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EFF's Cell Phone Guide For US Protesters

Posted by Soulskill on from the do-not-use-your-cell-phone-as-a-projectile-weapon dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation has updated its guide for protecting yourself and your cell phone at a protest. In addition to being extremely powerful tools (real-time communication to many watchers via social media, and video recording functionality), cell phones can also give authorities a lot of information about you if they confiscate it. The EFF is trying to encourage cell phone use and prepare people to use them. (The guide is based on U.S. laws, but much of the advice makes sense for other places as well.) Here are a few small snippets: "Start using encrypted communications channels. Text messages, as a rule, can be read and stored by your phone company or by surveillance equipment in the area. ... If the police ask to see your phone, tell them you do not consent to the search of your device. Again, since the Supreme Court's decision in Riley, there is little question that officers need a warrant to access the contents of your phone incident to arrest, though they may be able to seize the phone and get a warrant later. ... If your phone or electronic device was seized, and is not promptly returned when you are released, you can file a motion with the court to have your property returned."

4 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Do this as well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Do live streams so they cannot just erase your shit. I also have my phone encrypted with a one and done failed password shutdown and a extreme acceleration shutdown trigger as well, go ahead and grab it. I'm not really worried about the police my motivation is geared towards my phone being stolen.

  2. Alter the phone so standard tools won't work by mysidia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For example, take steps to disable 'data communication ports on the device that you don't use.

    Disable the ability to pair over USB or bluetooth.

    Use nonstandard filesystems.

    Analysts attempting to execute an illegal search of your device are not going to be "technical gurus"; too few of those to go around.

    They'll be using standard software tools they bought from some vendor.

    Make sure no "standard" tools will work as expected on your device, and their costs go up tremendously.

    1. Re:Alter the phone so standard tools won't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you have access to surface mount equipment, just modifiy your USB jack to use a flopped cable and add a couple surface mount (grain of dust-sized) diodes to the +/- power lines (think half-wave rectifier bridge). Do it right, and this also "booby-traps" it to "short" any standard USB cable. Either pops the current limiter on the host USB controller or HMCF's their motherboard.

      I do know of a couple folks that have "do I recognize this host?" checking software running on their phones.

      Gotta love surface mount tech.

  3. Re:Better Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I agree with 2, but 1 - not so much. Maybe. Possibly. It's happened to me (in the UK) and it's happened to a number of people I know (also UK) at different times.

    A couple of examples: the British Prime Minister called for street parties to celebrate a royal event. Someone decided to hold a disco in a public park. Many people attended. The police - after letting it proceed for several hours (during which numbers grew) - decided to intervene. People taking happy, smiley pictures on their smartphones suddenly discovered that their phones were "evidence", and now in police possession. (The police intervention inevitably prompted a small but violent reaction from a small group of very drunk party-goers, but curiously the police attention was directed elsewhere - at known political radicals. Character references for one of those charged came from senior European politicians who described the arrests as politically motivated).

    In my case (at a different incident) people recognised me as a "legal observer" and asked me to monitor a brutal arrest. I was unprepared, and ended up arrested and charged (the case was thrown out promptly, fortunately). But I was carrying my regular, smart, phone with me - not the usual throwaway "burner" I'd normally carry on actions.

    My experience of smartphones and the police is - if the police want to arrest you, they probably won't do it when you're expecting it. If you're worried about this, never carry a smart phone (and have a good lawyer's phone number memorised).