It's a rat race. You can only win by not playing.
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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I switched to a feature phone that has nothing to do with Android for calling (Mocor RTOS) because I'm tired of fighting Android for the moment. I keep an unrooted smartphone at home for online banking. Kinda extreme but that's one way.
Can relate. I have a phone with stock Android and a removable battery for anything won't or I'd rather not have on my primary GrapheneOS phone. I only ever plug in the battery as needed and when I'm settled at the safety of my desk.
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I personally don't know how a non-smartphone is better is terms of privacy. Can you explain?
AFAIK, they have the same level of spying, just more restrictions and less features.
Common vulnerabilities: Tracking by carrier, including cell tower triangulation, SMS, and call logs.
Non-smartphone specific vulnerabilities: Lack of security updates. However, the data to be exfiltrated from a non-smartphone is limited. If it's only call logs and text messages, everything's already compromised by virtue of the carrier. So the level of concern will vary with your threat model.
Smartphone-specific vulnerabilities: Tracking by apps, manufacturer, OS vendor, or just about anything that can take advantage of the smartphone's computing power. More data to be exfiltrated if it falls to a security vulnerability.
Smartphone-specific advantages: Can be run Wi-Fi only to avoid tracking by carrier.
Big tech can't win because you can't force the internet to do something.
They don’t need to make us do anything. They just need to make it too inconvenient not to.
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Gilmore's quote was true then, it is not the current state of play.
If you need to use banking/government/transit apps, you need to play by the rules now
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