anyone dunking on the article, this is pretty far away from a how-to-lilst; it's more of a "think about these things if you haven't up until now" and as such a net positive. wrong community for it, though.
Privacy
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A lot of practical steps, which is nice to see in an article like this.
I'm glad they mentioned Monero in the article, but sad that they mentioned it alongside Zcash since Zcash is not private by default and not many people opt into the privacy and Zcash has shown willingness to be bad to their users by helping exchanges. Primarily because they are run by the Electric Coin Company, which is registered in the United States, and therefore they have to obey the laws of the United States. So, Zcash is not a good option.
I also have not seen Zcash accepted as payment nowhere nearly as frequently as Monero.
Same
Shielded addresses & transactions are private using zero-knowledge proofs like Monero. You can also have transparent addresses & transactions like how Bitcoin operates on Zcash as well which is true. But there isn’t a default, some wallets autoshield by default making your comment misinformation.
Some wallets shielding their transactions by default is still not nearly as strong as everything being shielded by default at the protocol level, but they couldn't have that because then they would not be on exchanges.
It does add a level of convenience for the type of transaction you might want to actually be tracked all being on the same currency. Most don’t even offer the option. Zcash can do the thing—it’s just not the only way.
Monero has view keys for exactly this reason, so that if you need to make a transaction public for like an audit or something, you can do so. But on the protocol level, absolutely everything is always private.
That’s good too. Not a Monero hater or a Zcash fanboy—I just think we need to be honest about the capabilities even if the methods of getting there are different.
Switch phone service to VoIP, cancel cell service, all tracking capabilities is gone.
That's just wrong when you're dealing with the government
A lot of organizations now block VOIP numbers thanks to stringent KYC laws.
It is possible to get a real cell number from a big name carrier and then port the number to VoIP company to use VoIP service with an original cell number.
In a lot of places, cell carriers enforce KYC too though.
If you get a cell number with a SIM, then port that number to a VoIP, how does KYC matter since you are going.to have to give that number to people with your name, so businesses or offices can call you through VoIP service?
Iirc any cell phone is still capable of dialing 911(or equivalent) even without a sim. So id imagine carrier towers and gps could still find it. You'd basically have to keep the device in a ferriday bag. Which complicates actually using it.
That is correct. Any cell phone sold in the United States by law is supposed to be able to dial 911 no matter whether they have a SIM card inserted or not and no matter whether they have service on a SIM card or not and also no matter whether one specific carrier in your area has no signal it will use the others instead. You may be a Verizon customer, but if you dial 911 and an AT&T tower picks up the call first, the AT&T network will serve that call instead.
One clarification: carrier towers can still find a phone; GPS is passive; your phone locates itself in relation to the GPS satellites.
Most phones are also broadcasting WiFi MAC IDs and Bluetooth MACs, plus hardware and capability strings over Bluetooth. And then any apps you’ve got loaded may also be calling home with your location unless you have that disabled and rotate your ad ID regularly.
[edit] also worth pointing out that even if you turn a smartphone “off” it still pings the local cell towers with its IMEI regularly. Surprised me the first time I witnessed that.
Why does a phone need to be in a ferriday bag when phone does not have a SIM card because it uses web-based VoIP service? The phone only needs an internet connection, like wi-fi, and can't talk to cell towers. Remove SIM from phone, connect phone to wi-fi to get online to access phone service through the internet, GPS can't function. If a phone without SIM calls 911, it will go through, but dispatch sees no number, no location, no name.
Yeah, but the operator would see an identifiable IMEI.
You're just shifting trust though - may be good in some cases, but not universal. Aldo does nothing about the cell tower connections tracking the location.
How can cell towers track your location if phone does not have a SIM due to using web-based VoIP service?
An IMEI moving around.
I think you're mainly speaking from a place of percieved opinion than tech knowledge but I would suggest for you that you only use a landline for phone service. Have you ever had a job working with various network services for random customers and speak to customers to answer questions?
From the context of your previous comments, it seemed like you were talking not about not having a mobile phone in general, but rather a SIMless phone. Using it over Wi-Fi only is indeed doable - but you'd need an Airplane Mode on an OS you can trust, just having no SIM would not be enough.
Also no, I did not have such a job - I don't understand how this question relates to the conversation.
Any AOSP ROM would suffice.
The queation pertains to having a sense from how someone talks if they sound like they can configure network services or if they only read about it but not having the skills/experience to work for random customers and explain the work to them.