It's been so turbulent lately, that it's hard to register events that would have blown our minds if so many things didn't also happen around the same time. Remember when Israel made a bunch of pagers explode indiscriminately across Lebanon and Syria? So many things going on, one worse than the other, that it is hard to stop and really consider the implication of these single events fully.
The two technologies ICE uses rely on permission for apps tonuse geolocation data for advertising purposes. Same reason you start seeing ads for local things when you travel.
Technically they can subpoena cell records to see which towers your phone connects to, but this is not viable for multiple people.
For privacy, if you care, having a rooted degoogled phone with no sim card is sufficient enough. You can check its signature by using your laptop as a IGW and capturing traffic to see if any apps or services ping anything.
If you want off grid comms, meshtastic devices are very nice, me and my wife use LilyGo Tdeck pluses for comms and finding each other at festivals. The portable modems are also nice because you can use them for GPS for your phone vs built in location services.
Higher-quality devices will still cost markedly less than a flagship, or even several-years-old smartphone, and will have much greater lifespan absent misadventure.
- Do bring your phone, but put it into "airplane mode" so that it doesn't talk to any cell towers; then upload the video somewhere as soon as you get out of the area
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Vote me down all you want. If a bulletin went out that said "we're going to use your phone to steal your children and torture them" you'd have people saying "but, but .. how am I going to do my banking and check my messages." It's the height of absurdity.
https://github.com/EFForg/rayhunter
> Rayhunter is a project for detecting IMSI catchers, also known as cell-site simulators or stingrays. It was first designed to run on a cheap mobile hotspot called the Orbic RC400L, but thanks to community efforts, it can support some other devices as well.
And
> bitchat is a decentralized peer-to-peer messaging application that operates over bluetooth mesh networks. no internet required, no servers, no phone numbers.
I think that's how we got to this point today, tbh.
2025 showed that you can't just go "ok, it's over now, we'll go back to business as usual" (like I know the limp-wristed Dems will want to do) or it'll repeat after every other election until it's successful. You just cannot have this many people constantly being convinced they live in this alternate reality for much longer without civilization collapse.
But I think it's gone too far and we're witnessing the fall of the empire in real-time. I'm just hoping that fall won't screw up the rest of the world too much, but I'm pretty sure it will.
Gambling, influencing, day trading, kick out the immigrants, anything works as long as it can promise to change your life for the better.
The fact that the fascists want to kill people for being brown doesn't change this.
It’s entirely possible to prosecute the heads of all of these horrific things into the stone age, comb through internal data and throw every agent who’s murdered someone in jail, and not punish everyday people who just cast a vote.
I’ll take the odds for vindictiveness.
GrapheneOS isn't magically exempt from cell tracking, and both android and ios phones can go into airplane mode and have location disabled, which provides similar privacy.
>and an anonymous SIM paid for with cash or crypto. This should be done by everyone to avoid the possibility of mass surveillance, not only people who have something to hide from a three-letter agency.
No, it's much harder than just "an anonymous SIM paid for with cash or crypto". You need to practice proper opsec. There's no point getting an anonymous sim when you then turn around and then use it as a 2fa number for your bank, or carry it around with you every day.
> an anonymous SIM paid for with cash or crypto
i think these already have you screwed. that anonymity is going to be superficial at best. you will be recorded making these purchases, and tracked to your identity
This type of problem needs to be fixed on the society level.
I think that it is not a safe assumption that the only way corporations are obtaining people's location is via OS location APIs.
Alternatively, broadcast a hidden SSID WiFi AP via an enabled RPi and use only devices that's have WiFi. Hand them out to people for free to increase the spread.
Attach magnets to the RPi's and go rogue by sticking them to buses, cars and trains et cetera to increase range.
Don't do this!
The BSSID is still visible, and is the unique identifier any trackers will be looking for anyway. Also making the SSID hidden just means the AP isn't broadcasting it, any listeners can still see the SSID whenever any client interacts with the AP.
