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by tunap 3799 days ago
Damn, and I just fresh loaded/configured/updated Debian 8.1.0 two weeks ago on home & laptop... here we go again. I may not be able to eradicate the corporate/guv snoops from my life, but I sure as damn will not sit back and allow them to run roughshod over my privacy by mining my every action. Limiting is the goal, mis-info is the entertainment.

Anyone know what Snowden types use for mobile? Tracfone? CM variant? Maemo?

2 comments

Snowden has referred people to the CIA standards for secure telephones: Baseband limited to data only, VPN'ed into VoIP server to make/receive phone calls. I believe he was still using Android to do this.

Any smart person would get a cheap chinese knock-off phone based on a MediaTek MT6592 with a bunch of RAM, install vanilla linux on it, and run YateClient or Plasma Mobile. Combined with VPN, data-only, and VoIP, this would be an enormous pain for anyone to be able to properly track.

Any specific models in mind? I would love to run vanilla linux on my phone. Checking ebay, I see a few with 2GB (like UMI ZERO MT6592T), 4 would be really nice.
I picked up a lenovo knock-off with the aforementioned chip and 4GB of RAM on-board for $120CAD over a year ago on aliexpress. Chinese knock-offs add an extra layer of security-by-obscurity that government actors would have difficulty with.
> Anyone know what Snowden types use for mobile?

Airplane mode.