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> Is it impossible to use a smart phone with strict privacy? Yes. It is a surveillance device pushed by government for this reason.

shadowgovt 2y ago
It's also a surveillance device in its design. The mechanism of it is to connect to one or more third-party-owned towers to bidirectionally transpond data. By the nature of the machine, calculating roughly where the machine is every time it transponds is very straightforward. "I want to send and receive messages from you but you're not allowed to know anything about me" is, at first pass, a tall order. We can sort of get that from the postal system and very little else in terms of communications technologies (and even then, if you screw with the network the postal service in the US is empowered federally to hunt you down).
master-lincoln 2y ago
What makes you believe it is pushed by government (and which government?) and why do you think that government wants to collect private info of everybody without letting them know and is there any evidence for it? Sorry for all these questions, but without them answered your claim sounds like a conspiracy theory.
- fifticon 2y ago
  in my country there are plenty of critical services you basically can't access without mobile apps. e.g. interacting with medical services, and official personal id app.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  One project strongly resembling this was called NTIS, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, detailed in a 2011 O'Reilly Radar piece by Alex Howard, now only available via archive: "A Manhattan Project for online identity: A look at the White House's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" <https://web.archive.org/web/20110506083805/http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/nstic-analysis-identity-privacy.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110506083805/http://radar.orei...> In part: The NSTIC proposes the creation of an "identity ecosystem" online, "where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities." The strategy puts government in the role of a convener, verifying and certifying identity providers in a trust framework. I'd learned about this in 2018/19 as Google+ was shutting down, through a Search Engine Journal piece (leveraging Howard's earlier article heavily), similarly only available as an archive, with the original article substituted in place with another at the same URL. This one by Kristine Schachinger: "In Memoriam: The Rise, Fall & Death of Google Plus" ...Google was only going to be one of many identity service providers for a program run by the Federal Government called the NSTIC, or National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.... <https://web.archive.org/web/20181220165659/https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-plus-history-death/283685/ https://web.archive.org/web/20181220165659/https://www.searc...> I'll note that neither article makes a direct link to mobile phones / smartphones, but clearly as those became widespread and individually identified with a single person for the most part, use of phone numbers as unique identifiers became widespread. Indeed, on Google+, over four billion accounts were eventually compiled, those being automatically granted to every registered Android device through about 2016 (the practice stopped about then). Google increasingly required phone numbers for account registration and recovery, "bribing" G+ members with "vanity" account names if they'd supply same.[1] The use of phone numbers as account validation tokens on numerous other services is now widespread. ________________________________ Notes: 1. I resisted the bait. Ironically, the vanity names couldn't be mapped back to the 20-ish digit UUID that otherwise identified accounts, and those who did make use of the nonnumeric IDs were largely excluded from archival efforts to save G+ content when the service shut down in 2019. I managed to create at least two backups of my own (non-vain) content, for what that's worth.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
  It is a conspiracy theory. My theory is that big tech and government collaborate to surveil us all, sometimes willingly, sometimes openly. All governments at all levels. Ever see a government service, office, or bureau talk of an app or show a QR code? That is a carrot for those who already use and stick for those who don't. Sometimes there is a paper form you can get and sometimes not. Do you recall all those covid apps? Why? Because the government desires to know, for a variety of reasons. The US so they can watch your small payments. Europe so they can watch your speech and carbon footprint. Used to be so they could track you if you had a 1% deadly disease. [EDIT] Evidence? Snowden's leaks and what I mentioned already
pessimizer 2y ago
Smartphone isn't really even a device category, it's a legal category. I barely ever use my phone as a phone; I don't talk on it, I type on it and tap on it; it's just a computer and an access point to networks. But it's a special kind of computer where all the laws are different, I have different rights when I'm near it or using it, and I am in constant battle with the companies that sold the phone to me to 1) try to keep my life as private as I can and 2) not pay them a commission on things I buy. But what can I say about my phone that I couldn't now say about my TV, or my car? This will never become less dangerous, this will become increasingly more dangerous.

