[anonbanker]

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.

[jakeogh]

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.

[anonbanker]

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.