No SIM? No Problem!

I remember a time when I used to not even walk around with a cell phone. Life was actually not difficult back then.

The SIM is your cell network ID. The phone has its own ID and that can also be tracked. The SIM is just for account and billing purposes. The phone with its unique ID is tracked by the NSA in addition to the SIM or account ID.

I remember when (1960's) to make a call you had to walk down the hill to the phone box and to speak to relatives in Australia you had to book a call and fill the telephone with cash before pressing button A. How things have evolved during my lifetime. Just a gentle stroll down memory lane.

There used to be public phones everywhere, on most streets. People convinced themselves that they needed the trendiest device though and in many countries, public phones don't even exist any more, and they walked into this willingly.

For starters, this video missed the privacy target by miles. Second, just for the record, I am a telecommunications engineer, working in this field for 43 years, I design, build and write the software for systems that test telecommunications equipment, so I have a very good grasp how it all works. So lets say forget the SIM card and lets use Wifi as you suggested, or Bluetooth, or some other wireless protocol. The moment your phone transmits ANYTHING using any of those technologies within the range of another phone, your phone just revealed its location to the entire world, if that other phone happens to be reporting what it heard. It already knows its GPS location, so clearly you must be pretty darn close to it. Likewise, it can monitor your communications and acquire your very unique MAC address of either your WIFI or Bluetooth (if it isn't rotated randomly) or if you use the NFC feature of your phone, or the Ultrabroadband feature, and additionally, a lot of phones can and do report to their manufacturer for updates and they can pull logs of whatever they feel is important, and likewise tell it to create logs of whatever they want to know. So are you wearing a bag over your head so cameras can't see your face, or covering your license plate so cameras along the roads can't track your car? What about your wireless bluetooth keyboard or mouse you use with your computer at home, its singing to every phone around you, and not all wireless devices encrypt their communications with the other end. Removing the SIM is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done to remain anonymous. In this day and age, every phone (and mobile hotspot) out there can be potentially spying on you, even if you are careful with your phone. But as far as the SIM you got a lot of that right, depending on the SIM.

We need a digital bill of rights.

I've been an advocate of airplane mode & turning off location services for a while now. I'm glad to know there are services to fill in gaps of coverage I've experienced in the past. Thanks for the positive information you've provided to the community Naomi. I'll definitely look into supporting this cause once I'm back on my feet proper. Privacy should be a right, not a condition.

I'm sorry, but every phone without a SIM still continuously triangulates and connects to cell towers. With this, your IMEI is sent. This is why you can call 911 without a SIM. For a corporation or state actor that wants to surveil you, it wouldn't make a big difference.

It'll only work if you buy a phone anonymously and never insert a SIM linked to you. Because, if you insert it, they'll then link the IMEI to you, and the IMEI is sent to towers no matter the SIM is in or not. (And I don't absolutely trust software checkboxes that claim "airplane mode")

I’d love to see you do a ‘phone set up’ video for both IOS and Android. How how to set up, get apps/disable apps, and make the popular devices as private as possible from start to finish

This is great. Thank you for explaining this so clearly. I am an oldie and find it all a bit overwhelming at times.

Normalize NOT carrying a phone everywhere.

I’ve never even heard of this siloing idea. A brilliant mind had to come up with this. It’s pretty sad all the hoops we need to jump through just because we want to use the internet anonymously. Thanks for the informative video, as always.

Another possibility is what I do. I just use a basic flip phone (not a smart phone) for communication purposes and don’t worry about having any internet connectivity until I am at my destination and use a VPN and the internet connection at the destination.

Just a note if anyone wants to be in private don't use any comunication system, before internet and before cel phones, the old phones and even paid phones in street corner were track down to date and time of used, nowadays once the phone is on its track with or without sim, its the unit itself not the service

Life in the 80's and 90's was peaceful and more free

Naomi, you are our privacy fairy godmother. Thank you for your tireless work to educate us!

I worked in Telco a decade ago and at the time our tracking was so accurate that we could pinpoint a customer's location in the exact apartment in a building for troubleshooting purposes. And where I come from we have to keep these records for 6 months.

THE MAIN PROBLEM: 2FA text verification is a nightmare if you dont have an authorized cell number. try signing up for a new google account for example. it requires a SMS verification, if you try to send that to of the voip numbers it wont work, google will say "this is not an authorized number" (or one of various rewordings of that phrase). what this means is ultimately with this method you will actually need a 3rd device. likely an anonymously bought refillable burner with a sim which you only use for sms verification

Naomi, I love your camera presence, your clarity and ability to talk and keep the viewer's interest is great - I wish I could do that. Did you train to do that or is it natural? I listened to the whole thing even though if I was location tracked 'they' would find out I don't go anywhere or make or get and calls. Literally, I have PAYG and spend about £20 a year (if that)! 😅