this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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Leave your networked electronics at home, simple as that.
Bring a separate camera/go pro, if you want a camera on hand. Same with satnav.
A cheap af old Android setup as new, with a new/no account, and no sim would probably be better for the majority. A Go pro + sd card are $100+, while a used android can be had for $50. Half the protesters probably already have one sitting in a drawer.
If it's kept in airplane mode and only used for the most basic shit like offline maps, recording audio or video, notes, etc, I don't see how it'd be much of a threat. Ideally you'd want to only connect it to coffee shop wifi and restore it to an old backup after every protest (if you can do offline), but if it's never used for PII, contacts/comms, or any internet services, they can't get much from it.
At the end of the day, if they really want to identify protesters they will. You can't expect anonymity at a protest in 2025. Just don't make it easy for the Gestapo.
No. No network capable electronic devices period. It is absolutely possible to correlate the device MAC address to a protest, and the US government has repeatedly proven they have backdoor access to wireless access points and routers to collect this information.
Android now has MAC address randomization btw
But the phone imei is still always yours. If there's a SIM in there, or it connects to a mobile service, you're cooked anyway.
Most phones and tablets have E-SIM now so its a moot point
Then it automatically connects for emergency calls, and ya cooked.
bruh, back door smack door. they are litterally just buying it.
You are not smarter than a well-resourced set of my military grade contractors that sell intel to law enforcement.
No networked devices. At all. This isn't hard! The entire Civil Rights Movement happened with zero mobile phones. You can do the same. Write important info in a notebook. SD card camera if you must.
So you're saying that they can scan the MAC addresses of devices in airplane mode, a setting designed to not receive or transmit any comms?
Do you have any evidence for these claims, because that is something security researchers could very easily prove?
So salesmen, who sell products? Like all salespeople they likely promise the world, and like all consultants, they likely advise based on the average/lowest common denominator. So yeah, if you are completely tech illiterate, don't think you can outsmart people on tech literacy...
That's not what I'm saying.
First off, you, my fellow human, are a fallible creature that can make mistakes. Relying on airplane mode is a huge risk because if you oopsie once, you're done.
Second, your phone at home is a reasonable alibi. As long as you cover your face fully.
Third, your phone and face are gifts to LE. Do not go bearing gifts.
Using public WiFi is enough to ping a MAC on a snoop-able network device. Let's recall that no one should be connecting to free public WiFi without a VPN anyway. Plus, every LE agency can check connections from IPs of popular open WiFi spots near a route and see that your gmail or Snap or Twitter were accessed. Also, do you know and trust whoever owns that WiFi? So you need a burner, randomozed changed MAC, and a VPN on the phone just to use that public WiFi.
Open BT or AirDrop are also enough. The Chinese love using AirDrop.
Next, if you get arrested, everything on your phone can and will be used against you if they can get in. Did you take a selfie? Good work collecting evidence against yourself. Plus, that phone is gone for food even if you get released. Why do that to yourself?
As for contractors, that's how the military industrial complex works. Contractors do the morally grey area stuff and the government uses what's called third party doctrine to use those capabilities that might not necessarily come up in full during a FOIA request as it would if something was only government based.
Did the Isreali government develop Pegasus spyware? No, NSO Group did. How about which governemt develeoped facial recognition databases used be LE? No government did that. Clearview AI, Amazon at one point, Meta, and Google all did their own. Where does the government get all that data on what you do on your phone? From targeted advertising markets that anyone can access. The government doesn't make fighter jets, or tanks or guns or uniforms or paper or computers or surveillance equipment. Contractors do.
Depend how much you trust thé ones building you phone. Their is no mean of airplane mode now, nobody will notice if a phone ping a tower every hour.
Édit: By nobody I mean you me not gouvernement. Thé government will track you if it can.