Thinking out loud here, if someone had an iPhone and felt they needed it for any reason as their phone. Say it was provided by an employer.
Could they in theory keep it, get an android phone, not sim it, and use it on their network and if they wanted to use it mobile just tether to the iPhone.
In this way have a small mobile device that is in theory not trackable at all?
Flaws in this system?
Makes sense to me
It would depend on the network you were on… my 2 cents
I keep a spare android because my new one doesn't have a headphone jack for my square reader,it it isn't on the network I either tether it or use wifi. Works for me.
Great idea, make sure both support wireless charging and glue them with double-sided tape. This way you can charge iPhone via USB-C
is it even possible to tether an andoid off an iphone or vice versa? I don't even see how they can be cabled together to begin with, unless I'm completely misunderstanding the question
Iphones have a wireless hot spot.
Oh ok I see what ya mean now. I was thinking a wired connection. Didn't think of wireless hotspot. That said, in the case of the iPhone being an employer issued one, I would think it would be linked to the person somehow even though purchased by the company. My former employer gave us an iPhone and they had all sorts of extra security in place and one person lost their job when trying to sreturn the phone to ATT (he wanted the money for it I guess). Don't know all the specifics but they somehow knew who's phone was attempted to be returned. I don't see how in general it wouldn't be possible, but depending on the company (large tech firm in the case of my former employer), there will be all sorts of added tracking features.
So like when I was a corporate owner we gave employees iPhones with AT&T they had no choice but we didn't care how they used it (within reason). It was just Apple and AT&T were both clients, big clients so we never wanted them to see our people with anything else.
So I am not so much talking about the employer just being stuck with the device. It was just one example of a why.
Personally I can do anything I want but it this works it may be the way I get off iPhone, make sure I have everything working before moving the SIM. Something like that.
Yea get where ya comin from now. Just was saying for someone who may try this with a corp phone, depending on how its setup it may defeat the purpose. But I see no reason that with the proper precautions taken to keep one's identity private in the process that it wouldn't be possible.
gotta remember, you most certainly have a different mindset than the typical corporate bosses these days.
Preinstalled Android is not privacy friednly at all. It can leak location through any network, say through the network provided by iPhone. It can determine location from GPS, bluetooth and WiFi.
But for me the main downside of this approach is that you need to take two phones with you. I only have place for one in my pocket. It is not convenient to take two phones.
So my solution is to admit that any phone is infected by all kinds of googles and governments of the world and just take this into account. This means somebody else controls all the data on the phone, but they use there powers rarely
Yea really doesn't have a thing to do with my question.
You could tether the android to the iPhone so the android would get a Wi-Fi signal but there is no way to tether to piggyback off of the iPhone cellular network if you were wanting to say make calls from the android.
That said, you could tether so the android has Wi-Fi from the iPhone then get a free virtual number from Google Voice or other. You could then make Wi-Fi calls from the android using the google virtual number (semi anonymously)
According to Snowden, all smartphones are trackable.
You could use the iPhone's hot spot and connect an android phone (calyx/graphene) to it and then use a VOIP number on the android and VPN and you would mitigate some tracking but I wouldn't say 'not trackable'. Also, You'd want to turn off cell data (even without a sim) because they still ping the local towers because of E911 requirements
I think Naomi Brockwell has done a video about using VOIP on mobile and how to improve privacy.
You can run an android off of wifi no problem. No need for a sim, it just cant receive calls or text obviously. But functions as it would otherwise.
All cellular devices are trackible, sim or not. The Hotspot tether is fine for most people for most situations.
The next level is have a prepay sim on you iphone not in your name. With an always on VPN. Then your tethered device will be less trackable.
If you want to take it to the most extreme level. eg protestor or reporter in a non permissive environment then you'll need a wifi only device where you only use it on random open wifi AND where you don't have your cellular device with you.
I guess you could but I woul look at a ghost phone
I believe the host of The Watchman Privacy Podcast covers this option too. It’s a great idea for sure.
"Not trackable" is not quite possible with anything with a mobile data/cell phone modem. Cell companies can query the baseband radio in all phones, even the 2G phones of yore. You can get Stingray'd/ triangulated in theory.
If you are stuck with an iPhone, there is no good way to keep it from leaking data to Apple.
To your question, yes, you can use your iPhone as a hotspot but the data goes through the iPhone. But the connection data is well known to Apple and probably a lot of snoopers. Anytime you use hotspot, there is a global registry of hotspot IPs/MAC addresses. Use a USB hotspot when possible to avoid this.
I recommend checking out Michael Bazzell's "Extreme Privacy Mobile Devices" guide on creating an anonymous phone using grapheneos. In summary, (1) get service through mint mobile using an alias name, and (2) port your cell number over to a voip carrier (I use jmp.chat) so that you never have to give out the cell number attached to the actual cell service. I don't even know what cell number is attached to my mint mobile service.
Wouldn't all your activities be tracked through the iPhone that is associated with you though? Maybe you want an anonymous SIM for the Android.
https://watchmanprivacy.com/2023/06/14/76-silent-link-anonymous-esim-service/