Within a lot of our lifetimes, this was the norm. Are these devices so useful that put up with carrying a tracking / listening device on us at all time?
"Participating in the Find My network lets you locate this iPhone even when it's offline, in power reserve mode, and after power off"
Settings > Apple Account > Find My > Find My iPhone
I do not of know a single person in my extended family/professional network/social circle who has had location tracking or app eavesdropping directly impact their life. The only impact I’ve seen is via advertising exposure.
(For me) The convenience of Google Maps for navigation, and messaging for communication, is too beneficial. The _impact_ of these technologies as surveillance tools _in my life_ is hypothetical.
yet. that's always the problem with such a strong declarative. things are not finished to be so finite
From the Ohmni website:
"...fabric's work by utilizing the principles of a Faraday cage to block or shield against electrical signals, electromagnetic radiation (EMR), and radio frequency interference (RFI)."
But what's the point of bringing a phone at this point?
Other comments mentioned valid points about tradeoffs of using an offline camera vs. a phone, with pro-phone arguments listing things like "being able to livestream and get the evidence out even if the device is damaged/destroyed" and "messaging/coordinating/comms". The anti-phone/pro-camera side also had good points, saying that those things also make it easier to track/identify you. The choice between those two options is definitely not clear-cut, and it is all about individual tradeoffs and risk assessment.
But if you are rocking something that's essentially a wearable Faraday cage that block all signals (I am just assuming it works exactly as stated, without attempting to judge its efficacy), what's the point of bringing (an essentially fully offline) phone in the first place, as opposed to bringing a camera with zero connectivity?
I don't have much experience with protests, but I'd think people still need to commute to them. Either by their own car, public transport, or uber.
It would be nice to have your real phone for the commute to/from the protest, or in case of emergency, or if you leave the protest for some food or coffee.
A lot of cameras have built in wifi now, so when you leave the protest you could upload your camera's photos through your phone.
There's still a lot of utility of having a phone and selectively being able to prevent signals emanating from it.
Really??
You can take it out of your pocket and use it to communicate.
Documents like the Declaration and Constitution only get written after centuries of bloodshed that we are far removed from, and people forget why anybody cared about such abstract principles to begin with.
I mean, FFS, what kind of principled third-party invites the authoritarian "opposition" candidate as the keynote speaker to their convention?
Contrary to common misconception, you don’t lose your tech bro man card if you join them!
The best part is that you also shed the physics-defying libertarian viewpoints that largely make no sense.
Sounds like if you're denying location permissions to shady apps (why would you allow in the first place?), you're probably fine.
Why do you need 100 apps? Moreover why do you need 100 apps that have location permissions? Both android and ios makes it easy to tell which apps have location permissions. The list should be a very small list, and limited to "while using app".
>and 10% of the apps convince you to enable location services either by having a plausible need for it or by dark patterns or by your carelessness, that means there are still multiple sources where this information gets out.
I'm not claiming that nobody is getting picked up by data brokers. The fact that they're in business implies that there's enough people careless enough to make it a viable business. But what I am claiming that such tracking isn't too hard to avoid. You can see some people in this thread who think otherwise, thinking that they need to go of the grid or switch to burner phones, when they all need to do is spend 1 minute to check the location permissions list.
I think it's rapidly, finally, entering the realm of political viability.
Did you know that women's period was tracked by propietary smartphone apps?
There goes your freedom.
eh at least it's being seen
Be sure to read their other DHS coverage
Email concerns to mods at hn@ycombinator.com. They can reverse autokills or help find alternative links.
Don't let them!
https://www.amazon.com/Means-Control-Alliance-Government-Sur...
https://reason.com/2026/01/08/you-have-the-right-to-record-i...
Rules for thee and not for me...
ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree
Privacy advocates have been fighting this battle for decades, but they have been utterly defeated because, by and large, people don't and can't be made to care about privacy until they learn the hard way (and when it's too late) why it's so important.
