Google records audio of what you're saying OFF the phone
I've seen it first hand. I was watching an old movie on TV, and suddenly android started showing me ads for this random old movie. Do you realize how much power this company has to hear everything going on around you? To manipulate you with custom propaganda?
This isn't some crazy conspiracy theory, Silverpush android developer plugins openly sells and admits to working with McDonalds to record audio through your phone, of your laptop's Youtube videos, and then use that knowledge to show you more Big Mac ads all over the internet. They are happy to abuse your addiction to give you diabetes.
That's what made me realize I had to finally switch to a DeGoogled phone. But most people don't want to do the work or spend the money. And that's why our team is offering to do it for you, at LESS cost.
PIXEL 9
BRAND NEW
STILL SEALED IN THE BOX
1 YEAR WARRANTY
Official Google Store: $799
Simplified Privacy: $715
You can pick:
We'll flash GrapheneOS (to DeGoogle it) for your convenience
Or if you'd rather do it yourself, you can get it still sealed in the box.
On top of that, it comes with a Circular Economy PGP Receipt: Backed by a binding deposit with an arbitrator. And the original manufacturer's warranty.
You might keep scrolling in apathy, I might lose. But I tried my hardest to get you to improve your life.
Session ID: Support
Signal #: +855 68 504 905
SimpleX & more: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/contact.html
I can confirm that these Pixel 9 GrapheneOS phones are sweet! I bought one from him and love mine.
Why do you believe the business model is unsustainable? Seems like people will always need access to quick transport. Not trying to debate, just curious to hear your thoughts.
One of thee days I'm going to pay the @SimplifiedPrivacy fellow to teach me Linux, but for what's its worth, my Windows 2022 Server runs all my Bitcoin stuff (i.e core node, LND node, electron personal server) for months at a time with no issues whatsoever. And I'm running everything in GUI mode.
The key difference is I'm paying like $.15/hour for that AWS server, whereas you're jammin' on a ten year old laptop. So yeah, Linux is definitely the more cost effective option by far!
There's no getting around having a SIM since you'll likely need to use navigation programs like Waze when you're in the car and WiFi is unavailable.
The magic combination for me personally is:
GrapheneOS
Buy an esim using Bitcoin from silent.link. It's a data-only plan. No voice or SMS. No phone number. They'll assign you an IP address from some obscure location like Warsaw, Poland. So far so good, but the IP address is attached to your esim which is attached to your location.
Now apply ProtonVPN, also paid for in Bitcoin. You've now decoupled your IP address from the esim and your physical location. The VPN IP address is what WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc. will see. Make sure to turn on the GrapheneOS option to block all outbound connections unless the VPN is connected.
So far so good, but you still don't have a phone number or SMS. So for that next step, get a phone number from jmp.chat. Pay for it in Bitcoin. There are no esims associated with that phone number. It runs over XMPP. The only thing jmp.chat will know about you is your anonymous VPN IP address. You've now decoupled your phone number from both your (real) IP address and your physical location.
Your use case seems to be like mine; Very little voice phone or SMS. But when you need it, you need it. So now you have a phone number. The latency with all these layers will make voice calls over jmp.chat rather sketchy on the road, but it'll be fine when you're connected to WiFi.
This seems to be the magic combo for me. The only shortcoming is that financial institutions like Bank of America, Charles Schwab, etc. won't send TFA codes over SMS to a VoIP phone number, and jmp.chat is definitely a VoIP number. I try to avoid companies that insist on using SMS TFA codes, but if that's a critical use case for you personally, you'd need a cheap dedicated flip phone and plan for that.
Hope this helps.
But who will be our NOSTR shill? We need someone famous that'll attract young folks, like maybe John Denver or Hulk Hogan or Kathy Griffin.
It's intriguing how there's this whole cottage industry that sprang up around stoicism: Books, podcasts, seminars, etc.
What about other philosophies? I wanna see more people promoting happy nihilism and rational egoism.
OH SHIT!
Bitcoin 71.42k
XMR 165.29
What good is GrapheneOS if the person you're texting on Signal is using Google's stock malware?
The holidays are coming up. Now you could blow a grand on Google's newest fancy AI phone, with the "find my phone" feature, only for you to NOT to use those AI or GPS features which is a pure waste of money.
Or you can bank a little profit now, get a reliable 7a or 6a for you or close friends and family, and keep the rest in your favorite coin. These DON'T have the "find my phone" feature, which could be a potential hardware backdoor.
With 3 years of security patch support from GrapheneOS, and a
3 month hardware warranty from Simplified Privacy at just:
Pixel 7a: $335
Pixel 6a: $245
There is no real reason you need to spend a grand on Google's marketing hype. I'd be happy to sell you the 9 for a higher profit margin, but I got a moral obligation to tell you these are just as good.
