Step 1: Dont take your phone

Gosh, how many people here, who are proposing that people leave their phones at home have actually been to a protest in real life?

My strong guess is: None. Neither has the author of the article been to one.

As someone who attended my fair share protests,including ones in fairly oppressive countries: Take a fucking phone with you, but please use a designated burner phone.

Reasons to have a phone:

• Communication is necessary and paramount - from reorganisation (we are blocked here, so we meet there)to warning (the cops are coming from there and block us off here) people communication is the major aspect that has enabled people to protest effectively and not fall into traps. We can only protest effectively if we are united. And that requires information.

• Let's face it: Pictures and videos are important. Not only in a "the cops are beating us to pulp situation" (their use there is limited), but also to mobilise others, show the extend of the mobilisation (the other side will usually downplay the size of the protests), feed social media (which is important), etc. As long as basic precautions are taken (no faces/identifiable information, no crimes, change position after you post it) this actually helps the cause and maintains the narrative (it's mighty hard to brand protests "full of rioters" when social media shows 100k people protesting peacefully). Mainstream and foreign media relies on this as most media outlets to not have actual coverage of critical protests (and if they do, they usually are behind police lines).

• Especially for larger protests you will often work in uncommon areas. Cities you have never been before. You will need reliable map services and geo location (where is the next hospital? Which shops are open? Are there any shopping malls we can slip into if needed? Where can we sleep? Is there a metro station we can use nearby?) This information is not only vital,it can be time critical. A friend of mine is only alive because his peers knew the way to the next hospital - neither of them was from the city, the ambulance stopped responding hours before that,etc.

• Phones are good transmitters - the cops will find any media you have on you if they really want (and they will search very well if they want), don't think you can hide a micro SD card somewhere. Some countries(including the US) have started to x-ray their new inmates to make sure they don't hide media within their bodies. (Official excuse: Drug packaging and "welfare") So often the best bet is to get all evidence, all media the other side doesn't want to see out before they have access to your phone. (Which I wouldn't count on to get back)

• They can also be a liveline to get one out of prison. The fact that relatives and fellow activists "know" that their loved ones are being arrested is essential for getting them out and prevent charges. Even in very democratic states the cops will be overstretched for days after a mass protest and people will be locked up without much identification and records. And none will know if Person A is locked up, in hospital, vanished due to something else (e.g. hiding or being a victim of something completely different - I know a girl who got offered a place to sleep after a protest and was locked in their basement for two days with their desire to make her their sex slave communicated), etc. Additionally,in the more oppressive countries,the other side will often use the "we don't know anything, the person didn't even attend" excuse to prevent people from getting legal help in time.

Now,the article has a bit of bad advice:

• It is a horrible idea to simply wipe your old phone after backup. Storage doesn't work that way. It is a easy task for any forensic expert to restore most if not all information on the phone. And as it was not used with all data privacy considerations before,there is a good chance they will find leads.

• It can be problematic to use VPNs, especially in a situation like this and if people use public VPNs. Remember,people know that VPNs exist and the other side usually has control over the telecommunications infrastructure. In at least two cases I know of, the use of a popular VPN within a certain cell tower range was used to differentiate between protestors and average citizens. People therefore should make an informed decision if they rather use normal "semi encrypted" communication (nothing unusual in using Signal,Bluesky,Twitter or Facebook in most countries) or if they want to use a VPN to tunnel their traffic but also are more susceptible.

Some better advice:

• Get a burner phone - do not get a used phone,do use your old phone - I literally bought a old phone from a radical neo Nazi on eBay once - the restored data showed massive illegal activities. You can get new phone with a reasonable secure OS for around 100 bucks these days.

• If possible get a prepaid card that is not linked to your name. Bonus if you can use a roaming card - a card from a different country. It is far more difficult for a country to access identifying information then. Do not use that card for anything else and do not set it up at home.

• Create designated social media accounts for protesting and do not use them from home (unless proper precautions are used) and only use them for that.

• Never log into any private accounts with the burner.

• Do not store anything incriminating on the phone - in your mind you must always be treat it like a device the other side might have full access to. Because if they want to,they will. (Yeah, I know, some countries still protect that information - but even there I saw cops overstepping their borders and simply force people. And once they are in,they are in)

• Degooglefy/Desamsungfy your phone as much as possible and make sure things like location based tracking,etc. are off.

• Consider using Briar and make it popular amongst your fellow protesters. Briar can be used without any mobile phone coverage, as it works with WiFi or Bluetooth only (via ad hoc connections). A single phone hidden in a public place can be used as a relay and inform thousands. But it requires a certain amount of users to work effectively.

• Once the other side got their hands on it consider it burned. Because that's what it is.

• Keep your phone on, charged as much as possible,, but in full(!) airplane mode (unless you use Briar,then keep BT on) but keep your GPS activated (again: remove location tracking services). Preload the relevant maps onto the device, ideally with satellite picture if available, these can be helpful). Keep relevant documents (e.g. timetables, partner organisations,etc.) in another encrypted file.

• Keep a reasonably encrypted file with a minimum number of contacts - lawyer, some civil rights organisations. If you want to have the number of a loved one find one of the countless online SIP providers(ideally in another country) and forward from there.

• Most phones allow a number of numbers to be accessed without unlocking the phone. Save a lawyer/protest organisation number in there so you can access it without unlocking.

Start protecting your privacy by not visiting the Verge and the 876 partners they share your personal data with.

If you can, leave your phone at home

That's it! There's the answer!

how to secure your phone: leave it at home. Done

Please accept this cookie before learning how to not be tracked :/

how to secure your phone for a protest.

don't fucking bring it

Do not bring your phone with you to a protest.

If you really need a phone on you, get a burner phone with a prepaid card not linked to your person. But remember, MITM attacks are possible and the police can intercept your traffic and in some cases even compromise your E2EE services (if the key exchange takes place on a compromised spoofed network, see stingrays [1]).

If communication is necessary, get a meshtastic device. It's not the most reliable, and the channels can be jammed, but no one will bother with that. Because they work on usual IoT/smart home appliances frequencies, there is so much interference in cities that triangulating your position in a crowd of people isn't very realistic.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/31/protests-surveillance-stingrays-dirtboxes-phone-tracking/

Buy a burner, keep the battery out until you arrive at the protest, remove the battery when you leave the protest. Don't store any phone numbers in that phone.

Not that protesting will do anything anymore, that time has come and gone

How To Secure Your Phone

1. Leave it at home

Why is this even an article? Do not bring your phone to protests, especially under a republican president, especially one like Trump.

Remember, when iPhones are off, they just become Airtags. Most modern phones are sending/receiving BLE signals even if you don't expressly intend them to. I wouldn't go anywhere near a protest with anything besides degoogled Android, because its the only OS where you can actually disable the radios. Even then I would probably opt for a Faraday bag.

Other considerations... Apple (and probably Google) devices are doing client side scanning of images and turning on GPS to geotag images unless you specifically disabled that features. In other words, there are ways you can be correlated to locations and activities after the fact. Just ask all those J6 rioters.

Can we revive radios?

I mean, yes they can triangulate transmissions, but (As far as I know) they don't have IMEIs, and you talk in code to obscure meanings.

You turn it off before going home, and there's no tracking, don't transmit from home and its fine.

For evidence, bring a camera.

The EFF also has an article: https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest

Don't take your phone to a protest

What a boring dystopian article. It’s sad, but necessary.

purchase and use a burner phone instead, and only turn it on when you’re at the site of the demonstration

This should be the de facto response. In addition, I’d suggest not using your personal phone for any protest related communications and stick with burners no matter how much you may trust the organizers.

Burners