[TeMPOraL]

Well the post mentioned NSA several times as a motivation for those privacy changes. But the NSA can "talk" to cell operators, and cell operators can talk to baseband chips, and baseband chips can "talk" (DMA) to the rest of your phone, so let's be explicit here: this will not protect you from intelligence agencies / state actors. This only might protect you from overly targeted ads.

[comzeradd]

True, but NSA is mentioned just because it made these discussions more vivid and relevant over the last months. The post doesn't claim that you get an NSA-proof phone. I don't think such thing exists.

[akavel]

Not sure if you really did this by accident, or if you're playing dumb, but the article does sound like claiming it'll make a phone NSA-safe. Yeah, now that you said so, I notice that it doesn't explicitly claim so, but first paragraphs are sure sprinkled with the name; if you really cared about the reader's safety, it would be responsible then to explicitly state that this advice does not protect against NSA.

[comzeradd]

So I have to explicitly state what this article is not about. Interesting approach...

[TeMPOraL]

Well, if you already mention the NSA to make discussion "more relevant" to recent events (which were about... NSA surveillance), then it would be also good to mention that the advice from your article are not meant to secure you from the NSA :).

It's good for people to know exactly how much security they get by following particular advice :).

[a8000]

Just like Private Browsing Modes in Chrome/Firefox tell you that they won't protect from agents.

[comzeradd]

I mention NSA to point out that you should at least avoid Companies that cooperate with them. Nothing more, nothing less.

[CHY872]

What, like your phone company? Hmmmmm...

[TeMPOraL]

Agree, but when discussing privacy/anonymity it would be good if people talked more explicitly about the end result. Because most of the solutions that "will improve your privacy" and/or "security" will do so only against targeted ads and technically inept stalkers. Without calling out limits to which the solution improves our "privacy", we're just creating false sense of security in people.

[spiritplumber]

The real question is, would there be demand for it?