you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that there may be foul-play involved

Plaintiff assumes fact not in evidence.

Well, fancy GPS/kindle anyway.

I live in a city so I can log into any public wifi if I'm out.

From what I've read, though every pixel holder is linked into the emergency services network even when airplane mode is on, constant airplane mode is still pretty sufficient to stop specific radio signals that would identify imei. So a Faraday bag wouldn't be needed to block signals.

Plus, this phenomenon where phones connect to a network when airplane mode or when turned off doesn't occur on grapheneos.

I have a dumb phone if I ever want to call or txt anyone.

Which I really don't. HaHa.

no need for an extension/app all you need is to click on "see my fingerprint"

edit: and make sure to NOT click the link as that alone makes you pretty unique coming from piefed/fediverse (copy and paste it instead):

Didn't know that! Cool

Ah the old 'it's a phone but it's more of a fancy iPod' approach. I like it!

Companies hate this one simple trick

Also yeah if a state actor really wants you then you're probably already setting up shop in your log cabin.

It sounds like in your situation you might benefit from keeping the phone in a quality-assured RFID blocking bag for when the phone isn't on WiFi. Maybe!

Probably why the latest update makes you acknowledge that the GrwpheneOS messaging app is not private and suggests you using signal or another e2e app

Really very pleased with the phone. 10 out of 10

That's what tells me you did it right.

Privacy is a rabbit-hole and the best privacy measures are the ones you'll stick with. If you want or need to delve deeper, you're the best person to know it in your heart.

10 out of 10 for your comment!

Thank you.

Maybe I did it right? Bought a pixel 9 pro from eBay. The 9 pro has removable sim, the pixel 10's I found had e-sim's. Didn't put in the sim, and turned on the phone. Sat up the new google install without connecting to the internet. This was to be able to switch on the bootloader. Then went through the grapheneos installer, that is very good ++

Installed the sim card and activated the phone.

Did not load google play services. I use a banking app that works great. Busybusy is a time tracker for construction. I have the service. Got the app for this phone and when I open it I get the message " will not work without google play services". However it does work fine. Note that I do not use the GPS tracking and geofencing of jobs available in the app. And I do not have google maps. One last quirk, I have unlimited data so never turn on WiFi. Really very pleased with the phone. 10 out of 10

My MMS, SMS is totally shut down on my phone. Always airplane mode. No sim or e-sim. Phone was bought in cash and was initialized originally on a public WiFi. Zero sandboxed google play programs on my phone.

Multiple vpn profiles. Main profile uses tor only.

Additionally the camera and mic are always given non permission on every online profile.

The only msnger I have is signal. The only social media is lemmy, the only AI is Lumo (in browser).

Even with all that, I strongly suspect that a state actor could identify me if they really tried.

If the phone was bought in cash in the aftermarket and there is no record, then the original owners identifiers can't really be tied to you.

Yeah you're on the money. If it's bought new from a first-party or authorized retailer and you paid with a card linked to your name, Google's likely got you in the database or at least database-adjacent.

Setting up without precautions is a way to leak a fuckload of identifiers instantly. But not all is lost, there's still a massive amount of value and protection provided by the OS. Hardware identifiers are just a piece of the puzzle. So don't stress, unless you have a reason you know is worth stressing about haha.

Ironically, buying used is a big advantage because it creates either lack of a paper trail or at least plausible deniabity of some sort. Whether that matters is up to your country's laws and their willingness to enforce them.

Pixels ship with Google Messages and Android enables networking (and the cellular connection) during initial setup. Am I right in thinking that, unless you buy a brand-new phone and take special precautions to install Graphene without giving it any chance to phone home first, you're already screwed?

I bought my Pixel used, so it certainly leaked its device identifiers to Google before I even owned it.

No, thank you for the comment!

I like keeping my posts a bit more straight-laced than my comments. So I'll say it here, totally agree that Google will suck up whatever the fuck they possibly can. If they think they can get away with it they're sure as hell gonna try.

It's funny cause they are so terribly incompetent and irresponsible with their consumer facing services. I mean, the very fact that KilledByGoogle.com exists...

But under the hood, when it comes to long-plays and manipulation of standards and the practices used online, they're super fucking sneaky. Honestly some real sociopaths running the show there.

Hope you can too! I'm excited to see what's in store with the future of the Motorola partnership. Software support is really good with GrapheneOS too so it's nice knowing those with a supported Pixel won't be left in the lurch.

Google IPC data exfilfration is not proven fact, maybe a heart still beats within the company somewhere, lol

You mean maybe they're too incompetent to collect and parse data in a way that would harm us. Of course they would if they could.

Thank you for this post. I want to get a degoogled phone when I can.

If you found this post a little bit informative or helpful or interesting, please consider joining this community so it doesn't die. Tysm!

I was skeptical at the motives behind installing an app/extension that collects this data, but it's run by the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology in France. From Wikipedia:

Inria is a Public Scientific and Technical Research Establishment (EPST) under the double supervision of the French Ministry of National Education, Advanced Instruction and Research and the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry.

So it makes me feel better about their intentions. Personally, I still worry about my data being handled to this extent at all though. Those who can better understand fingerprinting can also better defeat related protections, so in the wrong hands that's some dangerous and powerful data. I'm not French so I don't know what data security and encryption practices are enforced, if at all - but data leaks can happen to anyone. Perhaps I would do it on a secondary device.

Thanks for sharing, it's an interesting idea and I hope the data they gather can be used to improve fingerprinting protections.

There's also a normal fingerprinting check I see on that site, and I would encourage others to check out the EFF's Cover Your Tracks website, and BrowserLeaks.com for some more learning on browser fingerprinting and other identifying factors. I trust the EFF, and browserleaks.com, but with the latter, just be aware of their short privacy policy blurb at the footer of the site.

Also, thanks for the first real post here! We'll see how this community turns out after a while.

Edit: clarity x2