Comment by msh
2 days ago
I dont understand why people like a journalist working on things they dont want seized would carry this kind of data on their device at a situation like this (border crossing), I see it as more useful to remove that kind of data from the device first.
Probably because everything seems to be an "app" these days. Even when it has no business being one.
Exactly. Everything must be switched to Service as a Software Substitute. It's for your own safety, you see.
So delete messengers, email apps and other comms?
Delete the contact book? Clear calendars?
Where exactly should one stop?
You're misinterpreting. They mean that there are additional options next to only keeping these things on your phone.
What am I misinterpreting? OP literally said they don't understand why a journalist would carry these data with them. As if the data is a file on your phone. Data can be a contact book on your phone, or a messenger with E2E encrypted messages. What would the alternative to that be? Sending pigeons?
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Because you may need the data in the data during/after your travel and lack clean way to access safely, securely and anonymously remotely.
No one is stopped from backing up important data. It is, in fact, kind of boneheaded to keep all "valuables" on a single device. I don't understand the scenario of not trusting a device to safely access the Internet or the telephony grid while also insisting that they need a PHONE to keep all their stuff on where they're going, and at the same time somehow trust that both themselves and their possessions are perfectly safe from seizure and extortion in the very same location.
Personally I just got grapheneos to replace my normal phone. It's nice, it works for the user instead of the advertiser, and its security features help block antiuser features in apps
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This is where we need "cloud phones as a service" / "selfhosting a cellphone at home with some kind of remote access system".
Not even kidding here, it's time to bring out thin client computing to cellphones. Let the spicy stuff sit somewhere else. I could bootstrap a Tailscale or Netbird signin remotely, install the access client, and remote back into the 'normal phone'.
Would be then funny to map that to lockscreen PINs - enter a PIN to unlock the device, be remoted into "phone A", enter another pin and be remoted into "phone B", enter another PIN and you're on the 'local device' session. (Or duress-PIN kill "phone A" if someone attempts to bruteforce PINs, etc, etc...)
You can already do most of that with GrapheneOS or even an iPhone. My contacts, files, photos, etc. are on my home server, accessed through a VPN. My GrapheneOS phone only runs a handful of open source apps. If I were to lose the phone, I would simply revoke the Wireguard key and there wouldn't be anything valuable left on it.
> "selfhosting a cellphone at home with some kind of remote access system
You can use TeamViewer for that. Or maybe scrcpy could be coerced into working in a similar way.
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Remove and securely overwrite, otherwise the data can still be recovered from the disk image. We have not made privacy easy.