“If you’re trying not to be tracked, not having a phone is usually the easiest,” Sandvik says. “Leave it at home.”
However, for most people most of the time this solution is not practical. You can put your devices in airplane mode or turn them off completely to limit connectivity. But to be absolutely sure that everything is off the grid, you can place your devices in special bags or cases known as Faraday bags that block all electromagnetic signals going to or coming from a device. Faraday bags allow you to carry your devices without exposing your location; for example, hiding your whereabouts on a given afternoon or the route you took to reach a destination. The disadvantage of Faraday bags is that the device must remain in the bag to protect your privacy, so you need to plan its use effectively. Removing the phone means the cat (location) is out of the bag.
Financial privacy
Financial surveillance is one of the most powerful monitoring tools in the government’s arsenal. Credit card payments or other transactions linked to your bank account are essentially transparent to any law enforcement agency that requires them.
That “follow the money” form of surveillance also has a relatively simple analogous defense: dollar bills. “Forensic accounting exists,” Holmes warns. “So yeah, use cash.”
For those looking for more convenient or long-distance transactions, payment apps like Paypal, Venmo, and Cash App may seem a little more cash-like than a credit card or check, but in reality they are just as vulnerable to requests for payment. data from the authorities like any bank. . Cryptocurrencies may seem like a tempting alternative. But despite cryptocurrencies’ long-standing mythical reputation as anonymous cash for the Internet, bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies offer no real privacy, given the ease of tracking bitcoin transactions on their blockchain and the difficulty of buy or sell cryptocurrency on a cryptocurrency exchange that complies with US “know your customer” laws.
Some cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash offer privacy properties that make them much harder to track than other cryptocurrencies, at least in theory. Mixing services like Ethereum-based Tornado Cash also promise to mix users’ coins with those of others to complicate the task of tracking money. Still, given the ongoing advances in cryptocurrency tracking (and the indelible evidence of any security flaws that public blockchains make available to cats in that cat-and-mouse game), it’s much safer to stay with cash whenever possible.
A note on disposable phones
Burner phones, or prepaid phones that aren’t connected to any of your credit cards or digital accounts, can be a useful tool for protecting your location data and other information. They are intended to have no traceable connection to you and to be used for a limited time. In other words, they are intended to provide anonymity.
The advantage of using recording devices is that you don’t need to worry as much about personal information being collected or inadvertently leaked while you use them because the devices are not linked to you. They simply show that someone is going here and there or that someone, for example, has planned to meet someone else at 8 pm on the park benches. However, over time, if you use the device to communicate frequently, log into any digital accounts associated with you from the device, provide a recorder number to people who do not use recorders, or take it to an associated location. with you while it’s on, like at home, the phone could quickly pair with you.
