Using a lab setup, not all the time. If you’re worried about these things you can reuse your lab setup to test multiple devices for “phoning home” packets. Set

Using a lab setup, not all the time. If you’re worried about these things you can reuse your lab setup to test multiple devices for “phoning home” packets. Setup a lab using an old PC with two Ethernet cards, a WiFi card, etc. and observe the traffic flowing through it from the device you connect. If it’s phoning home you’ll see those messages. If you think it’s event based, or targeted surveillance, you’ll need to get more creative. But in OPs post it sounded closer to “logging everything and sending it all back” - if you’re already technically inclined that’s detectable with less effort than a lifetime of worrying about such things.