patrick.net

WookieMan says

Even turning all the crap off doesn't stop police and first responders from tracking you. Unless your phone has legit dead battery, even off, you're trackable.

I don't think people understand this. If you want privacy you shouldn't have a phone. That's really all there is to it.

The only thing that will stop a smartphone from spying on you is a full metal (100% coverage) Faraday cage. You can pick up small metal boxes at the thrift stores. We tested several types of EM shielding - mylar, metal mesh, etc. but only 100% solid steel or other ferrous metal will stop the signals.

One of these days, I'll compare battery drawdown between unshielded and shielded phones. I expect the shielded phone to discharge 10X faster than the unshielded one.

stereotomy says

One of these days, I'll compare battery drawdown between unshielded and shielded phones. I expect the shielded phone to discharge 10X faster than the unshielded one.

If your phone is on and cannot reach a cell tower, it will expend a lot of power trying to find one. I've had this happen to me once, so I'm in the habit now when I'm in an area without good cell coverage, I just turn the phone off. Seems like a bad design, but I don't know the specifics of how modern phones work.

richwicks says

stereotomy says

One of these days, I'll compare battery drawdown between unshielded and shielded phones. I expect the shielded phone to discharge 10X faster than the unshielded one.

If your phone is on and cannot reach a cell tower, it will expend a lot of power trying to find one. I've had this happen to me once, so I'm in the habit now when I'm in an area without good cell coverage, I just turn the phone off. Seems like a bad design, but I don't know the specifics of how modern phones work.

I should clarify: I would turn the phone off, then measure charge after about a week. I suspect that even off, the phone is probably spying, or could be periodically woken up by the NSA to eavesdrop, who knows?

richwicks says

HeadSet says

So you are guessing.

Dude, believe whatever you fucking like. Fuck all of you, you want to be slaves, be fucking slaves then. I'm DONE trying to explain to you motherfuckers what can and WILL be done to you.

Whoa, calm down. We were talking about a specific - that you said When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

Just admit that you do not know if this is true instead of launching into your Special Theory of GoogleEvilty.

stereotomy says

I suspect that even off, the phone is probably spying, or could be periodically woken up by the NSA to eavesdrop, who knows?

100% does. It's not even a debate. One of the many reasons I won't buy a Tesla. My 2012 Armada has a remote air bag sensor. I get a postcard every week to get the airbag fixed. Takata bull shit. We're on the front end of EV's. I'm talking a 12 year old car. The lawsuits on EV's really haven't even started.

Back to phones. They for sure can track you when off. I can hold down one button on almost any phone I know of and contact 911 How is that? If you don't want to be tracked, I just wouldn't own a phone. Or at minimum fuck with them so the data is trash.

richwicks says

HeadSet says

Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

Well, it's been a while since I've worked on anything remotely connected to cell phone communication, like 20 years, but it was because it wasn't a shaped waveform at all. You broadcast completely non directional. That's changed.

Well, beam formed a little since there was no point in a tower broadcasting upward. But the mobile phones are not beamed formed at all, so the question remains - Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

stereotomy says

I should clarify: I would turn the phone off, then measure charge after about a week. I suspect that even off, the phone is probably spying, or could be periodically woken up by the NSA to eavesdrop, who knows?

Well, I've had a phone off for months immediately return to life. I don't think you'll notice a difference.

I'm certain phones can fake being "off", I know cameras and microphones can't be guaranteed to be disabled, but turning it off, that's easy to notice.

HeadSet says

Whoa, calm down. We were talking about a specific - that you said When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

The data is there, Google has collected information through their vehicles that map streets, Google is right now getting sued over the fact that "Icognito mode" on Chrome does NOTHING, they have placed microphones into thermostats - they're scum.

I'm just telling you how TRIVIAL it is to do, and I know what companies do when it's trivial to do. They don't have to add hardware. I don't think there is much reason to do it now. Everybody has a cell phone, you probably have a router, there done. They know your location when you turn your phone on, they know your router that you connect to with your phone - finished. Why would they collect this information? I don't know, but I do know all they do as a company is collect information.

