My Phone Is Anonymous Now

I needed to anonymize my phone. This how I did it.

I can’t trust anyone with my data. When I use a phone with a Google Account or Apple ID, these companies are by default going to be collect unique hardware identifiers, my location information and app usage data without possibility to opt out.

If I want to use a phone I need to choose one that is going to allow me to use it completely anonymously and let me be in control of all of my data. I want to a phone that maintains Android’s security model and keeps the best security practices for security updates.

GrapheneOS has a far-reaching number of substantial improvements that altogether make up for the most secure mobile operating system for the end user.

Because I want to keep this device as anonymous as possible, I do not even insert a SIM card at all and use the phone as a WiFi-only device. To protect my IP address, I use Orbot to route my traffic through Tor.

Sources

Credits
Music by: White Bat Audio

[EviLTunG]

Important information here. We are living in a digital age now and this is the equivalent of putting locks on your own house

[tigerscott]

I have been working with all computers, operating systems and smartphones for over 24 years. Before MySpace and Facebook came online, most people were paranoid about even giving up their email address. Now it is the exact opposite.

[NorthernContrarian]

Phones ping towers even without a SIM card. You can call emergency numbers on any phone with or without a sim card and be the phone locked or not. The operators have your IMEI no matter if you have a SIM card or not. So you might as well use a prepaid and be able to use mobile internet.

[PakistanIcecream]

The human race needs to take a HUGE step back from the digitisation of their communications, finances and food. It is hard but necessary.

[jungermeister]

finally a guy who cares about his privacy. All my friends are laughing at me for beeing interested that my data isn't going to be collected

[aloobhatura]

I always eagerly wait for you videos for they are one of the only videos that show the true nature of internet

[andersonciberdef]

The Hated One, you inspire me to make content about privacy in Brazil. Thanks for start that.

[pLaCiDMoOoN]

This video is GOLD BTW! Much appreciate the upload 🙏🏾

[realtimestatic]

I really appreciate you putting sources in the description to back up things you say

[starblaiz]

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" <-- this trite phrase always irks me, because it presumes innocent people should have nothing to hide, but that's just demonstably false. If you disagree, then I look forward to you posting your full name, address, SSN and bank login details below. Why would you not? After all, you have nothing to hide, right? ;)

[eswee]

from the story at the beginning I draw a different conclusion - I think the problem lies in the police sharing with the media who their suspects are before they are convicted, as well as that in america, being a suspect of a crime is apparently a good enough reason to be fired. I'm pretty sure that both of those things are not the case here in the netherlands.

[Parrot]

I already do all of these things and much more, Except the "not using the sim thing"
• Multiple user profiles (for social media, work, personal use, boring generic look etc). ✓
• Downloading apps only from aurora or f droid ✓
• Using graphene os on pixel device ✓
• Giving the least amount of permissions possible even to the system apps (including internet access) ✓
• monitoring my internet data usage using net guard
• Using different browsers for every different use (eg. brave for social media, firefox for general use etc) ✓
• Using web apps as much as possible ✓
• Automatically clearing my browsing data every time I exit the browser ✓
• Using tor all the time with bridges on ✓
• Keeping gps, Bluetooth, wifi, cellular data off when not in use ✓
• Using Foss apps as much as possible ✓
• Using password only (not fingerprint) ✓
• using offline password managers like keepassdx ✓
• Disabling unnecessary system apps ✓
• keeping all of the phone's sensors off through developer options ✓

[vadrif-draco]

This is an amazing video, looking forward to go through it again to follow the mentioned steps. Thank you.

[zehpjfx]

I forgot how its called, so Story time you might find a little disturbing:
Back a few years ago I was obsessed with trying to replace my Android OS mainly with linux through virtual machine, that was around the same time I talked with some tech guy who worked on implementing and facilitating an ad tracking system for companies, basically through IMEI a phone cannot be anonymous, tweaking software here and there wont help cause those processes are built into the critical infrastructure of the any modern phone and it has the lowest level security accesses(aka its inbuilt into the parts), and you can forget about deleting the software the utilizes them, in the case you do delete them and the phone still works the process still works 24/7 and can easily be collected by any governmental agency.

Edit:
Think of this as: while it is true that you can tweak software to your liking and see what they do, you cant tweak the propitiatory functions of the phone parts or even know fully what they share with the telecom company and what portion of that they share with third party actors.
I also talked with him about SIM cards and he told me its irrelevant, even without a SIM card and only wifi the parts themselves will still communicate private information to the company that sold you the phone and from there through contracts to companies that sponsor them(btw thats assuming there are no parts like those from the ANGRY-NEIGHBOR edition)

[lapin_noir]

The story at the start makes a good point, but it has nothing to do with anonymity? The issue was that his stepdad used the same Google account, so the moral of the story here should be to avoid sharing your accounts and devices with anyone. Even with your setup, if you shared your Google account with me, I could do the same thing as the stepdad and get you wrongly accused. I'm all for anonymity, in fact I would love to be anonymous on the internet, but it's clearly not the solution here.

10:35 I checked the sources in the description and they said that the apps in one profile won't be able to communicate with other apps or access data in other profiles. But there doesn't seem to be anything stopping the apps from accessing hardware information like your IMEI? In that case, there's no way to anonymise your phone.

Furthermore, you would still need to log in to Google Play in that profile, and the question is how? If you use an existing account, there goes your anonymity. If you create a new account, you have to supply a phone number (and it's getting nigh impossible to get a SIM card/burner phone in most of the world).

There's also the concerns of hardware backdoors in the proprietary chips in Pixel phones. Maybe Google is more lenient with the software on their phones because they can use hardware backdoors instead, no matter what ROM you use and what permissions you disable (the sensors are still always on after all; ideally there would be hardware kill switches).

Of course, I hope the above points are false. I'm currently using degoogled LineageOS and it's such a pain for banking and government apps (both of those parties are pushing for mobile apps heavily and they need locked bootloaders and/or Google Play Services). For my next phone, I would like to try a Pixel phone running GrapheneOS. But the irony that a Google product is the most private just doesn't sit well with me.

[vimvigour]

I think that trying to prevent surveillance by hiding is a fighting a losing battle. Instead of signing out of all our accounts and blocking all our connectivity features/components, we need to come up with a network that has everyone signed in everywhere at all times. Every computer, phone, car, tablet, hotspot, etc, relays multiple account/device identifiers. Individual devices will register as being in multiple places simultaneously and moving in various directions. Identifying the real device location will hopefully be too time consuming (or impossible).

[ferozmuhammed]

Simply don't use phones. You'll be safe as well.

[emptyneverland]

I feel like i never see your vids in my sub box anymore. Keep up the good work!

[kalkulusrampage]

Would be nice to install graphene in battery removable devices like fairphone

[iijj]

I appreciate your hard work that you put in your videos, especially citing all sources in the description.