Privacy for me has been incredibly rewarding, but when talking to people who haven’t been introduced to privacy, there are occasionally some moments that make it exhausting. One conversation in particular is one that I’ve had to go through dozens of times, and it always goes along these lines:
- Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode? / What’s your phone number?
- Bob: I don’t have a carrier.
- Alice: But you have a phone.
- Bob: Yes.
- Alice: How do you not have a carrier?
- Bob: Phones can come without a carrier.
- Alice: What do you use it for?
- Bob: Everything you use yours for.
- Alice: How do you talk to people?
- Bob: Messaging apps over Wi-Fi.
- Alice: What if you don’t have Wi-Fi?
- Bob: Public Wi-Fi is everywhere. If I don’t have Wi-Fi, I likely don’t need to get in touch.
- Alice: What about emergencies?
- Bob: I can still contact emergency services.
Each time it happens, it has a unique flavor. One person accused me of lying and then fraud. I know people are just curious and don’t mean to be rude, but it makes me die a little inside every time someone asks. I’ve begun trying to sidestep the conversation entirely:
- Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode?
- Bob: To save battery.
or:
- Alice: What’s your phone number?
- Bob: You can contact me with an app called Signal.
People seem to think that a phone automatically comes with a carrier and that it’ll stop working if you don’t have one. In reality, I’m saving hundreds of dollars per year while avoiding spam, fraud, breaches, surveillance, and being chronically online. People have a hard time coping with those who do things a little differently.
hundreds of dollars per year? That’s how much a carrier is over there??
I’m on a popular discount carrier, and it’s ~$30/month. One of the big three carriers will easily charge $100/month.
This is the scene from Parks and Rec where Ron Swanson has to eventually concede to getting a flip phone.
So… I’m kind of in the same situation but mine is actually by mistake. Namely my SIM somehow (OK maybe I tinkered with eSIM a bit much… anyway) works for data and SMS but not for calls. I tried to fix it a bit… then honestly I like it without. Most of the calls I received are not important, nor urgent, and the few that are can leave a message or an SMS.
I stopped relying on my phone for calls entirely and I like it.
When I tell people it doesn’t work they just shrug it off and always find a way to contact me without making a big deal out of it.
I still like having a SIM though if only to
- check where I am on a path the first time I get there
- know if the person I’m meeting might be late
- warn if I’m late on the way to somewhere
but typically my phone works well entirely offline (e.g. I do not stream music, I have actual files on my phone) so I understand.
Honestly in your shoes I’d gauge the person, if they are potentially interesting enough to explore the topic with curiosity, I’d be honest. If I just want to move on because they seem obtuse I’d keep it to the minimum.
I achieve the same by disabling VoLTE and VoWiFi and setting the phone to LTE only in
*#*#4636#*#*.I love these service menus.
*#*#3646633#*#*has so much stuff to permanently screw up on some MediaTeks. But also some useful ones like selection of frequency bands, or even specific frequency and cell id.
But yeah, some settings can persist factory reset, and some may even be illegal like Tx tests (verified that it does transmit garbage on selected frequency with SDR) or IMEI change. Not all settings are on all devices, and they may even be partially broken.But yeah, these settings are don’t touch it for the most part (some are just huge lists of undocumented variables). Some don’t even seem to be resettable from the menu, I mean menus where you select one option, but by default they are unset. And the band mode selection on Moto G54 5G was… interesting. Rather than a nice selection menu, you can type in a number and select to add or remove it from a vector variable for 4G and 5G. Of course, nowhere does it list valid options or give a reset button.
And lastly a thing that serves me as a warning for future, when I was playing around with a leaked service program for some Realtek Ethernet adapter, I found out what eFuse memory is. There is no going back.
If you didn’t yet might want to play with Precursor
My GrapheneOS phone is in airplane mode with cellular disabled and WiFi on.
I’m someone who likes to walk the path less traveled in general. And in general I’ve found that people don’t respond well to such things. Especially when you explain them in dept. “Oh they choose to be different huh? => let’s ridicule them to cover up our own insecurities”
I’ve learned through trial, error and ridicule that people need to earn the right to an explanation to these matters.
I’m not gonna explain to Joe Shmoe that I use Linux because I’m doing my part in not giving the uprise in fascism the steady flow of data they want to increase their influence over the world.
They’d never understand. They gotta earn that by proving they care about the topic.
Yeah something like “Nun of yer business.” works well.
Never explain yourself to people who don’t want to hear the explanation.
For nicer people something like “Its probably boring to you.” can work well. If they insist they can’t complain. :D
Try not having a phone at all. Those conversations are fun
How are you even alive?!
Edit:
If you explain yourself, people take that as meaning it’s up for debate. Better to say “I like it that way”.
I considered swapping to a flip-phone but stopped because I need to be able to access my banking app when near ATM’s. My card only ever has the bare minimum amount of money on it so that theft isn’t a concern.
If you explain yourself, people take that as meaning it’s up for debate.