HeadSet says

Just admit that you do not know if this is true instead of launching into your Special Theory of GoogleEvilty.

Let me re-iterate, they were collecting information from the Google cars on WiFi Hotspots, and they quit when they started producing phones and all Google does is collect information.

The very first Android phone was in 2008, they stopped collecting information in 2010 from their cars.

If the information is there, they will collect it, why not? I admit I cannot see it as being too useful. They can identify metadata with it, but it's a crude way of doing it. The fact they can do it, given Google's history, means they do. They have a 100% track record of this. They are a data collection company, a private intelligence firm, although not really that private.

richwicks says

If your phone is on and cannot reach a cell tower, it will expend a lot of power trying to find one. I've had this happen to me once, so I'm in the habit now when I'm in an area without good cell coverage, I just turn the phone off. Seems like a bad design, but I don't know the specifics of how modern phones work.

If you're in an area with poor signal. Enjoy it. Turn it off. With kids I need it. If I was a bachelor I wouldn't have the thing turned on outside of work hours. I don't answer the phone anyway. Lawyer in me, I'd just never answer the phone. Never say/acknowledge your name. Be a dick. I love phone arguments.

HeadSet says

Well, beam formed a little since there was no point in a tower broadcasting upward. But the mobile phones are not beamed formed at all, so the question remains - Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

Look, I'm not an expert in cell technology but a tower is a lot more active than a phone. Your phone is MOSTLY doing nothing, even during a conversation.

I'm just giving you a HYPOTHESIS of why they may have been collecting data on GPS and WiFi. It could have just been research. I have thought of this myself, why not replace the vast majority of cell towers with modems? Voice data isn't large in comparison to most of what we do on the Internet now, which is video. Why not just use another frequency to handle telephone calls and let any owner of a wifi network (which is everybody now), do it?

Maybe the data is useless, but I know Google collects ALL DATA THEY CAN, because you don't know what might be useful later.

I know, for a FACT, every search and ip address associated with that search, has been stored by Google. How is this useful? Well, perhaps to build up a psychological profile of the user over time, or the IP address, or a family? Who knows? I bet Google doesn't know, but 30 years of data, maybe they can make a product out of all this information?

richwicks says

Voice data isn't large in comparison to most of what we do on the Internet now, which is video.

Ah, but remember that cable company modems now have competition from Verizon et al 5g "internet" that can deliver 100meg bandwidth. Lots of 4k video will be passed over that, it will hardly be restricted to voice. The future of the internet in many areas will be from cell towers.

HeadSet says

The future of the internet in many areas will be from cell towers.

Possibly. We use QAM for data transmission, and we're beyond where I thought we could go, and there's shaped wave forms, it's impossible to tell.

I can tell you this, if we do move to a society that only accesses the internet through cell technology, you'll be behind a NAT and you will be dependent on a 3rd party to connect to anybody. You will have to go through some sort of authority for EVERYTHING, every communication. If we go there, freedom of speech is dead.

I have my own website on my own computer, sitting away from me 2 feet away. I can't lose it because of a 3rd party says they won't host it. I have 100% control over this. That will go away if I'm placed behind a NAT router I cannot control.

Just ran across this. I have no affiliation with them and get no money for posting it. But I approve of it.

Patrick says

Are they still doing this out there in CA? I haven't seen it since roughly the end of 2022 and that was only at airports. I actually don't mind it. Having to print updated menus as items change is kind of a bitch, especially for non-chain restaurants. Passes costs down to the customer.

But I do get it's one more layer of tracking. I'm clearly indifferent on it. If I know a place has slow service, sometimes being able to put in the order directly to the kitchen is better. Especially flying as they're notoriously slow and black service wise.

richwicks says

The_Deplorable says

This seriously happens. If you have an Alexa or a Google Home, or possibly even Siri - fake a discussion about a pet you'd never own with your family, and see what ads you start getting.

They are 24/7 listening devices. This is a simple test. I've gotten a FEW people to try it, but not with Siri. It's the 1984's telescreen. I'm giving you a test so you can verify it's true, if you don't do the test, whatever. We've been trying to warn you for years.

