Continuity Planning
Worst case estimates are needed.
Today I’ve been sitting here, looking at my Android, then looking at my iPhone, then shaking my head sadly. There are things here that trouble me.
Some services demand a carrier phone number, not Google Voice.
Lose a burner, lose a carrier number.
Google Voice numbers can disappear if idle for a very long time.
Desktop Signal will fail if Signal is uninstalled from a mobile device.
Authy can be bound to a Google Voice number.
I really dislike that first one, there’s no recourse if you lose a device.
Telegram will work with Google Voice, but it can fail unrecoverably.
What can be done about this?
Disaster Drill:
Having come from the service provider world, I absolutely WILL do disaster recovery drills. If you haven’t tested your procedure, you do not HAVE a procedure, all you have is a theory.
Both the Android and iPhone have some things that are attached to their carrier numbers. The only way I can see to make this safe is by figuring out how to clone the SIM for each device. This is a phone repair guy thing … or a SIM swapping gang thing. I see Amazon has equipment for doing this but I still have some reading here. This will fix the “loss of physical device” problem.
Authy was the first OTP app I tried and I instantly liked it. I spent just a little time with Duo later on, didn’t care for it at all. I’ve just started looking at FreeOTP to see if I can do something that will be stable and secure without the presence of a mobile device. This won’t be the retirement of Authy, it will remain, assuming I can solve the SIM backup problem, but there are a lot of things in my Authy that maybe should be in FreeOTP instead. Stated another way, my real life AND multiple compartments are entangled in just one Authy account.
I have lost Google Voice numbers this year and in one case I ended up with a Signal number that worked for a GV number I no longer controlled. It was a fun number, akin to my 706-47-TROLL, so no huge damage done in losing it, but it still bugs me a bit. Same thing with Telegram, 706-47-TROLL broke three or four years ago and they won’t reset it. Since I don’t care for Telegram, nor for the little SchizOps group that kept putting me in their derpy “we manipulate the psychiatrically challenged” rooms, this was more of a life upgrade than a loss.
Conclusion:
I am guardedly sure that 2024 Tool Time is going to feature things like:
Corralling all one’s tentacles on Qubes.
Getting Qubes mobile with a Dell Precision Xeon.
Obtaining some sort of Google Pixel for GrapheneOS.
Retiring OpenVPN for Mullvad/Proton WireGuard configurations.
Picking a no phone number required comms method to replace Wire.
Exercises involving loss or seizure of devices.
I keep thinking of a line from Green River as I look over what’s coming at us:
You’re gonna find a world that’s smolderin’
And on that note, I gotta get back to day job stuff over here. See you next year.