shadowgovt 2y ago

It's also a surveillance device in its design. The mechanism of it is to connect to one or more third-party-owned towers to bidirectionally transpond data. By the nature of the machine, calculating roughly where the machine is every time it transponds is very straightforward. "I want to send and receive messages from you but you're not allowed to know anything about me" is, at first pass, a tall order. We can sort of get that from the postal system and very little else in terms of communications technologies (and even then, if you screw with the network the postal service in the US is empowered federally to hunt you down).

master-lincoln 2y ago

What makes you believe it is pushed by government (and which government?) and why do you think that government wants to collect private info of everybody without letting them know and is there any evidence for it? Sorry for all these questions, but without them answered your claim sounds like a conspiracy theory.

fifticon 2y ago
in my country there are plenty of critical services you basically can't access without mobile apps. e.g. interacting with medical services, and official personal id app.
dredmorbius 2y ago
One project strongly resembling this was called NTIS, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, detailed in a 2011 O'Reilly Radar piece by Alex Howard, now only available via archive: "A Manhattan Project for online identity: A look at the White House's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" <https://web.archive.org/web/20110506083805/http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/nstic-analysis-identity-privacy.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110506083805/http://radar.orei...> In part: The NSTIC proposes the creation of an "identity ecosystem" online, "where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities." The strategy puts government in the role of a convener, verifying and certifying identity providers in a trust framework. I'd learned about this in 2018/19 as Google+ was shutting down, through a Search Engine Journal piece (leveraging Howard's earlier article heavily), similarly only available as an archive, with the original article substituted in place with another at the same URL. This one by Kristine Schachinger: "In Memoriam: The Rise, Fall & Death of Google Plus" ...Google was only going to be one of many identity service providers for a program run by the Federal Government called the NSTIC, or National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.... <https://web.archive.org/web/20181220165659/https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-plus-history-death/283685/ https://web.archive.org/web/20181220165659/https://www.searc...> I'll note that neither article makes a direct link to mobile phones / smartphones, but clearly as those became widespread and individually identified with a single person for the most part, use of phone numbers as unique identifiers became widespread. Indeed, on Google+, over four billion accounts were eventually compiled, those being automatically granted to every registered Android device through about 2016 (the practice stopped about then). Google increasingly required phone numbers for account registration and recovery, "bribing" G+ members with "vanity" account names if they'd supply same.[1] The use of phone numbers as account validation tokens on numerous other services is now widespread. ________________________________ Notes: 1. I resisted the bait. Ironically, the vanity names couldn't be mapped back to the 20-ish digit UUID that otherwise identified accounts, and those who did make use of the nonnumeric IDs were largely excluded from archival efforts to save G+ content when the service shut down in 2019. I managed to create at least two backups of my own (non-vain) content, for what that's worth.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
It is a conspiracy theory. My theory is that big tech and government collaborate to surveil us all, sometimes willingly, sometimes openly. All governments at all levels. Ever see a government service, office, or bureau talk of an app or show a QR code? That is a carrot for those who already use and stick for those who don't. Sometimes there is a paper form you can get and sometimes not. Do you recall all those covid apps? Why? Because the government desires to know, for a variety of reasons. The US so they can watch your small payments. Europe so they can watch your speech and carbon footprint. Used to be so they could track you if you had a 1% deadly disease. [EDIT] Evidence? Snowden's leaks and what I mentioned already

pessimizer 2y ago

Smartphone isn't really even a device category, it's a legal category. I barely ever use my phone as a phone; I don't talk on it, I type on it and tap on it; it's just a computer and an access point to networks. But it's a special kind of computer where all the laws are different, I have different rights when I'm near it or using it, and I am in constant battle with the companies that sold the phone to me to 1) try to keep my life as private as I can and 2) not pay them a commission on things I buy. But what can I say about my phone that I couldn't now say about my TV, or my car? This will never become less dangerous, this will become increasingly more dangerous.