Can you elaborate on this? I want to know what the concerns are.
Obviously, they can track you with cell towers, and there’s the legitimate risk that they’re setting up stingray cells to intercept or even disable communications. All of that sucks, and I wish it weren’t a problem.
However, if I’m participating in a non-violent protest, I do take a bit of a “flood them with noise” attitude by just being there. I also want to be able to contact my group in case we get separated. Burner phones feel a bit like overkill for what should be a non-violent protest.
And yes, I know there are problems with my “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” attitude. I’m not trying to advocate for that. I want more information so that I know why I should be worried.
When I went to my local Hands Off protest in April, the crowd were on either side of a busy street. Should the people in the cars driving by have turned their phones off?
The computer automatically was able to determine they pinged a mile away 5 minutes ago, and a further mile in the other direction 5 minutes later. They were filtered out before a human was looking at the data.
This happens even when protests aren’t happening. This is regular equipment used in traffic surveys conducted by every civil engineer in every county in the country. The surveys are for completely boring reasons like if the intersection signals should turn the left turn signal green before the straight lanes.
Granted the equipment used in these surveys intentionally ditch identifying information. They can gobble up things like Bluetooth hardware addresses from your car or phone as you drive by, and see if that address pops up on the other sensors in the area. That can reliably tell them which direction you turned at an intersection and they can start to see trends in the data.
This type of equipment is used everywhere and can be retooled to zero in on specific people just as easily as it’s used for anonymous traffic statistics. Throw in things like stingrays and cell tower tracking and you’re fucked.
There’s a difference in a single ping nearby and several pings with a protest, also like the LA protests they may have drones overhead to get even more accurate pings
Edit: sorry maybe you weren’t being disingenuous if you actually attended one. My apologies if so
In Canada they are also eroding away at privacy rights. I voted for Mark Carney (liberal) specifically to not let the pro-Trump conservatives (Canadian conservatives) in… but then Bill C-2 is introduced (not law yet. Not even close. It is in the first reading. Meaning first ever step in the process) that is trying to grant the police the right to open mail without a warrant at any stage in delivery, as well as to directly monitor a person’s internet use without a warrant, and to criminalize (yes criminalize) any cash purchase over 10,000$. Quebec already bans people from carrying more than 3000$ in cash at a time. You can be arrested and charged with intent to commit a crime just for doing that.
I mean fuck me. At this point in time I legit don’t give a fuck about money laundering or petty bullshit. This is such a gross violation of privacy that as far as I am concerned they need to repeal all terrorism related laws.
The Canadian government was able to pursue and apprehend and charge international terrorists in the past without any of these laws. Are the making it easier? I doubt it.
Let’s say you go to a non violent protest with perfectly good intentions. You bring your phone to communicate and take pictures/videos.
Someone in the crowd gets rowdy, or has an agenda to make the protest look violent. They throw a rock at a cop, or a Molotov on a car. The cops gather cell data, and now you’re a person of interest in a riot or, lately, a terrorist act. You could have booked it as soon as you heard the commotion. But the phone proved you were there, and it’s gonna be a fight to prove you did nothing wrong.
Regular store digital walkie talkies come with “encryption” these days, which is essentially an xor encryption on the channel packets. Trivial to decode, but the person has to first know what frequencies you’re on and then what shift you’re using.
So, it won’t stop a government from providing the decoded data as evidence, but it would likely stop anyone from knowing what you’re saying in real-time.
LEAVE YOUR PHONES AT HOME!
Can you elaborate on this? I want to know what the concerns are.
Obviously, they can track you with cell towers, and there’s the legitimate risk that they’re setting up stingray cells to intercept or even disable communications. All of that sucks, and I wish it weren’t a problem.
However, if I’m participating in a non-violent protest, I do take a bit of a “flood them with noise” attitude by just being there. I also want to be able to contact my group in case we get separated. Burner phones feel a bit like overkill for what should be a non-violent protest.
And yes, I know there are problems with my “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” attitude. I’m not trying to advocate for that. I want more information so that I know why I should be worried.
There is no noise anymore. They have the computing power to sort through everything caught in the dragnet now.
When I went to my local Hands Off protest in April, the crowd were on either side of a busy street. Should the people in the cars driving by have turned their phones off?
The computer automatically was able to determine they pinged a mile away 5 minutes ago, and a further mile in the other direction 5 minutes later. They were filtered out before a human was looking at the data.
This happens even when protests aren’t happening. This is regular equipment used in traffic surveys conducted by every civil engineer in every county in the country. The surveys are for completely boring reasons like if the intersection signals should turn the left turn signal green before the straight lanes.
Granted the equipment used in these surveys intentionally ditch identifying information. They can gobble up things like Bluetooth hardware addresses from your car or phone as you drive by, and see if that address pops up on the other sensors in the area. That can reliably tell them which direction you turned at an intersection and they can start to see trends in the data.
This type of equipment is used everywhere and can be retooled to zero in on specific people just as easily as it’s used for anonymous traffic statistics. Throw in things like stingrays and cell tower tracking and you’re fucked.
I’d believe you if the traffic lights here weren’t so awful, unsafe, and inefficient.
Lol fair. Your local PD gets tens of millions of dollars worth of military equipment like APCs every year and they’re still not effective either.
There’s a difference in a single ping nearby and several pings with a protest, also like the LA protests they may have drones overhead to get even more accurate pings
Edit: sorry maybe you weren’t being disingenuous if you actually attended one. My apologies if so
Yes, I did attend a protest, and I don’t know everything about technology. Thanks for your answer.
They will monitor cell phones near protests to identify the agitators. Bring a prepaid burner if you really need a phone.
In Canada they are also eroding away at privacy rights. I voted for Mark Carney (liberal) specifically to not let the pro-Trump conservatives (Canadian conservatives) in… but then Bill C-2 is introduced (not law yet. Not even close. It is in the first reading. Meaning first ever step in the process) that is trying to grant the police the right to open mail without a warrant at any stage in delivery, as well as to directly monitor a person’s internet use without a warrant, and to criminalize (yes criminalize) any cash purchase over 10,000$. Quebec already bans people from carrying more than 3000$ in cash at a time. You can be arrested and charged with intent to commit a crime just for doing that.
I mean fuck me. At this point in time I legit don’t give a fuck about money laundering or petty bullshit. This is such a gross violation of privacy that as far as I am concerned they need to repeal all terrorism related laws.
The Canadian government was able to pursue and apprehend and charge international terrorists in the past without any of these laws. Are the making it easier? I doubt it.
Let’s say you go to a non violent protest with perfectly good intentions. You bring your phone to communicate and take pictures/videos.
Someone in the crowd gets rowdy, or has an agenda to make the protest look violent. They throw a rock at a cop, or a Molotov on a car. The cops gather cell data, and now you’re a person of interest in a riot or, lately, a terrorist act. You could have booked it as soon as you heard the commotion. But the phone proved you were there, and it’s gonna be a fight to prove you did nothing wrong.
It is disappointing to be reminded that “innocent until proven guilty” is not the shield we were taught it was.
That only applies for the rich and powerful, not you or me.
Walkie talkies only :)
Encrypted walkie talkies.
Link please if you know where to get them.
So far I’m only aware of:
Regular store digital walkie talkies come with “encryption” these days, which is essentially an xor encryption on the channel packets. Trivial to decode, but the person has to first know what frequencies you’re on and then what shift you’re using.
So, it won’t stop a government from providing the decoded data as evidence, but it would likely stop anyone from knowing what you’re saying in real-time.