Who knows what crypto and stock market prices will do. You can not only avoid tying your name to the IMEI hardware of the person you're giving the phone to, but also secure and lock-in some profit in a volatile market.
Plus you get an hour of education on how to use it. So if you're gifting it to a family member or friend, then if they suck with technology, you don't have to sit through their insanity.
My direct contact:
Session ID: Support
Signal #: +855 68 504 905
SimpleX or others: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/contact.html
I'm really digging the 9 I got from you. I assume there's no "find my phone" on that. I disabled location services for everything except Waze, which I need for navigation.
Cell Towers vs WiFi.
In this wicked useful and brand spanking new post, I'm going to teach you what data is being shared from cell towers vs WiFi, and what your options to reduce that are. The end has 3 example cellphone setups for the average person, somewhat savvy, and tinfoil hat.
~~~
When you connect to cellphone towers:
You're using the modem which has an IMEI identification number. Using a DeGoogled phone and a VPN does NOT change this from revealing info about the hardware TO the TOWER, such as where it was bought. And who bought it.
There's a couple ways to deal with this. One way is to buy it in cryptocurrency, from a company like mine. This is the easiest method for most people.
A second way is to use external hotspots for service, and buy those locally in cash. For example GLinet travel routers:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/glinet/index.html
(or crypto like Calyx/Tmobile depending on your country.) Some prefer this because then they can put it in a faraday bag to hide their location at home. And only take it out of the faraday bag outside their house.
A third way is to change the IMEI. This method is controversial, as some say it's stealth. Others say you're drawing attention to yourself by giving them bullshit or previous numbers.
Some devices are easier to change then others. And some countries have made it illegal to change the IMEI. Of course, I can not recommend anything illegal. But if it is legal in your country, then generally older things such as Nokias are the easiest. LunarDAO has a guide on this:
https://wiki.lunardao.net/imei.html
A combination of the 2nd and 3rd way can be done by using something like Blue Merle. This is software for GLiNET travel routers that changes the IMEI of the router. Then you could in theory swap different SIM cards. However, this has a high risk of potential error for a new user, and it's unclear who's audited it:
https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle
~~~
When you connect to WiFi:
You're NOT using the IMEI. Instead, you're getting a MAC address assigned to you by the router. This is a local area network. Android randomly generates MAC addresses for each connection, and you can actually see these in the settings of the WiFi connection.
In general, Android security is pretty good for WiFi. However, the CIA loves to hack routers. From the Wikileaks documents, we know they prefer to tunnel traffic from home routers directly to the CIA to see the traffic.
There's two main ways to avoid this. First, you could always use a VPN, which then bypasses the router's DNS.
Second, you could always be behind a firewall or travel router. The router's WAN port is the one communicating with a modem (public internet). While the router's LAN or (local area network) is the one giving you a MAC address.
~~~
What are some example setups?
average person:
Phone (bought with Crypto)
\/
SIM (bought with cash)
\/
VPN
\/
JMP Chat (VoIP)
(using public xmpp servers)
\/
Cell numbers
~~~~~
Savvy dude:
Phone (bought with Crypto)
\/
Silent Link (Crypto eSIM)
\/
VPN
\/
VPS you control
self-host xmpp
\/
JMP Chat (VoIP)
\/
Cell numbers
~~~~~
Tinfoil hat:
Phone (bought with Crypto)
No SIM. Using Tor
\/
GLiNET router w/ SIM (Using VPN)
maybe faraday bags or IMEI changes
\/
VPS you control
self-host xmpp
\/
JMP Chat (VoIP)
\/
Cell numbers
~~~~~
And of course, regular SMS is horrible. Go with a real messenger if the other person will allow it, (which one is actually not that critical): Signal, XMPP, Matrix, Session, SimpleX.
Self-hosting the VPS just provides another layer of protection that you control between the hostile adversary and you.
So our team can help you get a Phone, or setup a VPS:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/they-see-everything/index.html
But even if you go with another option, I hope you digest my core message:
you've got way more control than you think.
Great writeup. Thanks for that. Just to give some feedback where I'm at in the process:
Phase 1: So with my new Pixel 9 w\ GrapheneOS, I initially bought a SIM and phone number for cash from Verizon. Location Services are turned off, except for apps that absolutely require it, like my anonymous Waze account. ProtonVPN obscures the IP address, but as you point out, anyone with my phone number can determine my location through triangulation.
Phase 2: I ditched the Verizon SIM and bought at esim from silent.link. The IP addresses they assign me are out of Warsaw, Poland of all places. But again, my VPN obscures this and displays a US-based IP to service providers. This works really well, but now I don't have a phone number or access to SMS.
