NSA: Disable Location Tracking

Didn't Throw Away Your Cell Phone, did you?

Throw Away Your Cell Phone, back on November 27th, explained why you should do just that. Today someone sent me a link to this Forbes article …

NSA Warns iPhone And Android Users—Disable Location Tracking

There isn’t any setting you can change to make a phone safe. You can just make them somewhat less hazardous.

And we’re less than a week away from a whole new galaxy of hazards …

A Properly Secured Cell Phone

Attention Conservation Notice:

Just ignore this. You NEED your phone. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Historically:

Back during Occupy we had the anti cellphone tracker thing down. The NYPD helicopters had these electronics pods slung underneath. We had someone’s Verizon hotspot and the Apple iPod Touch, an iPhone sans baseband (radio) processor, was the tool of choice. Many people kept a “protest phone”, leaving their real life device at home when they were out & about. There were feet on the street with FRS radios, someone with a phone and radio was near, but not part of the crowd.

Online observers who’d found streaming police radio sites were on the chat app shared with the phone person … it was all a big game of cat and mouse … middle aged adults acting like unsupervised tweens. Such innocent fun we had back when.

Interim:

I bricked my last postpaid cell phone in late 2014. I’ve never replaced it. I spent some years using flip phones, then I begrudgingly got a burner smart phone in order to open a door for work. They crept back into my life due to Authy, but at the start of 2019 I simply stopped taking a phone when I left the house. Four years later a knee injury forced me to start having a mobile device with me in case I needed a ride, but it was left turned off.

I have written extensively about the need to 1) never let the world know your carrier number 2) so you shield with Google Voice 3) but use Signal for everything and 4) you Get! Off! Gmail!, except the minimal presence you need for a GV number.

Now:

And this is the problem today.

As first reported by 404media, hackers have compromised location aggregator Gravy Analytics, stealing “customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data harvested from smartphones which show peoples’ precise movements.” This has dumped a trove of sensitive data into the public domain.

Assuming I can latch on to one of these half price studio unicorns I’ve been tracking for the last few months, I will move. When I do, any SIM(s) that I have come out of devices, and replacements don’t go in until I’m relocated. I am debating starting a new GV/Signal and letting the old one become a desktop only thing.

Alternatives:

I was lusting after a GrapheneOS phone in the spring of 2024, but the heavens opened and dropped a pile of Apple gear on me, then a group of Apple users needed some assistance …

But since then the price of a Pixel with hardware memory tagging has plummeted.

The Scraptop is still in my closet, but I stole the memory out of it for my new HP EliteDesk 800 G5, which was bought to be a f0rked up Windows 11 machine that I need to restore, until I’m familiar with that process.

However … I just recently discovered that this machine fully supports Qubes. Now I need a couple 32GB SODIMMs and a Western Digital Red NVMe drive …

Real World Consequences:

Do you work in an OBGYN office? And you take your personal phone with you? There’s easily available data on everyone who works there, who visits, and it’s relatively simple to trace those phones where ever they go. You don’t get off work until five, but your sixteen year old picks up a younger siblings and gets home an hour before you do?

The permission to do violence against “the other” is already there. That is going to steadily escalate. Start envisioning where you go, who you see, who is in the office above or below yours, or next to you on the train every day, and then factor in a Qanon nutter who has the “dots” to “connect” you to some cOnSpIrAcY.

Conclusion:

I’m used to these sorts of concerns being non-theoretical. Any people around me are also hardened and most are reactive. You poke them, you’ll need an orthopedic surgeon to see to that hand when they’re done with you.

If you are reading this, followed by actually taking some of my suggestions and applying them, you might be edging towards that place where you can call yourself “hardened”. That can be imparted, with enough time and well rendered explanations. Those who are reactive seem born to it; you see armor, they see a collections of various exploitable chinks.

Perhaps the transition to a post cell phone life would be easier if you start envisioning it as an elective corporate ankle monitor. Turning it off is a good first step, but the SIM being in it, even when powered down, is a hazard if you get too close to certain things. I suggest you become acquainted with Mission Dark’s Faraday bags. Bonus points if you can figure out how to get them without leaving a trail.