Sure thing. Many of the January 6th protesters were tracked and identified by the government through their mobile phones. It seems that Google location services might have been involved in this specific case, but in general any mobile device is a very powerful location tracker on its own.
Any device that connects to a cell tower must broadcast an equipment identity. Modifying a device's International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is illegal in the USA if done for the purposes of defrauding (no clue what counts as defrauding) and is always illegal in the UK regardless of context.
As I understand it, most mobile devices will broadcast this IMEI even when the device is turned off or it's SIM card removed. Only airplane mode, removing the battery, damaging the device, or moving the device somewhere its signal cannot escape are enough to prevent this signal from reaching cell towers.
Cell companies use this signal in order to shut off service to stolen devices and to triangulate its location. Its location is used to maintain an ongoing connection with the device and is relayed to emergency responders in the case where the device calls emergency services. Cell companies also store this location data for extended periods of time. They turn this information over to the state on legal request, and will sell it to private parties. This information was used extensively by Dinesh D'Souza in the research he did for his film, "2000 Mules."
In order to mitigate this, sensitive individuals such as criminals will often use devices (and by extension, those devices' IMEI's) that cannot be associated with them. These are what people refer to as "burner phones." There are a few simple, but inconvenient rules for burner phones. They must be bought with cash or through another equally anonymous channel. Their mobile subscription must be purchased anonymously. (This means a SIM card with a prepaid subscription.) The device may not connect to cell towers in any location associated with the owner. The device must never be used to contact anyone associated with the owner's identity. And the owner must be willing to freely discard the device. Hence the term "burner."
These rules make such a device inconvenient and impossible for the average person to use as an everyday mobile device. Even criminals and other sensitive individuals will often own a separate personal phone for this exact reason, though the location and owner of this personal phone will have none of the benefits of a burner phone.
From what I have seen, many of the January 6th protesters did not anticipate that they would recieve attention from the state after their actions, and would most likely not have thought to use their burner phone, even if they had had one.
This is a combination of factors that unfortunatly as far as I can see, has no simple and convenient solution. I have put a lot of thought into solutions that aren't as simple and convenient though.
Can you fuckin' imagine if an entire country did a pump and dump of Bitcoin?
That "(oversimplified)" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence!
Hello, Nostr community!
We're Kagi, and we believe in a better web experience that is ad-free, tracking-free, and privacy-respecting. We've worked hard to deliver a high-quality, fast, and reliable search experience without compromising user privacy: https://kagi.com/
We also created Orion, a lightweight, WebKit based browser that is incredibly fast, with a built in ad blocker and zero telemetry, making it private by design: https://kagi.com/orion/
We're fairly new to using Nostr, and any help on how best to engage this community will be greatly appreciated.
What differentiates you guys from Duckduckgo? Duckduckgo has an ad-free setting and an option to donate if you want.
Is that Bitcoin's use case? Is that where all it's value is supposed to come from? People getting bored with using actually passible currencies and deciding to spend it for the giggles? I've seen how that plays out, with all the people paying pennies to updoot some post on Nostr. I have to say, I'm not impressed.
You are right that people need a place to live, food on the table, and clothes on their back. But they will buy all of those things with fiat, since fiat doesn't deflate.
As someone who has actually needed to use crypto as a currency, I can testify as to just how few people are actually in my position.
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqk8az79l7zuswj5s8zyt52um08td4np253lvw3f3r2up3tag3zk8s4s7hna tragic. I imagine there are many in his place. Friend of mine teaching special needs kids was accused of "inappropriate" behavior by a parent with whom he'd friction. Fired, labeled a pedo despite no evidence. Left the US for almost a decade to teach abroad and later topped himself. There HAS to be retribution for false accusers
Retribution can't get his life back, or prevent future innocent lives from being ruined. Especially if we depend on the perpetrators revealing their lies.
Our biggest need is to not imprison innocent people in the first place.
Perpetual monetary inflation means fewer and fewer people can afford to live a decent life over time. Every valuable good and service keeps getting more expensive over time.
Perpetual monetary deflation (towards a final, fixed supply) means more and more people can afford to live a decent life over time. Every valuable good and service keeps getting less expensive over time.
Shout out to nostr:npub1s05p3ha7en49dv8429tkk07nnfa9pcwczkf5x5qrdraqshxdje9sq6eyhe and his book "The Price of Tomorrow."
This is a complete inversion of the Keynesian, fiat mindset. And probably why so many folks are struggling to understand #Bitcoin. We were all brainwashed by the Keynesians.
The only progress that we really need to measure is how many people on the planet can afford to live a decent life. It should be 100%, and with global sound money, there is no reason why we can't get there.
I mean, with inflation you could always just work a job if you want money. Deflation on the other hand encourages hoarding and is not good for currencies while it happens.
There is a group of Californians near where I live who play board games in one of those trendy restourants. I will accept any criticism for associating with Californians or trend restourants both, but I like playing the board games!
This is why owning a phone that isn't linked to your identity is important!
Unfortunately any mobile equipment that you turn on inside your home is immediately linked to your identity lol. Not much you can do about that one!
Really, the law is up for interpretation. Whenever a free speech advocate avoids difficult conversations by hiding behind "legal speech", really they just mean the interpretation of legal speech that they subscribe to, or that their hosting provider subscribes to.
And what speech do you think they interpret as being illegal, ladies and gentlemen? That's right! It's "speech I really dislike!"
I am very tired of free speech advocates who will do anything to avoid having to address this metaphorical elephant in the room.
Whether loli (sexualized depictions of finctional minors) is protected by the 1st amendment has never seriously been disputed by US courts, and especially not by the supreme court.
People have been charged, but they usually decided to plead guilty of their own volition. And usually because the particular people in question had much more controversial media they were being charged with posessing.
"What should be coming"; is that counter-arguments? Do you have any of those?
Based. Say what you believe because you believe it, not because people are going to pay you for it. "Zap" culture is really disengenuous to me.
Isn't that the operating system they made for playing games?
"That gap was from when I went to yale."
"Wow! Impressive! You're hired!"
"Thanks, I really needed this yob.
Yeah, could I get my skill crushed with a hammer?
Personally I think the goal is to get close enough that it would cost more to censor that very dregs of speech than it would to allow it. To decrease the bar for people to host their own speech, and more importantly, for people to find it.
I'm confused, what do you mean by "objective"? What did I say about the post?
Philosophy? Do you have any idea how many times I've been banned from a platform that supposedly supported free speech? How many times I've seen other people banned? Do you think the arguments I present are just thought experiments or positions I've made up? I have heard people making most of those points over and over again.
"Adorable" implies I have something I could learn, but if you truly know that I am ignorant in something then what is this perspective that I am lacking huh? Do you have anything of substance behind you?