NY Times - Apps Tracked the DC Rioters

:+1:

Precisely. There is a serious conflict between privacy and mission creep. Which do you think will win?

I am unclear on whether typical WiFi clients can be persuaded not to send probes.

Surely any user planning to use the HKS when leaving the house doesn’t really want this phone though?

Wi-Fi isn’t the only problem, radio broadcasts subscriber identity
if you’re turning off phone radio when leaving the house, you want as well just have an IP phone service in your house, - you’re reduced to turning off your cordless phone and taking it with you?!

If you’re turning off Wi-Fi and Radio, you just have a PDA.
you could have purchased that much cheaper, with a removable SD-card Wi-Fi adapter.

(that said I can see myself making use of the HKS in specific situations, -on planes, when I want to save battery etc.)

By definition this is not true - because I am that user. :wink:

I am using the HKS to turn off WiFi (and BT) when leaving the house. I am not using the HKS to turn off the modem (typically ever).

Yes. 100%. However, in practice, commercial entities (like TfL) are not deploying Stingrays or other IMSI catchers. I am responding to the privacy threat as it is today.

Depending on your location, and on the details, IMSI catching is not as precise as listening for WiFi probes.

If we ever reach the point that IMSI catching becomes ubiquitous then we may all have to re-evaluate. Some people think that 5G will be that point (in urban areas).

Coming back to the core topic: If you are a DC Rioter with an L5 then you really should use the HKSs to disable both WiFi and the modem. If you are a DC Rioter with a mainstream phone then leave it at home. Take your digital camera instead if you want to get a few cool, but incriminating, pics. :rofl:

using them your emphasis, not mine.

Then you aren’t the user you were describing buying a phone with hardware kill switches and planning to use them.

Sure turning off Wi-Fi increases privacy. and you’ve made a decision to trust that IMSI catchers aren’t in widespread deployment, so don’t need a radio kill switch… a good choice I might add! - and exactly my point. - there are very few people that will use ALL HKS *ALL the time, because there is a functional benefit to potentially giving away privacy.

That is probably true. However each customer will develop their own way of using the phone. I’ve only had my phone for about 6 weeks. My usage can evolve. The threat can evolve.

I’ve already suggested that someone going to a legitimate political protest would want to use both radio kill switches.

The radio kill switches are both important because both radio modules run unauditable / unaudited / unknown / untrusted code.

Probably the only person who would use all three kill switches would be a dissident in a country that is in a worse state than those that we are discussing (unless the person uses all three kill switches in order to kill the GNSS).

I don’t think I suggested that anyone would have hardware killed at all times. You don’t really need a switch in that case, but also in that case you should simply remove the modules (for the two radios). If someone is in a position of needing to do that, isn’t it great that they can? Try doing that on a mainstream phone. :wink:

gets ready to swing the hammer …

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