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- cross-posted to:
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how to secure your phone: leave it at home. Done
Stil secure it, in case the pigs search your home after arresting you. But don’t take it to a protest
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/
Bringing extra meshtastic nodes to a protest could be really helpful. Extra nodes would allow information to more easily find a clear path out of a hot zone to routers in safer locations, and it’d do so without using any telecom infrastructure. The encryption’s pretty good too.
Yes the article says to leave your phone if you can, and to use a burner phone otherwise.
Start protecting your privacy by not visiting the Verge and the 876 partners they share your personal data with.
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.
You’ll need to make sure you encrypt your radios which might be illegal depending on your country.
how to secure your phone for a protest.
don’t fucking bring it
LAAAND OF THE FREEEEEEEE
This so much!
Leave all Bluetooth devices at home as well as they have unique IDs that can be tied back to you as well.
And if you’re worried about your stereo you can always pull the fuse so it gets no power then put the fuse back when you get home.
Need directions? Print them and DO NOT LOSE THE PAPER!
I wouldn’t bring paper directions unless they lead to and from a place that ISN’T related to you. Somewhere you know you can get to and from by heart but is a public place, for instance. Don’t give away a beautiful map from your home address To the protest.
I heard prints are unique and have a hidden pattern which can be mapped to a single printer. Not sure if this is true.
if the government is using printer tracking dots to track you down for participating in a legal, democratic protest, you should not be protesting, you should be doing civil war.
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
This is the answer.
There’s just no fucking way you should go to a protest with your daily driver, secure or not.
I also wouldn’t go without any form of communication. You need to be able to receive information from organisers. Maybe go with a buddy who has a burner and not take anything yourself, but expect to get separated if you’re in a larger group.
I personally wouldn’t be too spooked beyond that, but of course it depends on the level of “activism” you’re going to be involved in. As in I wouldn’t dick around taking the battery out, and I’d save relevant contacts in the phone.
They’re not going to go all CSI miami on your device and your contacts. If they ask you to unlock your phone they will just be looking for selfies of you doing something incriminating.
remove the battery
Don’t forget a portable heat gun, suction cup and prying tools. /j
Please execute in a dust and static free environment.
What, you don’t have a portable clean room with you all the time? Amateurs…
I disagree about saving numbers, you should add your emergency contacts and anyone you went with in case you get separated or shit goes down
Or just… memorize them?
(Does nobody do that anymore?)
I have 1 number committed to memory, and it’s the only one I need if I get arrested. Until that happens I prefer to stay in touch with my people
I still remember some of my school friends’ phone numbers form 30+ years ago, but I have difficulties remembering new people I meet. My brain is weird.
That’s long term memory for you. Normal when you get old.
If you can, leave your phone at home
That’s it! There’s the answer!
Its a balancing act. You shouldn’t be recording tiktoks and doing the carlton.
But there is a lot of value in organizers being able to communicate. If you see a fat white kid with an assault rifle, you let people know. Same with when the patrol wagons roll in.
And there is a LOT of value in being able to make it clear to the cops that you are recording before they decide to “teach some people a lesson”.
I chat about this with my activist buddies a lot. And one thing we are increasingly realizing is that there is a LOT of value in convincing even a mid-tier IRL streamer to come out. Yeah, they are fucking obnoxious when they are trying to yell to chat. But it is someone who is high enough profile that they won’t immediately have their gear destroyed AND privileged enough that they won’t even realize that is an option until it is too late. At which point the decision as to how to handle the escalation is already happening.
Hmm if it’s a smartphone, their location can still be tracked even if they’re not recording videos for social media. Even if it’s not a smartphone, their location can be triangulated.
I’ve never attended a protest, but one of my younger siblings has. I agree with the author here: don’t take a smartphone with you. If you need to go to a protest, and it’s a charged topic (i.e. people have been fired or detained for it), take a dumb phone and make calls once you’re considerably away from the protest’s meeting site. Or, buy a burner phone for use only at the meeting site. If video footage is that big of a deal, take an old-fashioned video camera to record.
What is this “vid-eo chimera” you speak of? Some ancient technology from the Mayans? /j
But seriously, unless there’s some reason to stream live, old tricks are sometimes still the best tricks.
But seriously, unless there’s some reason to stream live, old tricks are sometimes still the best tricks.
Cops who know they are being recorded MIGHT behave slightly better. It is why they are so hellbent on never wearing bodycams ever again.
An SD card on the person of someone being thrown in the back of a van to have an “accident” on the way to booking? Not so useful.
It really just depends what shenanigans you intend to get up to. No method is perfect, and it’s good for everyone to remember that there’s multiple options available.
What is this “vid-eo chimera” you speak of? Some ancient technology from the Mayans? /j
I’ve aged myself, haven’t I? lol
At least you didn’t call it a camcorder.
Maybe. I’ve had the same thought, to the point of bringing a cheap point and click camera or even a disposable one, so you’re not alone!
