Privacy for me has been incredibly rewarding, but when talking to people who haven’t been introduced to privacy, there are occasionally some moments that make it exhausting. One conversation in particular is one that I’ve had to go through dozens of times, and it always goes along these lines:
- Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode? / What’s your phone number?
- Bob: I don’t have a carrier.
- Alice: But you have a phone.
- Bob: Yes.
- Alice: How do you not have a carrier?
- Bob: Phones can come without a carrier.
- Alice: What do you use it for?
- Bob: Everything you use yours for.
- Alice: How do you talk to people?
- Bob: Messaging apps over Wi-Fi.
- Alice: What if you don’t have Wi-Fi?
- Bob: Public Wi-Fi is everywhere. If I don’t have Wi-Fi, I likely don’t need to get in touch.
- Alice: What about emergencies?
- Bob: I can still contact emergency services.
Each time it happens, it has a unique flavor. One person accused me of lying and then fraud. I know people are just curious and don’t mean to be rude, but it makes me die a little inside every time someone asks. I’ve begun trying to sidestep the conversation entirely:
- Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode?
- Bob: To save battery.
or:
- Alice: What’s your phone number?
- Bob: You can contact me with an app called Signal.
People seem to think that a phone automatically comes with a carrier and that it’ll stop working if you don’t have one. In reality, I’m saving hundreds of dollars per year while avoiding spam, fraud, breaches, surveillance, and being chronically online. People have a hard time coping with those who do things a little differently.
Something I’ve been investigating is setting up a meshtastic node at home with the expansion board. This gives me a 15-20km range for basic signal, which is more than enough for most stuff I want to do, and I can connect to other nodes in the area when needed.
I’d still need to add a temporary eSIM when traveling sometimes, but that can be a temporary thing.
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I’ve never had someone ask me for my phone number. They usually ask me to text them, at which point they have my (throw away) number.
Everyone is totally unaware when I’m de-carriered.
you can use services like jmp.chat to get a reliable number anonymously for verifying anything that requires one
Just keep in mind that the purpose of Airplane Mode is to prevent transmission. Your phone might still be receiving signals like GPS and WiFi SSIDs, which it can record to be transmitted later.
If you really don’t want to be tracked, leave it home.
The sad truth is: you can’t talk about online privacy with normal people, they just won’t understand, if you try to explain it, they don’t care, simple as that! They’ll ignore anything you say and probably call you paranoid.
If you are an old programmer/geek young people will dismiss you even though they don’t even know what a folder is. They think they are IT experts because they can apply the latest instagram filters to their photos.
I have shared and exposed my close friends to it and they use signal with me
Hello, wife?
I generally keep my privacy habits to myself, but if someone asks I will tell them. It’s always better to try with a chance of getting them interested than not to try at all.
I considered this option, but public WiFi is not ubiquitous enough here (in France) for my usage, and I believe a SIM card is absolutely required even for emergency services, which is what ultimately turned me off the idea.
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in France
My heart goes out to privacy enthusiasts in France. You guys are really going through it right now.
I thought you had to have a phone number to use Signal.
Could have a voip phone number
I don’t know how to get one and shouldn’t have to, just to use an app like Signal. Why isn’t there one we can use without having to give them a phone #?
SimpleX uses the Signal engine but requires no phone number.
A search for that term brings up about 10 different things from crypto to herpes, nothing about a messaging app
Just use matrix or xmpp. Signal is centralized. If they stop offering the service it’s gone forever.
There’s always a compromise between security and accessibility. Signal is nice in that it’s pretty secure while also being acceptable. More secure options aren’t very accessible to the average person.
That seems like a better idea, but it 's the same old problem where you’d have to get the people you want to communicate with to switch from Signal to that.
I would not be comfortable not having mobile signal. Public WiFi is not going to cut it. Even a 0.00001% chance that I’d miss an important call from my partner is no bueno for me.
Even a 0.00001% chance that I’d miss an important call from my partner is no bueno for me.
Yikes. I can’t imagine having this level of anxiety about being out of contact.
I wouldn’t say it’s an anxiety, I’d say it’s a cost-benefit analysis I’ve done and decided that having cell service to catch a potential emergency call is more important to me than that one extra level of privacy like OP. Hell, I don’t want to miss a call even if it isn’t an emergency. I love my partner and want to talk to them any chance I can get; if they’re calling I want to answer.
You can still purchase an external cellular hotspot, which will be more private than a phone carrier.
Woo hoo! Something new to be paranoid about!
Would using an old phone as an external cellular hotspot be almost just as private as using an application specific device?
I just looked at the video and wondered that since there kinda expensive (also I wouldn’t be able to use the calyx hotspots since I don’t live in the US)
There’s a bigger security risk because of a larger attack surface, and naturally phones can collect a lot more data than hotspots, but it depends on your threat model.
