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> If you care about privacy just don't carry a phone. I feel like this position is unrealistic. Privacy is possible with a modern smartphone. Using an alternat

by Forbo 5y ago

> If you care about privacy just don't carry a phone. I feel like this position is unrealistic. Privacy is possible with a modern smartphone. Using an alternative OS on Android devices can help facilitate this. I've been using GrapheneOS as a daily driver for nearly six months now. Any issues I've run into have largely been due to my own configuration of the device. You can also get a lot of useful information from Michael Bazzell's books or podcasts. It may involve jumping through hoops but it is possible to go "off grid" in many regards. If your threat model includes your cell provider, then yes, a faraday bag may be worth looking into. There are also open alternatives like the Librem 5 or PinePhone that offer hardware kill switches. These types of cases are rare, but one doesn't need to become a complete technophobe. As it stands, true privacy is relegated to the technologically elite, the truly paranoid, or those that can pay to play. I would love for that to change, but unfortunately that's the current state of affairs.

Syonyk 5y ago
> As it stands, true privacy is relegated to the technologically elite, the truly paranoid, or those that can pay to play. I would love for that to change, but unfortunately that's the current state of affairs. Or the broke who can't afford the devices now more and more used against us. Or those who are willing to forgo the conveniences of such devices in exchange for privacy. Or, simply for the sanity of not having to deal with them. I'm firmly in the boat of "Could do any or all of those things" - I considered a PinePhone, have a PineBook Pro, could easily do GrapheneOS, and... I'm currently using none of them. I'm using an AT&T Flip IV that I leave at home regularly. If I have some fancy requirement, I can tether a laptop to it. You start from the assumption that a smartphone of some variety or another is a requirement - and I'll counter that, while it's certainly the default option of modern life, the smartphone is really only a decade old, and there are ways of doing things without it we can go back to - and those things do generally still work. I'm at a point in my life where both I can be a bit annoying about things like reachability, and, interestingly, I'm hostile enough to tech that people expect me to be a bit weird about things. Nobody was surprised when I showed up with a flip phone - but they were surprised that I still had things like email and Google Maps capability on it (KaiOS). At which point, the gears started turning. Trying to find a way to de-evil what is looking more and more like a corrupted, user-hostile system through and through doesn't seem worth the time, when one can work towards not requiring people to be in that system in the first place.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I know someone from school who is a fairly senior manager at one of the FAANGs. He only got a cell phone in the first place because he and his wife adopted and the nanny insisted. I know he has a company-issued smartphone now. Don't know if his personal phone is a smartphone by now or if he's still using a flip phone of some sort.
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    This is another thing rarely talked about that's quite common - people really high up in the tech companies don't use the stuff. Remember, when Steve Jobs' biographer asked him what his kids thought about the iPad, his response was, "They haven't used it." You're more likely to find the "cellphone free" group among high level tech execs and such. Why is that? It's worth pondering. I know more and more people, deeply in tech professionally, who are opting out of it in their personal life, across the board. They know what it can do, they've seen it, may have worked on older versions of it, and simply want no part of it anymore.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The main answer is probably that they don't need to. They have personal assistants and admins who deal with their appointments, their email, etc. And, believe it or not, some of them really do unplug when they go on vacation. In a former life when internal company email was becoming a thing, there were execs at my computer company that made one of these minicomputer-based office productivity systems who had their admins print out their email, they'd write responses by hand, and have the admin send the response.
    - tharne 5y ago
      > This is another thing rarely talked about that's quite common - people really high up in the tech companies don't use the stuff. This is true, kind of like how most drug dealers don't do drugs themselves.
    - fragmede 5y ago
      I know I'm personally burnt out on tech by the end of the day from working on it all day, and I'm not "really high up in tech". But also at the end of the day, if I'm not making dinner, then it's DoorDash. If I need a ride somewhere, I use Uber/Lyft. It would be nice to be rich enough to afford a live-in chef and a driver instead of those two apps. I'm not (yet), but it becomes far easier to eschew technology if you aren't forced (no matter how gently) to have any of it.
ghaff 5y ago
>I feel like this position is unrealistic. I'm not sure it's unrealistic but the tradeoffs for ditching a phone entirely day-in day-out wouldn't work for most people. As you say there are alternatives for smartphones and one could presumably alternatively carry a feature phone that can't be easily tied to their identity. (Although there's an increasing assumption that you have a smartphone to accomplish various tasks.)
- Syonyk 5y ago
  > Although there's an increasing assumption that you have a smartphone to accomplish various tasks Indeed, because... basically everyone carries one. So, in order to counter that, more people need to not carry one. Not just object to using smartphones, but, "Look, I literally don't own one, I know you want me to install thus and such app to complete some survey before entering the building, but I can't. What's the alternative?"
tharne 5y ago
It's not unrealistic to not carry a phone everywhere. Do you really need to be reachable while you're at the grocery store? Unless you're on call or a firefighter, there are very few cases where you must be reachable 24/7. Try it sometime, you'd be surprised. Carrying a phone at all times is more a matter of social pressure than anything else. If you get into a real emergency situation, you can just ask someone if you can make a call from their phone -- after all, the world is full of people walking around with phones in their pocket. Leaving your phone at home most of the time is a little inconvenient, but it's certainly not unrealistic. It's just that most of people are happy to trade privacy for convenience.

