It’s never a good idea to bring your phone with you. It can be used, even while powered off, to track and surveil you. The BLM protests were just the tip of the iceberg. The apps you have on your phone track you. The government is buying that tracking data. Your phone is a massive privacy weak point. It’s basically a bug you carry on you willingly. It’s not safe. Period.
Leave your phone at home. It’s not worth it. It may not bite you in the ass the day of, but could very easily come back to haunt you after they investigate, in case anything goes “wrong” in their eyes. It’s just not worth it.
IMHO, as someone that works in security / privacy, I tend not to view it as a binary thing. It depends on where you live, what you’re protesting, what you look like, who you are, etc.
Are you in Russia or China and are protesting the government? Yeah, I might leave that thing at home. Are you a white lady in San Francisco marching with a pink knit cat hat during brunch hours, then you’re probably well on the other side of the risk spectrum. You might actually be introducing more risk by having less immediate access to communication or a camera.
The problem is that the people doing the surveillance are hardly going around honestly telling people what’s their surveillance profile.
For example in the UK that “pink knit cat hat white lady” would very likely be under surveillance if she was a member of the Green Party and participated in demonstrations. In fact, recently a number of cases came out where in the 80s and 90s the police had infiltrated Ecologist groups and even left some of the women in those groups pregnant with the children of men they late found out were undercover agents.
Further, the lower the barrier to entry to surveillance the lower the “threat profile” needed to end up under surveillance: if the authorities have already have well established and commonly used processes backed by ultra-broad surveillance court (or whatever those courts are called in your country) orders to just get from the mobile network providers all the phone numbers that connect to specific cell towers during a specific time period (such as the ones nearer a demonstration during that demonstratiom), pink knit cat lady is going to end up in the list just as easilly as baclava-wearing hard-core anarchist looking to break stuff.
They might not hack the pink knit cat hat lady’s mobile to install eavesdropping software, but she’s still in the list for every demonstration she attended carrying her phone and for the authorities finding out those who were at multiple demonstration and cross-searching with other databases to resolve those numbers to actual identities is pretty easy unless those people jumped through hops to keep those things disconnected (which, funny enough, smart anarchists are more likely to have done than your average pink knit cat hat lady)
We take on risk every time we decide to wake up and start the day.
I live in a place where I’m considerably more likely to get hit by a car while walking than thrown in jail as a political prisoner. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to go for a walk. I’m going to live life.
Leaving my phone at home seems pretty silly when the risk is very low in my nation and I do riskier things while cooking dinner.
Oh, in day to day usage I agree with you: we’re all one little uninteresting datapoint in a whole lot of datapoints and there are plenty of other ways in which we are tracked.
However if you’re part of a Political Party or Movement and/or attend demonstrations, it’s probably wiser to leave the phone at home, if only because that makes you stand out as a much more interesting datapoint than average.
I think the fact that we are able to record everything that happens and automatically upload it seriously outweighs what you are saying.
The only reason cops get in trouble is only because people are filming. If it’s not caught on camera, it didn’t happen in the eyes of the law if it’s just our word against a cops.
It’s your life. This advice is important in more active circles. There are also jobs that should be given out. Just like there are medics that come out, there should be journalists—in leftist action circles, this isn’t EMTs and NBC photographers. See what I’m saying?
It’s ultimately your choice. But depending on what’s happening, the cause, the state, the cops, the current state of the govt of the country, etc., this advice can literally be invaluable.
For 200-250$ you can get very decent used compact cameras (like the RX 100). It won’t upload the photos immediatly, but it is still pretty much on par with most current cell phones.
It can be used, even while powered off, to track and surveil you.
How? The only legit thing I can think of is if they are tracking you anyway, and then they see your phone is turned off, they might try to claim that you must be up to something. But they won’t be able to track it while it’s off.
let’s put aside everything @[email protected] wrote you;
if the French state was trying to legalize exactly this, it must be possible: la validation pure et simple de l’activation à distance des fonctions de géolocalisation de téléphone et autres objets connectés (voiture, balises airtag, montre etc) qui repose exactement sur le même procédé technique que le dispositif censuré : la compromission d’un périphérique, en y accédant directement ou par l’intermédiaire d’un logiciel espion pour en prendre le contrôle à distance.