Privacy but using public WiFi?..
The threat of public wifi isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be. Before widespread VPNs and when internet traffic was unencrypted, anything you transmitted could be read by someone else on the network. But nowadays all an eavesdropper would see is what websites you’re connecting to (without a VPN) or the VPN if you are using one. Happy to be corrected if I’m mistaken though
My devices distrust any network, and I always use a VPN. It’s obviously not my first choice, but it can still be done safe enough.
If the wifi has firewall blocking non web ports, do you have a solution for those cases?
Mullvad VPN and others have “obfuscation” methods to mask your traffic as regular web traffic. If those don’t work, I can always connect to a proxy or Tor as a plan B, or see if any other Wi-Fi networks are available. I’ve never had this be an issue, but there are certainly options available.
How are you using Signal without a phone number? - asking cause I genuinely would love to do so!
You can sign up using a VoIP number or a burner phone.
So it’s still yes, you do have to have a phone number.
So then you still need to give them a phone number to get texted on signal?
Signal requires a phone number to register, but I can hand out my username without giving them the phone number I registered with.
if the number you registered with eventually gets recycled to someone who then uses it for Signal, will that affect your account?
If that person registers with Signal then this guy loses his account and username. All new messages sent to his username will get sent to the new person’s phone but the new person won’t have any of the history.
I think it is not required anymore
No, you still need a phone number. IIRC it’s on the roadmap, but not a priority.
Do you use your phone for navigation when driving? Any good app recommendations for navigating without cellular data?
Organic maps found on F Droid, download the state or area you want so is available offline. Won’t do traffic obviously, but gets you a to be.
*Cycling, but yes. I use CoMaps.
Ultimate Lemming:
- Cycles only, detects cars
- Uses CoMaps
- Uses Archlinux?
Im just jokin with ya 😉
2 and 3 check out with me, but 1st point is public transport only. Preferably trains + trams.
Although buses have the advantage that I can sit in the front where I can see the road, and they also tend to be less illuminated so I can see outside at night.
I wish there were dark carriages. Coach buses will have a few blue LEDs near the floor, but a train has to come with full sun worth of light.
Hopefully they can be overhauling UI to be much better. Would be cool if they made calls to wider community for UI people to come in to help out
I can second CoMaps. Works great when I’m somewhere and don’t have a local SIM.
Last time I checked, you can use GPS without carrier. GPS, and GNSS in general, is separate set of satellites. With cellular It’s just more precise since initial triangulation facilitated by cell towers. I recently was mid 5 hours flight and was able to see my location in google maps despite being in flight mode
Herewego works offline.
Yeah I dont get the comaps hype. It sucks anywhere that’s not a megalopolis. Here wego is far far better (for me).
I made a website whose entire existence is dedicated to my “profile” (myname.com). So when someone asks for contact info, I send them there. It gives them the opportunity to contact me using their preferred method, as well as being able to easily find it in the future if they lose it or I change it.
It has:
- phone # (obv could be omitted)
- link to Signal
- link to ArcaneChat
- link to Matrix
- link to SimpleX
- my blog
- Mastodon
- Steam
- Zelle
- etc.
It’s also the first link that comes up, or one of the first, for most people, if they Google me. I also carry basically a business card, but without the business, with QR code and domain.
I also carry basically a business card, but without the business, with QR code and domain.
I wanted to do this and only put my contact for my SimpleX Chat, but good business cards are expensive!
Especially if you’re looking for that perfect shade of white.
I got 250 of them from VistaPrint in 2019 for <$50 and still have a bunch left.
E: just checked and they are $18 for 50
This sounds like a great idea but I do worry about crawlers scraping this gold mine of personal details. Do you put the site behind a password that you include on the business card or something?
No, I don’t consider any of this to be private or valuable information.
phone is the new cigarettes for me. I was a long hair but never smoked. People would ask me for a smoke and I would say I don’t smoke and I would usually get a glare. Like I secretly had them on me. Just the other day someone asked if I could call their phone because I lost it and I said I don’t carry my pone when I walk the dog because im so close to home (I do not). Businesses want me to do something with an app and Im like I don’t use a smartphone (I have one for work but since I would not get one for personal reasons as far as im concerned I don’t have one because I don’t want to use it like that. I will use it as a camera but not to scan qr codes).
I really like this analogy, but the biggest one to me is the intentionally addictive nature of the media and information it provides. Like the specifically targeted nicotine hits smoking provides designed to be addictive, phones sooth, stimulate, and distract in new and yet similar ways leveraging cognitive biases and physiology. They also fuck up your mind and body in screwing sleep cycles, changing your attention threshold, and probably more. Might not be as bad as cancer, but they still have an impact.
oh wow. mine actually is airplane mode to save battery. TIL.
