\n<\/p>\n
When you are done with the burner phone, make sure that you get rid of it in a thoughtful way as well. \u201cAt the end of the intended use, consider steps to eliminate information, remove SIM cards and\/or memory cards, making sure not to leave a potential vulnerability after you,\u201d says Access Now\u2019s Al-Maskati.<\/p>\n
Depending on your risk model, it may not be appropriate or even the most practical to use a true burner phone. Instead, you may want to consider using an altphone to separate elements of your digital life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of confusion, because \u2018burner phone\u2019 is a generic term,\u201d says Matt Mitchell, CEO of the risk mitigation firm Safety Sync Group. \u201cI usually try to group tactics and advice based on goals. It begins with why a normal phone isn’t good for privacy and then a dial on how private you\u2019re trying to get. The privacy goals are the dial\u2014from safer hygiene, to more secure operating systems, to straight-up locked-down phones.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many people, an altphone or \u201clighter\u201d burner phone is likely to be a smartphone that allows a wide range of communications and access to privacy-enhancing tools such as encrypted messaging apps like Signal, VPNs, online tracker blockers, and more. This way you can tune your personal privacy dial to keep certain web browsing, software use, media consumption, or communication more private and anonymous than it would be on your normal devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you trying to protect? If you’re just trying to obscure your phone number from somebody, you can do that in a much lighter way\u201d than using a heavily anonymized device, the ACLU\u2019s Williams says. \u201cBut if you’re really trying to go off grid, you have to do all this other stuff.<\/p>\n
An altphone may be a smartphone that you separate as much as possible from your identity, perhaps a phone that you only use for attending protests. Or it could be an old phone you repurpose and use for things like traveling. How you set the privacy dial depends on the use case.<\/p>\n
\u201cA repurposed phone can be used for an extended period of time,\u201d Cyberlixir\u2019s Vo says. \u201cA repurposed phone already has your traces, even with factory reset. There might be a sales receipt, CCTV log, or someone taking a picture of you talking on the phone. So they are useful for compartmentalizing activities. Work versus personal phone is the most obvious example. Or one for international travel.\u201d Reused devices also retain certain identifiers such as IMEI numbers over time.<\/p>\n
Using a smartphone as a second device does have its own considerations. When it comes to mainstream devices, \u201csmartphones do a terrible job at protecting people\u2019s privacy and securing their communications,\u201d says Access Now\u2019s Al-Maskati. \u201cIf people obtain a smartphone to use as a burner, it\u2019s best to reset to factory settings, never connect any real accounts (AppleID, Google, social media), and do not sync any other information, as well as disabling unnecessary location and other services.\u201d<\/p>\n
You should only use your altphone for its intended purpose\u2014if it\u2019s a phone you want to take to protests, for example, it shouldn\u2019t be used for texting friends or online shopping. As with a true burner phone, you should avoid using it in the same location that you use other devices\u2014in other words, avoid connecting to the same Wi-Fi networks. Don\u2019t turn your altphone on alongside your day-to-day devices and, relatedly, don\u2019t carry them all together unless your altphone is in a Faraday bag. Only provide contact information for the altphone to those who need it.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re using a burner phone or an altphone, though, the bottom line is that there are no guarantees or perfect solutions. And if there is absolutely no room for error, go analogue and don\u2019t bring or involve a phone in whatever you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you are done with the burner phone, make sure that you get rid of it in a thoughtful way as well. \u201cAt the end of the intended use, consider steps to eliminate information, remove SIM cards and\/or memory cards, making sure not to leave a potential vulnerability after you,\u201d says Access Now\u2019s Al-Maskati. Using<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[10774,6186,620],"class_list":{"0":"post-21712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-burner","9":"tag-phone","10":"tag-set"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}