Nothing in your links above indicate that the spyware operates while the phones are powered off (although I relied on a crappy translation of the French). Could spyware mock the shutdown process so that it looks like the phone is powered off while the phone is actually running? Sure it can, but the victim will be tipped off when the phone’s battery is being drained even while it is “shut off”. (And someone who is paranoid enough to shut down their phone would pay attention to that.) . It seems like it’s not worth the effort.
read, listen to people that were spied on using the pegasus software. Easy to find
i don’t know if you’ve met any real activists, militants in your life but they’re rarely geeks. And checking the battery of their phone or reading about battery life isn’t one of their priorities
Yes, info on Pegasus is easy to find. And never says Pegasus is active when the phone is powered off. It’s undetectable and insidious in what it can grab, but at no point is there any reference at all to being active while the phone is powered off.
If you have a reference that states otherwise (that isn’t written by an AI), please supply it. I’ll be happy to give up on this if someone can prove their point.
And that is because it is way too easy to detect when the phone is off, not only because of the battery drain, but because the radios would be transmitting when they shouldnt . Plus, persisting across a reboot requires some trace of the Trojan to be on physical storage, which is more likely to be found on a scan.
I am assuming that when a state-level actor is hacking a phone, they are targeting a person directly, and know how to get the Trojan on undetected. Their main goal will be to continue to siphon data off it while it is in use. It’s not worth the risk of detection to track it while it is off (and not being used, after all.) Don’t you think they would prefer to use the same method they used the first time to infect the burner phone that’s actually being used?
It’s never a good idea to bring your phone with you. It can be used, even while powered off, to track and surveil you. The BLM protests were just the tip of the iceberg. The apps you have on your phone track you. The government is buying that tracking data. Your phone is a massive privacy weak point. It’s basically a bug you carry on you willingly. It’s not safe. Period.
https://theconversation.com/police-surveillance-of-black-lives-matter-shows-the-danger-technology-poses-to-democracy-142194
https://www.vox.com/recode/22565926/police-law-enforcement-data-warrant
Leave your phone at home. It’s not worth it. It may not bite you in the ass the day of, but could very easily come back to haunt you after they investigate, in case anything goes “wrong” in their eyes. It’s just not worth it.
IMHO, as someone that works in security / privacy, I tend not to view it as a binary thing. It depends on where you live, what you’re protesting, what you look like, who you are, etc.
Are you in Russia or China and are protesting the government? Yeah, I might leave that thing at home. Are you a white lady in San Francisco marching with a pink knit cat hat during brunch hours, then you’re probably well on the other side of the risk spectrum. You might actually be introducing more risk by having less immediate access to communication or a camera.
IMHO, it’s nuanced.
The problem is that the people doing the surveillance are hardly going around honestly telling people what’s their surveillance profile.
For example in the UK that “pink knit cat hat white lady” would very likely be under surveillance if she was a member of the Green Party and participated in demonstrations. In fact, recently a number of cases came out where in the 80s and 90s the police had infiltrated Ecologist groups and even left some of the women in those groups pregnant with the children of men they late found out were undercover agents.
Further, the lower the barrier to entry to surveillance the lower the “threat profile” needed to end up under surveillance: if the authorities have already have well established and commonly used processes backed by ultra-broad surveillance court (or whatever those courts are called in your country) orders to just get from the mobile network providers all the phone numbers that connect to specific cell towers during a specific time period (such as the ones nearer a demonstration during that demonstratiom), pink knit cat lady is going to end up in the list just as easilly as baclava-wearing hard-core anarchist looking to break stuff.
