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by CharlesW
2232 days ago
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I appreciate the conversation. > Apparently your threat model doesn't include governments and large corporations… It's a consideration for sure, and it's why I use Apple devices instead of Google-powered ones, don't use Facebook, use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine, etc. I'm not worried about Apple selling my information (for now, given their current business model) but my network provider is absolutely doing this regardless of device. Given that, what actionable recommendation is even possible? |
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Personally, I'm looking forward to a pinephone. I'm moving towards asynchronous communications, and leaving my phone at home, or in a "faraday pouch" (made of [0]) on airplane mode.
Networking is done through an elastic ip vpn that forwards to a known host, so web sites that I want to use, but I don't want to trigger the captchas and 3FA stuff, see the same user-agent and IP address. I also have many "disposable" phones, that I use on projects that require Google Hangouts or WeChat. Recently I had to upgrade my daily driver phone, and I haven't installed Lineage yet. It's a slog, so I can totally understand why people would simply accept what's readily on offer.
At a basic level, my thinking is that "is this better for me?". That is, how are these capabilities[1] going to be used, in my favour, or against me? Since I have previously been dragged into a large investigation (regarding someone else operating under a false identity), and have had to get various clearances from various governments to work on projects (which is more common than I would naively think), the approach that I take is to appear unremarkable.
In the past, when leaving countries that require exit visas (like China, Israel), I was shocked at how much information they had on me, and revealed in the course of the exit interview. But I have to assume that Anglo countries, if anything, have more advanced technical means at their disposal, but decline to use them unless the target is juicy enough. So the reasonable approach is to do my best to make my pattern "normal" and "unappealing" -- maximizing my benefit from these tools, and minimizing the risks of false associations and accusations.
[0] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/10056
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/1/4580718/fbi-can-remotely-a...