this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 33 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)
  1. So how ai generated is wired these days?
  2. NEVER trust any guide that is about "protecting yourself from government surveillance". Anyone who has an idea of what risk mitigation is viable will NEVER phrase it that way for obvious reasons

From a quick skimming, it looks like their genius guides boil down to

  • SIgnal: Signal is only as secure as every user in the chat. Yes, it is MUCH better than using something like imessage. But if they are beating your buddy with a baseball bat it doesn't really matter if your message expired or not
  • FDE: Yes, that is a good idea. But understand that "oh, I forgot my password" doesn't work when you have been declared to have no civil rights because you look foreign.
  • Get a NAS: A good idea, in general. But maybe understand that means you have a big ol' box of incriminating info in your house that is available to whoever has a crowbar.
  • Use Tor: HA! First, it is only a matter of time until Tor is attacked and likely large numbers of users are brought up on CSAM charges. But also? Understand what a compromised endpoint is and maybe look up what governments tend to be associated with those.
  • Get a VPN and turn off your GPS: Yeah. it is a real good thing that our devices don't all connect to cell towers where they can easily be tracked from.
  • Get certain crypto but carry a lot of cash: Yeah... how AI generated was this article?

If you actually care about your vulnerability, look what ACTUAL journalists on the run from a government or megacorporation do (dedicated hardware that can't even power up within a few city blocks of your other devices, for one). And understand that most of those boil down to "They know it is me and they are hunting me but I can live off the grid long enough to get this story out and then maybe they won't kill me afterward".

[–] megaman@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 2 days ago (3 children)

If you arent an actual journalist who is being personally, specifically hunted then you probably don't need to take the same precautions as one.

And yea, the guide boils down to "none of these things are 100% safe but they are realistic things you can do that can offer more protection than not doing them."

Your skimming of the article missed how they do indeed talk about the shortcomings of every suggestion they have. For example, the article also does indeed talk about how you can turn off gps but your phone will still ping towers revealing your location, and goes on to say that you can put your phone in a faraday bag but that isnt practical for most people but is indeed an option if you want to do it.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Lol you think the feds won't notice that a person of interest's phone went dark for the first time in 5 years?

Everyone gets this wrong. If you want to hide, hide inside your established patterns of life. You want to do shit across state line for a weekend? Don't turn off your phone, have your friend carry it around while you are gone.

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