This.

Came here to comment this.

Additionally, Apple has on-firmware-level trackers implemented. So the use case of avoiding governmental oversight is already defeated by deciding to use an Apple device.

So reusing an old Apple device is pointless advice, because they're still linked as contacts in Gotham. And forget newer iPhones, which have GPS always active and already integrated their parts authorization network stack that sends all the identifiers of those parts to Apple's service. Forget Samsung, too, as the Mexican incident showed.

Honestly the article is kind of bad advice all around when it comes to the phone.

> reusing an old Apple device is pointless advice, because they're still linked as contacts in Gotham

What if I buy a used one with cash?

You still don't control what's installed on the device, which is the core problem behind owning an Apple device. You effectively don't own it, you only own the license to use it which can be revoked any time, remotely, by Apple.

Also can't change the IMEI as grandparent comment already mentioned, which means that the movement profile (aka your flat, your workplace, etc) is still there, everywhere, for governments to see. Can't really disable GSM/GPS module, because it is still active even when your phone is shut off.

Interesting. It is possible to disable GPS on Android. But yeah - cell towers will still know roughly where you are.

What Mexican incident?

> What Mexican incident?

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/samsung/comments/16pgliq/samsung_bl...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln4rsxWq3WM

[2] https://www.silicon.co.uk/mobility/smartphones/mexico-orders...

[3] https://linustechtips.com/topic/1537307-android-phones-disab...

They tried to stop "illegally imported devices" from working, but basically killed/bricked all devices that were sold privately as well as all international phones that were e.g. used by tourists or visa workers. But now the cat is out of the bag, Samsung having a remote administrative toolkit implemented on all of its Galaxy devices (at least). Samsung was not the only vendor that did this, Motorola and ZTE did that, too.

Note that this happened to two parties:

- all people that bought a device outside of Mexico, using it inside of Mexico

- all people that bought a device in Mexico, using it abroad (in the reddit thread case it was a person currently being in Germany)

Oh dear. And my bank somehow thinks that putting both the bank app and the verification code app on these rootkited malware devices is A-OK.

According to them, it's the pinnacle of security. Just to be clear: "security" means "against you"!

Yeah you need to physically twist the phone and break it in two halves! /s

And throw it in the nearest trashcan without looking at it.

One way to actually achieve is to use AweSIM service from Purism.