Re:Ask HN: Alternatives to a cell phone for spontaneous comm...
by bigiain on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @07:56PM
(#18861369)
Kinda tough to replicate the service of a nation(global)-wide cellular comms network when that's what everybody on the other end of your calls and texts are using...
One option might be to use a non-cellular device (like an iPod Touch) connecting to a cellular hotspot with a "burner phone" sim (with a useable data plan)? "They" could still track that cellular device, but it'd up the ante quite a bit, since it would be very hard for an attacker to know the number. It wouldn't be "Screw you NSA, I've 'gone dark'!!!" secure, but it's probably stop a repo man or malicious ex from paying a bounty hunter to track you.
If you're prepared to drop the "calls" but, and fall back to just text messaging - have a look here: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org - there doesn't seem to be _quite_ enough coverage where I live to get reliable connectivity out of that assuming 2-3km LoRa range (although it seems like if I put one in at my place it'd fill in a coverage gap quite nicely...)
One option might be to use a non-cellular device (like an iPod Touch) connecting to a cellular hotspot with a "burner phone" sim (with a useable data plan)? "They" could still track that cellular device, but it'd up the ante quite a bit, since it would be very hard for an attacker to know the number. It wouldn't be "Screw you NSA, I've 'gone dark'!!!" secure, but it's probably stop a repo man or malicious ex from paying a bounty hunter to track you.
If you're prepared to drop the "calls" but, and fall back to just text messaging - have a look here: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org - there doesn't seem to be _quite_ enough coverage where I live to get reliable connectivity out of that assuming 2-3km LoRa range (although it seems like if I put one in at my place it'd fill in a coverage gap quite nicely...)