I have had this happen. Not talking about a pet I'd never own, but about something obscure; a few days later... Ad for said I secure thing. And I don't have an Alexa or Siri or any of that crap. Just my android phone and a couple of laptops.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13579885/Americans-ditching-smartphones-dumbphones.html

A growing number of people are ditching their smartphones for 'dumbphones' that only call and text to avoid being in 'zombie mode.'

The simple devices have skyrocketed in popularity, as 2.8 million were sold in the US last year with people proclaiming they feel calmer and more present in their ordinary lives.

A California woman told DailyMail.com that she made the switch after realizing she spent the entire summer on her smartphone, saying she barely remembered the time - she even forgot where she walked her dog.

Caroline Cadwell explained that switching to a dumbphone was impractical at first, but then became freeing.

'Space and time, is how I'd describe it. It's amazing how much your relationships can gain from giving it up,' she said.

And dumbphones can't spy on you as effectively.

Sheeee-it!

The phone we are looking for has been found!

Some 20yr old wackjob who tried to kill Trump had it all along!

Is anyone here using any of the phones discussed here? I have to use my company phone can't do anything about that but considering switching to dumb phone for my personal, or some other privacy centric phone.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/alice-in-spyland-wednesday-september

It is perfectly impossible to exaggerate the off-the-charts freakishness of this next fantastic, over-the-top, literally explosive 2024 story. Yesterday, Israel’s spy agencies apparently killed, maimed, or wounded up to five thousand Hezbollah enemies without firing a shot, using exploding pagers. The Wall Street Journal covered the story under its headline, “Hezbollah Pagers Explode in Apparent Attack Across Lebanon.”

Iranian-connected, Lebanon-based Hezbollah is a well-equipped Muslim militia and U.S.-designated terror group that has been skirmishing with Israel since last year’s October 7th Hamas atrocity. Recently, following Israel’s assassination of a high-profile Hezbollah leader, the group switched from using high-tech smartphones to lower-tech pagers for communication.

They switched for safety.

Yesterday, up to 5,000 Hezbollah militants all simultaneously received a highly unwelcome message on their pagers. Seconds later, the tiny devices spontaneously detonated, seriously injuring the users, blowing off their hands, violently severing even more delicate body parts, and overwhelming Lebanese hospitals with the wounded. So far, a dozen Hezbollah fighters have died from the trauma and that number will probably increase.

Nobody knows how the mass-assasination was done. Israel hasn’t even confirmed it was involved (but hasn’t denied it, either). Speculation is running rampant, with corporate media doing its best to cover and reassure everyone that all our devices are perfectly safe, this is not an undocumented feature of lithium battery technology, and don’t worry, it cannot be deployed against any inconvenient personage, like you.

Theories abound. Maybe Israeli operatives somehow intercepted all the pager shipments, and cunningly injected explosives that were then somehow triggered by a single pager message. Or maybe the Taiwanese pager manufacturer cooperated or was infiltrated by Israeli spies. Or maybe the Israelis figured out how to blow up lithium batteries in certain devices on command.

We don’t know. And it’s likely we will never know.

One thing is certain though. Now, every intelligence agency in the world has learned a nifty new trick. Not just for one-off assassinations, like the CIA’s infamous exploding cigar, but for mass-marketed, high-precision weapons of mass destruction. We have indeed raced down the rabbit hole.

Ready to retire your smartphone yet?

Patrick says

Ready to retire your smartphone yet?

This remote detonation trend may put a serious hurt on new phone sales. After all, why but a new phone that may have this modification installed? People are complaining that the iPhone 16 lacks any real new features, so why is Apple releasing a new version? Just need one viral rumor of some bomb sniffing dog alerting on an iPhone 16.

The Jews are wily - I remember the Bible story about how the Israelites were overmatched on the eve of battle. They heard the revelry of the opposing troops anticipating victory, so they sent their wives and daughters to the enemy camp to have sex with the drunken enemy troops. While the troops were asleep after an all-night fuck session with these women, these whores of necessity proceeded to cut off the balls of the soldiers so that "they were weak" on the day of battle.

It's in the Old Testament - Look it up.