickly.

> One strategy law enforcement uses is to force your phone into a high energy state and zap the battery very quickly.

As a denial of service attack?

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