Phase 3 (upcoming): I'll try getting a phone number from the Canadian outfit jmp.chat. The nice thing about these guys is they just forward inbound calls and SMS over XMPP. This is ideal because, and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone investigating my phone number via jmp will hit a dead end in so far as jmp knows nothing about me other than the VPN IP address I use connect to their XMPP server. At that point, it seems the link between phone number and physical location has been broken; Jmp doesn't know my IMEI, and Silent.link doesn't know my phone number.
Whether or not I've introduced so much latency as to make phone calls impossible remains to be seen. I'll let you know if I get Phase 3 up and running.
One thing you mentioned that's given me pause though, is the self-hosted XMPP server. That would certainly cut out some latency if the server is near you. But it seems like by doing this you've tied a public IP address to yourself. I can think of some ways to obscure that address using some complicated forwarding, but wouldn't one be better off using a public XMPP server that's used by tons of other people rather than self-hosting?
My girlfriend was struggling with me living bitcoin.
She had a small amount of bitcoin on an exchange just to keep me quiet about it. I told her she needs her own wallet. She never understood why. Slowly after a year she got around to it, but the hassle was too much and the price tag too high for her.
So I kept a wallet in my desk for the day she would ask me to help her set one up.
That note today was the reason she asked me to help her.
I am proud to say that my girl now has her own wallet and her own bitcoin! She is now one of us!
Thank you nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx!
nostr:note1rstj86atnl00vxwtcvh3jfclfrmcmu9a0raghn7wjy2d8a9mnvusuaqccs
Meanwhile, my girlfriend asked me to buy her a Trump-themed NFT. :(
Thanks for the field report. Please do report back with a follow-up after you've used it a while. So it's just an SMS service? No data or voice?
I friggin' loathe SMS. It's a plague. Glad you found a solution!
I signed up for silent-link yesterday too. My impression is that it's cheap, slow, mobile internet service for people who roam about the globe. The IP address they assigned me was from Warsaw, Poland of all places.
But their voice and SMS, even by their own admission, is done on a "best efforts basis," which is just a polite way to say "it usually won't work."
Even if you catch it on a good day and it works, the service is inbound only. You can't send. So if your bank were to ask you to approve a transaction by responding with "YES," you won't be able to do so.
Someone will likely recommend that you try a VOIP service like OpenPhone. That'll fail too. Although their SMS works, it doesn't work with banks. Banks won't send SMS to VOIP services. At least that's the case with Bank of America and other major US banks.
The only thing I've found that works is to buy a cheap, prepaid flip phone with cash, in my case from Verizon, though you can probably buy online for Bitcoin. Then you can pay for it each month using BitRefill. It'll run at least $35 per month.
PSA‼️⚠️: for those of you who have already seen the prebuilt binaries for download for Bitcoin Core v28 (the impending latest) and have LND v0.18.3 (the latest), do not upgrade to Bitcoin Core v28, as this will cause LND not to start.
Either wait for the LND v0.18.4 prebuilt to be released with the fix or compile LND from the source instead.
Context:
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/9053
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/pull/9154
Summary: the impending Bitcoin Core v28 breaks LND v0.18.3, DO NOT UPGRADE to Bitcoin Core v28 until LND v0.18.4.
This only applies to those using Bitcoin Core + LND, not only Bitcoin Core
Thanks for the warning!
Your wine is better than ever too. Good stuff, man.
Yeah, that inconvenient truth bugs me as well.
Hey man, I placed an order on your site the other day. Looking forward to trying it.
The thing about being a Bitcoin maxi is I constantly get alerts from BofA saying that my fiat balance is trending toward zero. I see it as more of an achievement than an alert but whatever... 
The “never sell” narrative is typically pushed by those who advocate building “generational wealth.” I personally have no interest in that particular use case. Living frugally and never selling, with the ultimate goal of enriching an ungrateful child who won’t appreciate the sacrifice you made, is a life wasted.
The whole point of owning hard money is to preserve purchasing power. That implies that you actually use it will *purchase* something at some point. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
What you should avoid though is trading and market timing, converting back and forth to USD, thinking you’ll outsmart the market. You won’t. It may work occasionally, but over time you’re better off holding / spending.
🚨 WHY DID SO MANY CHURCHES CAPITULATE TO COVID TYRANNY!?!?!?🚨I’m looking forward to reading this. As someone who’s both a Christian and libertarian, the blind and automatic capitulation of so many Christians to state, especially when it comes to taxation, is bothersome — but seemingly unavoidable given Romans 13 commands re: “submission to government authority.” I look forward to hearing an alternate take on this issue.