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Ask Slashdot: How To Bypass Gov't Spying On Cellphones?
First time accepted submitter jarle.aase writes "It's doable today to use a mix of virtual machines, VPN, TOR, encryption (and staying away from certain places; like Google Plus, Facebook, and friends), in order to retain a reasonable degree of privacy. In recent days, even major mainstream on-line magazines have published such information. (Aftenposten, one of the largest newspapers in Norway, had an article yesterday about VPN, Tor and Freenet!) But what about the cell-phone? Technically it's not hard to design a phone that can switch off the GSM transmitter, and use VoIP for calls. VoIP could then go from the device through Wi-Fi and VPN. Some calls may be routed trough PSTN gateways — allowing the agencies to track the other party. But they will not track your location. And they will not track pure, encrypted VoIP calls that traverse trough VPN and use anonymous SIP or XMPP accounts. Android may not be the best software for such a device, as it very eagerly phones home. The same is true for iOS and Windows 8. Actually, I would prefer a non cloud-based mobile OS from a vendor that is not in the PRISM gallery. Does such a device exist yet? Something that runs a relatively safe OS, where GSM can be switched totally off? Something that will only make an outgoing network connection when I ask it to do so?" And in the absence of a perfect solution, what do you do instead? (It's still Android and using the cell network, but Red Phone — open sourced last year — seems like a good start.)
The only way to win is not to play...
Or, buy a new handset and phone number for every call and only pay cash.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Brian, I assume you paid in cash.
Do you know how much information the Staples inventory system has? Does it store things like the phone's Mobile Identification Number? It certainly logged the time the phone was sold and the location, perhaps flagging your cash transaction. Hopefully you smiled at the various cameras in-store and in the parking lot that recorded you driving up and buying the phone. ;-)
its like the idiots who think the supermarkets are tracking them personally with the loyalty cards. stores want aggregate data and purchase bundles to do loss leader promotions. they really couldn't care what you buy personally
Bullshit. Careful who you call idiot, lest you look even more the fool.
Yes. The idea of a burn phone is a very old one now. If you think that the NSA doesn't have contingencies to deal with that, you are mistaken.
Honestly, unless you really do expect to be doing something illegal, the NSA doesn't have the resources to actually analyze the material they get from everyone for all possible illegal permutations. Unless you have reason to believe you are being targeted, the very fact that you use a burn phone regularly is probably more likely to set off red flags than just your normal use of a possibly monitored phone.
Think about it this way. The use of burn phones is an inconvenience that most people won't bother with. If you are willing to put up with that inconvenience, you are in a relatively small group of people who are either refusers, or people doing illegal stuff. If I were the NSA, I'd be more interested in you as an evader, rather than less. And if they do happen to be able to track burn phones, you've just promoted yourself from Potential Terrorist, Second Class to Potential Terrorist, First Class.
When it comes to panopticons, what you really need to do is learn how to hide in plain sight. The U.S. government is more like Sauron than God. They see everything, but only if they're looking at it.