by Forbo 5y ago

Syonyk 5y ago

> As it stands, true privacy is relegated to the technologically elite, the truly paranoid, or those that can pay to play. I would love for that to change, but unfortunately that's the current state of affairs. Or the broke who can't afford the devices now more and more used against us. Or those who are willing to forgo the conveniences of such devices in exchange for privacy. Or, simply for the sanity of not having to deal with them. I'm firmly in the boat of "Could do any or all of those things" - I considered a PinePhone, have a PineBook Pro, could easily do GrapheneOS, and... I'm currently using none of them. I'm using an AT&T Flip IV that I leave at home regularly. If I have some fancy requirement, I can tether a laptop to it. You start from the assumption that a smartphone of some variety or another is a requirement - and I'll counter that, while it's certainly the default option of modern life, the smartphone is really only a decade old, and there are ways of doing things without it we can go back to - and those things do generally still work. I'm at a point in my life where both I can be a bit annoying about things like reachability, and, interestingly, I'm hostile enough to tech that people expect me to be a bit weird about things. Nobody was surprised when I showed up with a flip phone - but they were surprised that I still had things like email and Google Maps capability on it (KaiOS). At which point, the gears started turning. Trying to find a way to de-evil what is looking more and more like a corrupted, user-hostile system through and through doesn't seem worth the time, when one can work towards not requiring people to be in that system in the first place.

ghaff 5y ago
I know someone from school who is a fairly senior manager at one of the FAANGs. He only got a cell phone in the first place because he and his wife adopted and the nanny insisted. I know he has a company-issued smartphone now. Don't know if his personal phone is a smartphone by now or if he's still using a flip phone of some sort.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  This is another thing rarely talked about that's quite common - people really high up in the tech companies don't use the stuff. Remember, when Steve Jobs' biographer asked him what his kids thought about the iPad, his response was, "They haven't used it." You're more likely to find the "cellphone free" group among high level tech execs and such. Why is that? It's worth pondering. I know more and more people, deeply in tech professionally, who are opting out of it in their personal life, across the board. They know what it can do, they've seen it, may have worked on older versions of it, and simply want no part of it anymore.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The main answer is probably that they don't need to. They have personal assistants and admins who deal with their appointments, their email, etc. And, believe it or not, some of them really do unplug when they go on vacation. In a former life when internal company email was becoming a thing, there were execs at my computer company that made one of these minicomputer-based office productivity systems who had their admins print out their email, they'd write responses by hand, and have the admin send the response.
  - tharne 5y ago
    > This is another thing rarely talked about that's quite common - people really high up in the tech companies don't use the stuff. This is true, kind of like how most drug dealers don't do drugs themselves.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    I know I'm personally burnt out on tech by the end of the day from working on it all day, and I'm not "really high up in tech". But also at the end of the day, if I'm not making dinner, then it's DoorDash. If I need a ride somewhere, I use Uber/Lyft. It would be nice to be rich enough to afford a live-in chef and a driver instead of those two apps. I'm not (yet), but it becomes far easier to eschew technology if you aren't forced (no matter how gently) to have any of it.

ghaff 5y ago

>I feel like this position is unrealistic. I'm not sure it's unrealistic but the tradeoffs for ditching a phone entirely day-in day-out wouldn't work for most people. As you say there are alternatives for smartphones and one could presumably alternatively carry a feature phone that can't be easily tied to their identity. (Although there's an increasing assumption that you have a smartphone to accomplish various tasks.)

Syonyk 5y ago
> Although there's an increasing assumption that you have a smartphone to accomplish various tasks Indeed, because... basically everyone carries one. So, in order to counter that, more people need to not carry one. Not just object to using smartphones, but, "Look, I literally don't own one, I know you want me to install thus and such app to complete some survey before entering the building, but I can't. What's the alternative?"

tharne 5y ago

It's not unrealistic to not carry a phone everywhere. Do you really need to be reachable while you're at the grocery store? Unless you're on call or a firefighter, there are very few cases where you must be reachable 24/7. Try it sometime, you'd be surprised. Carrying a phone at all times is more a matter of social pressure than anything else. If you get into a real emergency situation, you can just ask someone if you can make a call from their phone -- after all, the world is full of people walking around with phones in their pocket. Leaving your phone at home most of the time is a little inconvenient, but it's certainly not unrealistic. It's just that most of people are happy to trade privacy for convenience.