Whenever you run into those people, I think it’s best to just tell them to fuck off. Maybe word it a bit more diplomatically, but still get the meaning across that it’s not a debate
Something I’ve been investigating is setting up a meshtastic node at home with the expansion board. This gives me a 15-20km range for basic signal, which is more than enough for most stuff I want to do, and I can connect to other nodes in the area when needed.
I’d still need to add a temporary eSIM when traveling sometimes, but that can be a temporary thing.
I did something similar with an old spare phone for a while when my actual phone screen stopped working. I carried both around, but I found 90% of my use cases didn’t involve phone calls or even texting.
I do find it convenient to have my phone connected to tailscale so I can access my home network from anywhere.
And I don’t necessarily trust public wifi.
But otherwise, I fully support this and think it’s entirely viable for most people.
Setup a VPN to your home router and use that when you are on a public wifi. That way all your traffic is fully encypted through the public wifi.
Just keep in mind that the purpose of Airplane Mode is to prevent transmission. Your phone might still be receiving signals like GPS and WiFi SSIDs, which it can record to be transmitted later.
If you really don’t want to be tracked, leave it home.
Or own your device with a custom rom.
The sad truth is: you can’t talk about online privacy with normal people, they just won’t understand, if you try to explain it, they don’t care, simple as that! They’ll ignore anything you say and probably call you paranoid.
Jup. I made that conclusion too.
However one time two friends asked me about secure messengers and I reluctantly gave up that I used Signal. Since then everyone in my closer friend circle suddenly had Signal.
If you are an old programmer/geek young people will dismiss you even though they don’t even know what a folder is. They think they are IT experts because they can apply the latest instagram filters to their photos.
I generally keep my privacy habits to myself, but if someone asks I will tell them. It’s always better to try with a chance of getting them interested than not to try at all.
I have shared and exposed my close friends to it and they use signal with me
Hello, wife?
I’ve never had someone ask me for my phone number. They usually ask me to text them, at which point they have my (throw away) number.
Everyone is totally unaware when I’m de-carriered.
How are you using Signal without a phone number? - asking cause I genuinely would love to do so!
You can sign up using a VoIP number or a burner phone.
So it’s still yes, you do have to have a phone number.
So then you still need to give them a phone number to get texted on signal?
Signal requires a phone number to register, but I can hand out my username without giving them the phone number I registered with.
You might want to look into Matrix.
It doesn’t require any of that bullshit.
if the number you registered with eventually gets recycled to someone who then uses it for Signal, will that affect your account?
If that person registers with Signal then this guy loses his account and username. All new messages sent to his username will get sent to the new person’s phone but the new person won’t have any of the history.
I can’t fathom that Signal is not a honeypot.
Back when I tried to register, not only did they want a phone number (which usually links to IRL KYC stuff) but they also wanted me to complete a google captcha that took different metrics (canvas, etc) of my device.
Why is that needed? They say it’s to reduce spam, I just don’t believe it it.
Not only that, I can’t register using a linux system. I simply MUST register with a mobile device (that I will likely have on me) that can potentially track me through the cellular modem in the device and also likely has listening devices inside the device and a camera attached that is very hard to cover (because it’s embedded into the glass and and covering it with anything messes with the swipe up function).
No organization would create something that is so incredibly hostile to people who don’t want mobile phones and don’t want numbers unless they were a honeypot. I even think that Signal was created in a large part to try to siphon popularity away from XMPP before it could reach mass adoption.
Signal is not for people who categorically do not want numbers or mobile phones. They’ve never said that.
My work around was keeping the phone number but not on my phone so I never lose it like that.
Specifically I ported it to Google voice where its just parked with no monthly cost (there was a 1 time port cost). I’m not logged in to voice ever so the anti-privacy of google doesn’t apply. Any text messages I receive get forwarded to a non google email (but thats few and far between).
I’m sure there are other similar options out there, but I did what I knew and its been fine.
I think it is not required anymore
No, you still need a phone number. IIRC it’s on the roadmap, but not a priority.
It’s a honeypot, so of course making it so anyone can use it, even without a phone number, even with a mobile device, is not a priority.
if it’s a honeypot, why would you make it easier to use anonymously?
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you can use services like jmp.chat to get a reliable number anonymously for verifying anything that requires one
I thought you had to have a phone number to use Signal.
No. Not any more.
Edit: Sorry apparently you still need a number for the registration.
Could have a voip phone number
I don’t know how to get one and shouldn’t have to, just to use an app like Signal. Why isn’t there one we can use without having to give them a phone #?
SimpleX uses the Signal engine but requires no phone number.
A search for that term brings up about 10 different things from crypto to herpes, nothing about a messaging app
Search for it in the Google play store.
Thanks! They also have a desktop and a terminal version, nice.
Just use matrix or xmpp. Signal is centralized. If they stop offering the service it’s gone forever.
There’s always a compromise between security and accessibility. Signal is nice in that it’s pretty secure while also being acceptable. More secure options aren’t very accessible to the average person.
Signal does not care about anyone who does not use android or ios and offers no official way to create an account without them. I wouldn’t call that accessible.
That seems like a better idea, but it 's the same old problem where you’d have to get the people you want to communicate with to switch from Signal to that.
