this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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I'm not american. Why not bring your phone? Around here as long as you have a legion of people pointing cameras at cops they'll not outright beat you senseless since it'll be impossible to lie about some bullshit justification about how you did something first.
Action cameras are cheap, durable, and many come without any radios that can be used to track someone. They all look the same. Using a brand new sd card means that the only data on there is the pictures/video taken at the protest. The major downside is that if they are seized, they are an open book for law enforcement since they are unencrypted. If the sd card is taken or destroyed then one loses any evidence along with it.
Lots of reasons, mostly this
Phones are easily tracked, and police generally can get that info. As for the beatings, in the US police commonly aren't held responsible even when they've clearly broken the law. Often, they aren't even charged.
Cell phones can be later used to establish who was there/identify people.
Your SIM/IMEI are tied to your ID. The police can visit you at home later. Details depend on the country.
Flight mode?
Don't trust the surveillance device to turn off because you ask nicely. Leaving it at home helps sell the idea that you weren't at the protest you were at.
Do you actually know anything about software or are you just saying things
If you have an iPhone you can go ahead and try Flight Mode right now. You'll see that it disconnects from WiFi and disables cellular. NFC, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi stay powered on, Bluetooth stays active. Yes, latest iOS has Bluetooth tracking protection on by default (varies by country, illegal in some), but it is not completely safe. I'm not sure about NFC and Wi-Fi. If you power the phone off it is unlikely to turn off the radios - they are needed for "find my iPhone" and similar features on Google and Samsung Galaxy phones.
Overall you can't be confident that your phone does not reveal your location and identity to "law enforcement", especially in places where police is well equipped to track you.
Find my phone doesnt work if your phone isnt connected to the network, let alone if its turned off. Stop spreading misinformation
Funnily enough, mu iPhone doesnt say anything about that
EDIT: in the phones that do have it, the find my phone thing works using bluetooth. So still no data directly to the carrier
Your local police department doesn’t have access to this. And they don’t need that, they can just arrest you. You are there in person. That’s the point of a protest.
I run faster than cunts in riot gear. I wouldn't be typing this otherwise.
Oh common what the fuck are you talking about
I'm pretty sure the SIM still connects to cell towers even if you have mobile data deactivated
Edit: on most phones it prevents the connection but there are still other ways to track like GPS
The GPS data will not be sent to the carrier, will it? And your phone will only be searched if they can tell its you in the first place. In which case you got caught physically there anyway.
Also this no id thing is confusing to me. I guess its just american law. In many other countries, they just jail you until you tell them who you are.
One, it'll get smashed anyway. Two, if you manage to get away, they'll work with your provider or location based apps to prove you were there and arrest you. Or, force you to unlock it so they can arrest your contacts. Filming them barely helps, there's so many videos of cops beating the shit out of people with no justification, who have been identified and never faced any repercussions
You. Cannot. Be. Forced. To. Unlock. A. Phone. With. A. Password.
(In the United States)
If you are caught with your phone in a bad situation, fight to manage to get it to shut down. Android will be stuck in a locked out state where biometrics are disabled. Im sure iphones can do something like that but rethink bringing your stupid iphone to a protest. Ask for a lawyer. Do not talk, do not answer questions, do not say anything else.
Thank you, I didn't think of that!
You don't even need to shut it down, newer Android phones (at least on LineageOS) have lockdown mode in the power menu.
Also on iPhone, you can just hold down buttons to trigger power down menu which also disables Touch/Face ID.
Takes ~2-3 seconds to set on my Sony Android phone; long-press power, top-right option is lockdown.
Further, cops have learned to just play copyrighted music (say the Frozen soundtrack) when they see they are being recorded, that way if people upload it to the internet, they can rest easy that Disney will hit that video with a copyright strike and the video will be taken down before anyone can see it.
Thankfully for protestors, audio editing exists, and certain AI tools have become very good at stripping certain audio from videos while keeping relevant audio. Leave it to cops to choose a "brute force" solution every time when finesse is all you really need to bypass their brute force.
Funny, that was always my plan if I ever got hounded by paparazzi or journalists outside my house. Ear pro for me, a speaker blasting tunes, and a bullhorn loud enough to cause physical pain for entry/exit.
I hope they've secured the proper licenses for a public performance of that music.
They can use phones to track you. I guess if you're the one who is planning on throwing bricks then don't bring it but if you're just a warm body to fill the crowd a phone is fine since it'll also prove your innocene if you record your whole stay there.
If you do that for video/photo evidence, make sure you are actively synching with your cloud. If you are streaming, make sure recording is also enabled.
Because they can use the phone company records to say "We think you were here when this "violent riot" happened (actually just a protest that police started shooting at protestors because they know they'll get away with it), you're arrested". And cops don't care if you're recording, they'll either break your phone or shoot you anyway and then claim it was self defense.