Works. I mentioned those two since they seem to have the best privacy policy

Get a VPN using cash/XMR (Mullvad/IVPN), and then either use them directly or over TOR to create the account.

I need to watch this Defcon talk

Personally, Framework has become a bit too expensive for me. If you’re in the US I’d look at the older Dell precision and HP ZBook workstations from 2020 or earlier, they have amazing specs and go for $400 or so. Fairly repairable because enterprises demanded that they be and gobs of power for anything you want.

Older MacBooks still have that darned WiFi card which you need special proprietary drivers for. And basically nothing in that chassis is standard; everything is Apple-specific if you want to repair it. I don’t recommend MacBooks

I wish the communications of politicians get hacked and their plans leaked. They don’t care unless it happens to them.

If you’re going to travel to Germany then you might face similar treatment. Take care

Yes, by tight security I meant confiscation of your devices. This has been a regular thing in many middles eastern countries, some European countries and now the US, so it’s no longer a joke to the average Joe.

I wish I could survive without a SIM but a realistic look at my life makes it obvious that I cannot. Unfortunate

As you noted in another comment, your IMEI number is out and it has already been mapped to your current location. Which means if you travel with this device and security is tight enough, in theory they will be able to find out where you live. They will then probe for associated metadata from there.

Other than that, there’s not much risk as far as I can tell. Clear your list of WiFi networks before you travel and hope Google’s firmware for their modem isn’t spyware (it likely is though, Qualcomm made it).

If you want no cellular tracking: remove SIM, disable eSIM, switch on airplane mode and disable WiFi-calling if not disabled already.

Yes unfortunately your device has already been “fingerprinted”, but with MAC randomization and GrapheneOS’ work on preventing apps from checking software and hardware identifiers, I think you’ll be fine unless you’re going against the NSA. You shouldn’t be using a phone if you’re up against multiple 3-letter agencies

Rage-read until the third paragraph lol

I don’t know how PoW works but do you think that TOR and Dread’s PoW can be reused?

Honestly I have no idea how PoW works at all. I’m just happy to see the innovation in this space. With that said, people have raised the idea of using TOR’s PoW mechanism, or in my case, Dread’s PoW. I believe both of them work without JavaScript

Thank you for your comment. Your response had me thinking for a while, and yes I think you uncovered it: I had a theoretical idea without actually considering the practical outcome.

I do not have a 3-letter agency targeting me to my knowledge. I quickly realised that sending signals over VOIP is a bad idea, I won’t be doing that.

You are again correct: I run Debian as my daily driver, and it would be foolish to not consider my computer to have been compromised already. I have removed the built-in camera and microphone but I haven’t attempted to clean out Intel ME from my system.

All of this makes my question look pointless since there’s already so many attack vectors. In which case, I’d be interested in your opinion in physically cutting off attack vectors from an Android phone as an academic question.

Thank you for the wonderful comment.

Anubis without JavaScript is what I’m waiting for. I know that the Darknet forum Dread has a PoW system that doesn’t use JS (or maybe it does something else entirely and I completely missed it)

I don’t think you said anything unusual. I’m going to try and get to this stage myself. It’s pretty normal for people interested in digital privacy

The issue is cost. Purchasing a pixel just to keep it lying around for one app is a bit too expensive. I’ll just use my of phone instead

I’m not putting it in a Faraday cage, just preventing it from listening and seeing anything. I’ll place it closer to my WAP if it needs it

It’s still the same problem no? If I can’t DeGoogle a phone then I don’t know what and how much data is being captured. Honestly I really liked the idea to just keep the desktop app running on a separate PC with headphones plugged in. I’m wondering if USB landline converters exist so I can have it ring when a call comes but then I can speak like when I’m wearing headphones.

Thank you for the suggestion though

Yes I realised that after I posted, sorry. Do you have any other ideas I could look at? I just want to keep my phone locked up and away from me when I’m in the house but still be able to talk to family over the chat apps they use (they are not very technically literate so Simplex is out of the question; it took a lot of convincing to get some of them in Signal)