They might not hack the pink knit cat hat lady’s mobile to install eavesdropping software, but she’s still in the list for every demonstration she attended carrying her phone and for the authorities finding out those who were at multiple demonstration and cross-searching with other databases to resolve those numbers to actual identities is pretty easy unless those people jumped through hops to keep those things disconnected (which, funny enough, smart anarchists are more likely to have done than your average pink knit cat hat lady)
I agree with your point, but balaclava is the hat, baclava is the delicious Greek pastry.
what an image though 😁
We take on risk every time we decide to wake up and start the day.
I live in a place where I’m considerably more likely to get hit by a car while walking than thrown in jail as a political prisoner. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to go for a walk. I’m going to live life.
Leaving my phone at home seems pretty silly when the risk is very low in my nation and I do riskier things while cooking dinner.
Oh, in day to day usage I agree with you: we’re all one little uninteresting datapoint in a whole lot of datapoints and there are plenty of other ways in which we are tracked.
However if you’re part of a Political Party or Movement and/or attend demonstrations, it’s probably wiser to leave the phone at home, if only because that makes you stand out as a much more interesting datapoint than average.
I think the fact that we are able to record everything that happens and automatically upload it seriously outweighs what you are saying.
The only reason cops get in trouble is only because people are filming. If it’s not caught on camera, it didn’t happen in the eyes of the law if it’s just our word against a cops.
It’s your life. This advice is important in more active circles. There are also jobs that should be given out. Just like there are medics that come out, there should be journalists—in leftist action circles, this isn’t EMTs and NBC photographers. See what I’m saying?
It’s ultimately your choice. But depending on what’s happening, the cause, the state, the cops, the current state of the govt of the country, etc., this advice can literally be invaluable.
For 200-250$ you can get very decent used compact cameras (like the RX 100). It won’t upload the photos immediatly, but it is still pretty much on par with most current cell phones.
How? The only legit thing I can think of is if they are tracking you anyway, and then they see your phone is turned off, they might try to claim that you must be up to something. But they won’t be able to track it while it’s off.
let’s put aside everything @[email protected] wrote you; if the French state was trying to legalize exactly this, it must be possible: la validation pure et simple de l’activation à distance des fonctions de géolocalisation de téléphone et autres objets connectés (voiture, balises airtag, montre etc) qui repose exactement sur le même procédé technique que le dispositif censuré : la compromission d’un périphérique, en y accédant directement ou par l’intermédiaire d’un logiciel espion pour en prendre le contrôle à distance.
source
wasn’t the scandal about the Pegasus spyware all about this imperceptibility?
Nothing in your links above indicate that the spyware operates while the phones are powered off (although I relied on a crappy translation of the French). Could spyware mock the shutdown process so that it looks like the phone is powered off while the phone is actually running? Sure it can, but the victim will be tipped off when the phone’s battery is being drained even while it is “shut off”. (And someone who is paranoid enough to shut down their phone would pay attention to that.) . It seems like it’s not worth the effort.
read, listen to people that were spied on using the pegasus software. Easy to find
i don’t know if you’ve met any real activists, militants in your life but they’re rarely geeks. And checking the battery of their phone or reading about battery life isn’t one of their priorities
Yes, info on Pegasus is easy to find. And never says Pegasus is active when the phone is powered off. It’s undetectable and insidious in what it can grab, but at no point is there any reference at all to being active while the phone is powered off.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
If you have a reference that states otherwise (that isn’t written by an AI), please supply it. I’ll be happy to give up on this if someone can prove their point.
And that is because it is way too easy to detect when the phone is off, not only because of the battery drain, but because the radios would be transmitting when they shouldnt . Plus, persisting across a reboot requires some trace of the Trojan to be on physical storage, which is more likely to be found on a scan.
I am assuming that when a state-level actor is hacking a phone, they are targeting a person directly, and know how to get the Trojan on undetected. Their main goal will be to continue to siphon data off it while it is in use. It’s not worth the risk of detection to track it while it is off (and not being used, after all.) Don’t you think they would prefer to use the same method they used the first time to infect the burner phone that’s actually being used?
back in the loop ☞ https://lemmy.world/comment/9738706
have a good day