Privacy for me has been incredibly rewarding, but when talking to people who haven’t been introduced to privacy, there are occasionally some moments that make it exhausting. One conversation in particular is one that I’ve had to go through dozens of times, and it always goes along these lines:
- Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode? / What’s your phone number?
- Bob: I don’t have a carrier.
- Alice: But you have a phone.
- Bob: Yes.
- Alice: How do you not have a carrier?
- Bob: Phones can come without a carrier.
- Alice: What do you use it for?
- Bob: Everything you use yours for.
- Alice: How do you talk to people?
- Bob: Messaging apps over Wi-Fi.
- Alice: What if you don’t have Wi-Fi?
- Bob: Public Wi-Fi is everywhere. If I don’t have Wi-Fi, I likely don’t need to get in touch.
- Alice: What about emergencies?
- Bob: I can still contact emergency services.
Each time it happens, it has a unique flavor. One person accused me of lying and then fraud. I know people are just curious and don’t mean to be rude, but it makes me die a little inside every time someone asks. I’ve begun trying to sidestep the conversation entirely:
- Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode?
- Bob: To save battery.
or:
- Alice: What’s your phone number?
- Bob: You can contact me with an app called Signal.
People seem to think that a phone automatically comes with a carrier and that it’ll stop working if you don’t have one. In reality, I’m saving hundreds of dollars per year while avoiding spam, fraud, breaches, surveillance, and being chronically online. People have a hard time coping with those who do things a little differently.
How are you using Signal without a phone number? - asking cause I genuinely would love to do so!
You can sign up using a VoIP number or a burner phone.
So then you still need to give them a phone number to get texted on signal?
Signal requires a phone number to register, but I can hand out my username without giving them the phone number I registered with.
if the number you registered with eventually gets recycled to someone who then uses it for Signal, will that affect your account?
If that person registers with Signal then this guy loses his account and username. All new messages sent to his username will get sent to the new person’s phone but the new person won’t have any of the history.
My work around was keeping the phone number but not on my phone so I never lose it like that.
Specifically I ported it to Google voice where its just parked with no monthly cost (there was a 1 time port cost). I’m not logged in to voice ever so the anti-privacy of google doesn’t apply. Any text messages I receive get forwarded to a non google email (but thats few and far between).
I’m sure there are other similar options out there, but I did what I knew and its been fine.
I can’t fathom that Signal is not a honeypot.
Back when I tried to register, not only did they want a phone number (which usually links to IRL KYC stuff) but they also wanted me to complete a google captcha that took different metrics (canvas, etc) of my device.
Why is that needed? They say it’s to reduce spam, I just don’t believe it it.
Not only that, I can’t register using a linux system. I simply MUST register with a mobile device (that I will likely have on me) that can potentially track me through the cellular modem in the device and also likely has listening devices inside the device and a camera attached that is very hard to cover (because it’s embedded into the glass and and covering it with anything messes with the swipe up function).
No organization would create something that is so incredibly hostile to people who don’t want mobile phones and don’t want numbers unless they were a honeypot. I even think that Signal was created in a large part to try to siphon popularity away from XMPP before it could reach mass adoption.
Signal is not for people who categorically do not want numbers or mobile phones. They’ve never said that.
You might want to look into Matrix.
It doesn’t require any of that bullshit.
So it’s still yes, you do have to have a phone number.
I think it is not required anymore
No, you still need a phone number. IIRC it’s on the roadmap, but not a priority.
It’s a honeypot, so of course making it so anyone can use it, even without a phone number, even with a mobile device, is not a priority.
if it’s a honeypot, why would you make it easier to use anonymously?
Just keep in mind that the purpose of Airplane Mode is to prevent transmission. Your phone might still be receiving signals like GPS and WiFi SSIDs, which it can record to be transmitted later.
If you really don’t want to be tracked, leave it home.
Or own your device with a custom rom.
deleted by creator
Jup. I made that conclusion too.
However one time two friends asked me about secure messengers and I reluctantly gave up that I used Signal. Since then everyone in my closer friend circle suddenly had Signal.
I generally keep my privacy habits to myself, but if someone asks I will tell them. It’s always better to try with a chance of getting them interested than not to try at all.
If you are an old programmer/geek young people will dismiss you even though they don’t even know what a folder is. They think they are IT experts because they can apply the latest instagram filters to their photos.
even though they don’t even know what a folder is
Someone once tried sharing a file with me by copy pasting the file path as if it were a URL
I have shared and exposed my close friends to it and they use signal with me
Hello, wife?
