Hello guys. I recently acquired a Pixel 8A and it was Google stock os I bought it from a man locally all with cash I brought It home and I flashed grapheneos onto this phone.

What else needs to be done to anonymous this phone and make it a privacy phone and a spy free phone no tracking phone no interception phone and no monitored phone.

Any advice welcome!

Thanks.

  • SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
    ·
    5 months ago

    If you want to be sure you cant be tracked, monitored, spyed on, and calls can't be intersepted:

    Don't ever connect it to WiFi and don't insert a sim card.

    Graphene or not, your ISP can still share your position or other meta data with government and stuff (in the us they can also be forced to not tell you) - in some countries they legally sell to third party's, in some probably illegaly

    Calls are normally not encrypted so the os doesn't matter as much if its the government who can force your ISP or if someone is skilled enough for a Man in the middle attack.

    Android is a highly complex system, it will never be 100% safe.

    If you just want to decrease spying by companies and less powerful people:

    Use neo store or fdroid (no google play or aurora) as all apps there are Foss

    Don't install gapps or any other google services/packages

    Use shelter for less trusted apps

    Use netguard to block apps from accessing the internet

    Physically block your cameras

    If you want to be absolutely sure no one is recording audio: destroy mics with a needle and connect headset only when you need it

    To only use communication apps which are encrypted and you hold the keys should be not needed to be said: matrix, signal, element, xmpp are good, (telegram (normal chats), Facebook, WhatsApp etc is a no go)

    • SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
      ·
      5 months ago

      Plus: its google/us hardware. They could always hide something in lower level software like drivers or bios.

      (Cant find the arricle i was thinking of, maybe false): It was recently discovered that snapdragons pinged their home server when turning on, which was not noticeable in android as it was on a deeper software level