The guide seems to be aimed at attendees, rather than organizers and media. If someone is showing up to add their voice to the protest, then leaving their phone at home is an ideal way to minimize their footprint.
You shouldn’t be recording tiktoks and doing the carlton.
Then why even GO to a protest??? To stand up for our freedoms? Pssshhhh!!!
does the carlton
Just an aside that Paddy wagons is pretty racist.
That’s so old-school racist it doesn’t count anymore, like Irish_Americans give a shit in 2025. You’re diluting the word, making it worth less.
This is what people mean when they say, “You can’t say anything anymore!” They’re not mad they can’t say n*****, they’re mad because of silly shit like this. If everything is racist, language becomes a minefield, impossible to keep up with and navigate.
Every sourcing I have seen comes more from the UK as a way to shorten patrol and the argument that it is an ethnic slur against predominantly Irish police forces is similar to “cracker” in that… can you REALLY be that racist against the oppressors?
But tweaked anyway. Thanks.
Irish people were actually considered “non-white” throughout most of the history of race as a concept. They were only recently recategorized by racists when they felt their numbers dwindling and decided to expand the tent a little.
Irish people have suffered from a history of explicitly racist oppression; calling them “the oppressors” flies directly in the face of history. Their skin colour may be white, but the history of their relationship with race as a power structure is far more complex.
This does not mean that it’s impossible for Irish people to be racist themselves, or for Irish people to embrace “white” as an identity. Race is complicated; that’s exactly why trying to adopt simplistic attitudes to it never works.
Yes, the Irish were (and kind of still are) looked down upon by “Whites”.
They historically chose to address that by becoming cops. Oppressors. The idea being that if they were useful they would at least be better than the brown and yellow people. And irish cops have caused untold horrors amongst labor and minorities.
So while I disagree that “paddy wagon” is an Irish slur so much as MAYBE it is a cop slur, it is close enough that I’ll refrain from using it. But it is still the same issue as with “cracker” where… you are gonna have to try a whole hell of a lot harder for me to care if people’s feelings are hurt that folk don’t appreciate how many skulls they cracked in the name of impressing the crackers.
But you do see how you’re very much engaging in stereotyping by saying that “They historically chose to address that by becoming cops” as if somehow a) all Irish people in America became cops, and b) the experiences of the Irish diaspora in America are somehow representative of all Irish people… Right?
Like, seriously, go ask some Irish people in Northern Ireland how they feel about cops some time. Depending on who you ask you’re guaranteed to get some wildly different answers.
Again. IF we decide that “paddy wagon” is a slur toward the Irish, it is specifically a slur toward Irish cops. And fuck the police.
Simple as that.
Like I said, I’ll try to avoid it in the future because even though there is very little evidence that it is even a slur toward Irish cops, it sounds enough like one that I would rather avoid it. But I am not gonna lose ANY sleep over oppressors getting their fee fees hurt because people don’t like them.
Yeah racism doesn’t apply to whypepo
If you aren’t communicating that a protest happened, then it didn’t happen.
It’s quite literally the entire point.
Buy a camera. Record. Then when you get back, scrub the exif, then upload.
(Hopefully you got a Tails USB ready)
Ideally also leave your car at home and take public transit while paying with cash or walk. CCTV and facial recognition are still issues, but you would be reducing your fingerprint a ton.
“But how will I livestream my protest against Elon on X with out my phone?”
Of course! It’s so obvious!
deleted by creator
The EFF also has an article: https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest
I was going to complain in the comments that the article doesn’t mention anything about lockdown mode on iOS, but thankfully this eff one does. Thanks for sharing a superior article!
Back when I had Amazon smile, the donations went to the EFF. This makes me happy it went to a worthy cause.
Smile only existed to bleed referral revenues away from search engines. Once enough people started using their app directly they no longer needed smile to make them skip referrers.
Which search engines would do that?
Don’t take your phone to a protest
Bring an old point and shoot digital camera though. Pics and video might keep you from getting locked up.
If it came to that, the SD card would be confiscated and/or the camera smashed.
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
The Hated One is another good resource on these topics. The guy is a paranoid and has an extreme threat model, but the information is still on point. Worth watching and sharing.
Got a specific video you could suggest from them?
How To be Anonymous In A Protest | Burner Phone Tutorial
I think this one is pretty good. Pretty good explanation of how a protester might leave digital information and what to do about it.
Write down your name and ICE information with a sharpie on your body. Use a rugged phone case.
Don’t bother going to peaceful protests, they don’t work against post-truth authoritarian governments.
Going to peaceful protests are useful because it can help you meet some more like-minded folks.
Not to mention sometimes a protest starts peaceful and then goes to shit.
I participated in plenty of protests but haven’t made any acquaintances. I think internet is a better space for meeting people.
Not to mention sometimes a protest starts peaceful and then goes to shit.
Taking a look at the Tesla protests it’s just no-impact feel-good thing. Liberals have too much of disdain for non-economic violence.