Weird take, I have two phones and only one has service. The iPhone. My Android phone is older, and it works just fine over WiFi. I’ve disabled cellular in settings. So it’s now functionally a tablet. And before you ask if I have the phone app on my dock, I don’t have a dock. It’s actually being used as an Animal Crossing cosplay prop. It has a NookPhone case, and while it does have a different wallpaper, the apps have Animal Crossing themed icons. So NookMusic is Apple Music, Messaging is Telegram, Passport is my Animal Crossing item/collectible tracking app (which also has links to my island/character), stuff like that. But I mean, you can swipe up and get the app drawer, and see all the apps installed. It even uses the iPhone gesture controls (Samsung offers this natively in the settings), because the NookPhone doesn’t have the Back/Home/Task buttons.
When it’s on, if it can’t find my home WiFi, it hops on my iPhone’s hotspot feature. It has signal most places. (And while it doesn’t have Signal installed, AFAIK, my iPhone does.)
Technology can be adapted to everyone’s unique workflow.
Yours is a highly specialised one, that apparently works for you. Something i may try for a day or two, but am confident can never adapt to my work flow. (Only know 2 “free” WiFi spots in my town. One wants an account. The other wants a phone number)
Playing devil’s advocate, I think it’s reasonable to have a load-up-minutes dumb phone, in case family dies or something and they don’t have access to the right app. That’s reasonable for close family to get upset about.
But you also don’t have to give that number out, heh.
I guess you could use Google Voice too, but that’s a bit… counterproductive unless you can sandbox the app.
I think it’s reasonable to have a load-up-minutes dumb phone
Those are becoming harder and harder to find. It’s hard to even find prepaid SIM cards. You now have to buy a voucher, create an account, and add it there, which activates the phone for the number of months the voucher is worth.
Do you use your phone for navigation when driving? Any good app recommendations for navigating without cellular data?
*Cycling, but yes. I use CoMaps.
Ultimate Lemming:
- Cycles only, detects cars
- Uses CoMaps
- Uses Archlinux?
Im just jokin with ya 😉
Uses Archlinux?
secureblue :)
2 and 3 check out with me, but 1st point is public transport only. Preferably trains + trams.
Although buses have the advantage that I can sit in the front where I can see the road, and they also tend to be less illuminated so I can see outside at night.
I wish there were dark carriages. Coach buses will have a few blue LEDs near the floor, but a train has to come with full sun worth of light.My city has no public transport and if you tried to bike from one end to the other youd be killed crossing a 6 lane interstate lol. Not to mention it would take you 10 hours.
Which sucks but I would never use public transport even if we had it. But it does suck for those who cant afford cars.
but I would never use public transport even if we had it.
Why is that?
Its not for me, and im in a place out of town. Public transport wouldnt work here.
Public transport pretty much always works everywhere that isn’t a country town with like 5 people living there, and at that point you could just walk or ride around.
If there is low demand you can start with a small community bus, then increase the amount of buses and lines. Increase the size of the bus. Then maybe build a tram line etc…
I’m not saying your govenment will do this but it is almost always possible and faster, safer and more comfortable. Unless you really enjoy driving or prefer the privacy that it offers (debatable but still somewhat valid) in which case public transport and other viable alternatives to driving is still the only real way to reduce traffic for drivers.
Hopefully they can be overhauling UI to be much better. Would be cool if they made calls to wider community for UI people to come in to help out
Organic maps found on F Droid, download the state or area you want so is available offline. Won’t do traffic obviously, but gets you a to be.
I think CoMaps is the better choice.
CoMaps was founded in 2025 by former Organic Maps contributors. The Organic Maps codebase was forked due to concerns about the project’s governance, transparency, and the potential for shareholder profit at the expense of the community. The CoMaps project was created, focusing on privacy, performance and community.
Oh dang! I didn’t realize! Thanks for bringing that up good sir.
I can second CoMaps. Works great when I’m somewhere and don’t have a local SIM.
Last time I checked, you can use GPS without carrier. GPS, and GNSS in general, is separate set of satellites. With cellular It’s just more precise since initial triangulation facilitated by cell towers. I recently was mid 5 hours flight and was able to see my location in google maps despite being in flight mode
Herewego works offline.
Yeah I dont get the comaps hype. It sucks anywhere that’s not a megalopolis. Here wego is far far better (for me).
Your pain is so very relatable, pal 😢
I’ve only met a handful of people that don’t question it and just accept my personal choices. One person even tried stepping in when someone asked for my email to tell them I didn’t have one. I do have email, but the gesture was still nice. Those are the ones worth keeping around.
My struggle is to not get bitter/angry at these situations. I have to keep reminding myself that there are about a billion other ways in which I am ignorant of things that are equally important. And that just a few years ago, I too, was completely on the big tech bandwagon (but only reluctantly so).
My struggle is to not get bitter/angry at these situations.
That’s why I’m complaining online instead! /s
The best thing you can do is just prepare yourself for situations you might end up in, and practice your responses. When someone asked why I don’t have a carrier, I instinctively said “Privacy reasons” and then immediately realized what was about to come. It takes practice, even if you mess up a couple times.
Agreed!
Public WiFi and privacy in the same sentence? lolololol! You use McAfee too?
