your cell phone is your camera though, which can be a very powerful accountability tool. Is there a reason that it wouldn't be better to go into airplane mode, disable wifi and bluetooth?
> Is there a reason that it wouldn't be better to go into airplane mode, disable wifi and bluetooth?
If that worked then presumably Snowden would just do that instead of turning his phone off, taking out the battery, and putting it in the refrigerator.
That does work, unless you're someone like Snowden, who is targeted by the strong surveillance apparatus.
Do you believe >300M Americans already have malware on their phones which runs when they hit Airplane mode, and tricks them in to believing all radios are off, when it is in fact still pinging NSA servers with telemetry data?
I don't. Such technology surely exists, but it is not massively deployed, because doing so would spoil its usefulness. Basically, "We're not that important."
At WWDC Apple revealed that their “Car Keys” feature would work 5 hours after the phone has died, so you don’t lose the ability to access your car.
They didn’t announce new hardware that could do this. It’s available in every new iPhone. This is proof that this capability (to run software even when the phone is “off”) has been around at least for a number of years. It’s not a huge leap to imagine that some malware could rewrite the firmware and enable e.g. microphone listening when the phone is off.
The camera can be lost or break. With a phone you can live stream to the internet, and everything will be remotely recorded no matter what happens on the site (unless lose of internet connection), and no matter what police do to your phone
As far as the camera, the country is awash in old cell phones. If your goal is documentation (as opposed to immediate Twitter posts), it is far better than using the one with a phone number.
Have there been recorded cases of police forcing people to unlock encrypted phones of protesters in the US? I would feel pretty safe with my iPhone in airplane mode (with all the radios off).
I don't know of any cases specifically from protests. And this time most of the cop riots seemed far more focused on cracking skulls than surveillance - it seemed more about defending their egos against status attacks than more carefully planned oppression.
But there have been many cases of cops forcing or attempting to force phone unlocks, and more where they coerce unlocking by lying about the law. Which is perfectly legal - the cliche about cops being being paid to lie is perfectly accurate, if not a full explication of their duties.
Feelings of safety are pretty individual. Apps that access personal data of importance don't live on my phone that leaves the house.
