No root, no cake. In the US, that is

In countries where you MUST show your proof of identity to get a number, pray tell me what kind of OPSEC can you employ to not do that?

Only if you don’t have to show your ID to get a number

That depends on your OPSEC

It is not. You do not show any ID to get a phone number

The problem is, if you’re in Europe, your phone number is associated with your identity

Arguable in it being “the best app for privacy”. Can you link to a source which shows that phone numbers are not linked to accounts? (Why do they need them anyway?)

I didn’t know that. Thanks

TBH I would just use email over TOR and encrypt communication with PGP. Rotate identities every now and then and you should be fine. Yes it doesn’t have forward secrecy but it removes the effort to find the “right messaging” service and is instead ubiquitous (and you can sign up for anonymous email addresses online too, which makes it even better).

Sure they don’t log the IPs, but it is technically impossible to not know the IP when you’re running a centralized service.

Good idea overall, unfortunately they still have your IP and phone number which means Europeans are still implicated

If the US let them sell these here Samsung would be bankrupt in a matter of days.

I believe Xiaomi also lets you root their devices without doing an Asus on their customers

Is Libgen even an entity? What constitutes “Libgen”? I think there might be a way to make this claim invalid by a round-about shrug: “what’s libgen”?

Chinese phones that let you unlock the bootloader are actually a great deal

You’re not there for fun lol, you’re there to pirate stuff. Sure, using Signal to pirate would be fine too but your anonymity depends on how long they honor their word of “no logs”. Use a desktop version/ run a VM if you’re on MacOS or something.

Everybody hates me when I say it but Apple users should really reconsider their choices if they are at all interested in privacy. Go get a cheap Android device, hope it has a kernel beyond 5.10 and KernelSU it.

I still don’t understand; why not simplex/briar?

Why is the iPhone better value?

If it can’t run GKI then not interested

ADB commands cannot permanently remove system applications, they can only disable them till you get around to wanting to enable them again. The problem starts getting ugly when you disable a lot of stuff at once and then something breaks and you’re too lazy to track down which component was necessary. A couple of applications are no problem. Of course, it’s been a year since I’ve tried ADB so RTFM. Don’t worry so much about it

I still don’t see the point.

If religion showed you a method to get to God (praying, doing good deeds etc) and then someone came along who proved that there was a significantly easier way of attaining Nirvana without all the hassle; man would be afraid. “What if we get found out?” But when they see a LARGE and growing community of people ABLE to attain nirvana in exactly the same manner as described (i.e. without the pain) and while fighting the borderline criminal requirements that religion set - many would agree and leave the supposed “set” path and embark towards the easier solution. Some may do it out of greed, some desperation, and many more through sheer curiosity.

Why are people afraid of piracy? Use a damn no-log VPN and attain whatever it is you want without corporate monkeys in your brain. Get a seed box to give back to the community. Give a coffee to the people doing the hard work for the extra seretonin.

The only reason why someone would be arbitrarily afraid is if they don’t have a clue. Such people should be getting into a habit of RTFM; they’re going to need it.