Using public wifi with no protections is already pretty secure since most things are encrypted now days. Using a trusted vpn to encrypt all of your traffic makes it almost perfect, since no people in the same network as you can have the faintest clue as to what your doing.
edit: It’s probably not almost perfect but definetly far better than using mobile data.
It’s not 2005 any more. Public wifi can easily be used securely these days
Whatever lets you sleep at night.
I’m curious about an example that comes to your mind as you say this. In your view, what is a privacy risk associated with public WiFi use that is not easily mitigated?
SSL stripping, DNS spoofing, captive portal attacks, leaky metadata attacks (which can and have been reported to happen with popular VPNs)
Lest we forget more and more companies are firing their senior devs and replacing them with college grad vibe-coders? Leading to an uptick in exploits and botched code.
Probably the biggest vulnerability is the captive portal. There is no way to verify you’re connecting to an official Starbucks router.
And of course there’s the zero days we don’t even know about.
What if your system has an unpatched vulnerability? You postponed that Windows update, or your Linux kernel is behind on patches, or even your firmware is vulnerable. Maybe you forgot to install the firmware update, or maybe your hardware vendor doesn’t support your specific NIC anymore. A compromised router could exploit network-facing bugs to attack you directly.
I personally wouldn’t connect to a public router if you held a gun to my head.
Thanks a lot for the examples! I have been looking through these, and, as far as I can tell:
- In SSL stripping, the site would appear to your client as HTTP, not HTTPS. If that’s the case, I think SSL stripping is blocked when using ‘HTTPS-Only’ mode
- For DNS spoofing, the visited site would show up as insecure because they would not be able to generate a valid certificate for the target website
I still have not had the chance to look into leaky metadata. But, generally, I think metadata issues can in part be addressed by not generating much metadata.
Probably the biggest vulnerability is the captive portal. There is no way to verify you’re connecting to an official Starbucks router. I think that when connecting to a public router it is wise to assume that it is malicious.
Public wi-fi is definitely not everywhere, but yeah, either you take joy in sharing the knowledge you have or you end up being a bit rude to prevent being asked.
That’s going to be highly dependent on where you live. In Tokyo I easily got around without service for years since there was wifi at every train station and convenience store
Airalo also exists if your phone supports eSIM.
I thought you had to have a phone number to use Signal.
Could have a voip phone number
I don’t know how to get one and shouldn’t have to, just to use an app like Signal. Why isn’t there one we can use without having to give them a phone #?
Just use matrix or xmpp. Signal is centralized. If they stop offering the service it’s gone forever.
There’s always a compromise between security and accessibility. Signal is nice in that it’s pretty secure while also being acceptable. More secure options aren’t very accessible to the average person.
Signal does not care about anyone who does not use android or ios and offers no official way to create an account without them. I wouldn’t call that accessible.
That seems like a better idea, but it 's the same old problem where you’d have to get the people you want to communicate with to switch from Signal to that.
SimpleX uses the Signal engine but requires no phone number. Also can awt up your own server (unlike Signal).
A search for that term brings up about 10 different things from crypto to herpes, nothing about a messaging app
Search for it in the Google play store.
Thanks! They also have a desktop and a terminal version, nice.
Last I checked (over a year ago) desktop was not great. IIRC there was no scroll bar.
Also getting noobs to join is tricky. You cannot use your native camera app to accept an invite (has to be via the SimpleX app) and it screws up invites via Facebook messenger (gets confused by the tracking suffix Facebook appends).
No. Not any more.
Edit: Sorry apparently you still need a number for the registration.
I considered this option, but public WiFi is not ubiquitous enough here (in France) for my usage, and I believe a SIM card is absolutely required even for emergency services, which is what ultimately turned me off the idea.
in France
My heart goes out to privacy enthusiasts in France. You guys are really going through it right now.
SIM card is absolutely required even for emergency services
For anyone wondering: while technically the cell towers might be able to accept emergency calls even without network authentication (which is what’s the SIM is for), there are countries/places that will still require an active SIM with the excuse of wanting to prevent hoax calls.
My GrapheneOS phone is in airplane mode with cellular disabled and WiFi on.
I’m someone who likes to walk the path less traveled in general. And in general I’ve found that people don’t respond well to such things. Especially when you explain them in dept. “Oh they choose to be different huh? => let’s ridicule them to cover up our own insecurities”
I’ve learned through trial, error and ridicule that people need to earn the right to an explanation to these matters.
I’m not gonna explain to Joe Shmoe that I use Linux because I’m doing my part in not giving the uprise in fascism the steady flow of data they want to increase their influence over the world.
They’d never understand. They gotta earn that by proving they care about the topic.
Yeah something like “Nun of yer business.” works well.
Never explain yourself to people who don’t want to hear the explanation.
For nicer people something like “Its probably boring to you.” can work well. If they insist they can’t complain. :D
