For security purposes, Face ID and Touch ID are a no-go.
Why? Data is exclusively stored on the phone and it’s incredibly difficult to spoof either method. Unless you’re trying to defend yourself against law enforcement forcing you to authenticate with biometrics (remember to hit the iPhone power button a bunch of times when you’re approached by cops, to turn off biometric authentication!) I don’t see the point.
After using public Wi-Fi, go into Network Settings, and “forget” the network, so you leave no digital trail.
Lol. That’s like trusting incognito mode. There’s a reason to do this (your phone will send out known WiFi networks when it’s looking for WiFi signals, so past WiFi networks can be used by nearby scanners to form a profile), but “not leaving a trace” isn’t it.
All of this work, and then one friend or family member uploads their contacts to WhatsApp/Telegram/Skype/whatever and your number is attached to your phone. Someone stores your name in their contacts and installs some shitty clicker game? That data is now available for purchase.
What removing moet normal identifiers does, is concentrate your identity onto your phone number alone, and now you need to treat your phone number like your social security number or it will all be for naught.
Once they have your name and phone number, the authorities or your carrier can geolocate your phone on demand. There’s a special network command that will make your phone turn on GPS if it’s off, find your location, and transmit your exact GPS coordinates back to the carrier. This is generally used for locating people calling emergency numbers, but many (most?) implementations of this standard don’t require the phone to even be on a call.
Several American carriers have also been caught selling live location triangulation location data to bounty hunters. You set up an account, pay the rather large fee, and enter a phone number. After a short while, the last known location of that phone just appears on the map. The more recent the connection technology, the more accurate the location information will be.
Buy new SIM cards often and don’t share your number with anyone, and you should have a decent chance of not being tracked. Getting a new SIM every week or month is quite expensive, though.
Because of the way it’s used as an identifier, having any kind of phone number is a threat to your “off the grid” device. The best off-the-grid phone is an iPod. You can use VoIP services and a wide range of apps to get that set up. Some services will require a phone number, but if you set them up after driving to a specific place with a burner phone that only turns on to receive the text message, you’ll be able to use those services with minimal information leakage. Staying connected throughout the day is more of a challenge, but a VPN and WiFi/Bluetooth being off by default should help a lot with that.
For almost everyone, you can’t mix “having a normal smartphone” with “living off the grid”. You’ll have to give up either your fancy smartphone or your attempts at absolute privacy, anything in between is an impossible feat.
Why? Data is exclusively stored on the phone and it’s incredibly difficult to spoof either method. Unless you’re trying to defend yourself against law enforcement forcing you to authenticate with biometrics (remember to hit the iPhone power button a bunch of times when you’re approached by cops, to turn off biometric authentication!) I don’t see the point.
Lol. That’s like trusting incognito mode. There’s a reason to do this (your phone will send out known WiFi networks when it’s looking for WiFi signals, so past WiFi networks can be used by nearby scanners to form a profile), but “not leaving a trace” isn’t it.
All of this work, and then one friend or family member uploads their contacts to WhatsApp/Telegram/Skype/whatever and your number is attached to your phone. Someone stores your name in their contacts and installs some shitty clicker game? That data is now available for purchase.
What removing moet normal identifiers does, is concentrate your identity onto your phone number alone, and now you need to treat your phone number like your social security number or it will all be for naught.
Once they have your name and phone number, the authorities or your carrier can geolocate your phone on demand. There’s a special network command that will make your phone turn on GPS if it’s off, find your location, and transmit your exact GPS coordinates back to the carrier. This is generally used for locating people calling emergency numbers, but many (most?) implementations of this standard don’t require the phone to even be on a call.
Several American carriers have also been caught selling live location triangulation location data to bounty hunters. You set up an account, pay the rather large fee, and enter a phone number. After a short while, the last known location of that phone just appears on the map. The more recent the connection technology, the more accurate the location information will be.
Buy new SIM cards often and don’t share your number with anyone, and you should have a decent chance of not being tracked. Getting a new SIM every week or month is quite expensive, though.
Because of the way it’s used as an identifier, having any kind of phone number is a threat to your “off the grid” device. The best off-the-grid phone is an iPod. You can use VoIP services and a wide range of apps to get that set up. Some services will require a phone number, but if you set them up after driving to a specific place with a burner phone that only turns on to receive the text message, you’ll be able to use those services with minimal information leakage. Staying connected throughout the day is more of a challenge, but a VPN and WiFi/Bluetooth being off by default should help a lot with that.
For almost everyone, you can’t mix “having a normal smartphone” with “living off the grid”. You’ll have to give up either your fancy smartphone or your attempts at absolute privacy, anything in between is an impossible feat.