Virginia Police Routinely Use Secret GPS Pings To Track People’s Cell Phones
The nonprofit online news site Virginia Mercury investigated their state police departments’ “real-time location warrants,” which are “addressed to telephone companies, ordering them to regularly ping a customers’ phone for its GPS location and share the results with police.”
Public records requests submitted to a sampling o … ⌘ Read more
i was speaking with @prologic@twtxt.net recently who mentioned, like myself @off_grid_living@twtxt.net prefers not to have a phone number (and possibly a phone).
this raises a bigger question. can you, a netizen of the world survive sans phone?
let’s loop through reasons why one needs a phone in 2022 (and my responses to each):
- social media:
nope.jpeg
- banking:
if your bank supports mfa via email, or better yet totp/secure tokens nope.jpeg
- friends:
most are on signal, twtxt, session, threema, irc
- family:
don't have any, but if i did, session or salty(once it's finalised)
- work:
fvck em
- doctors:
they can send an email
- car repair:
i do my own
- online shopping:
nope.jpeg
- in-person shopping:
get rekt
- government:
fvck em too
- pharmacy:
email me
- significant other:
don't we spend too much time together?
what am i missing here?
@mckinley@twtxt.net very reasonable and i don’t disagree with your tactics. my own view is less about tracking and more about not being distracted. in a world where attention can be currency, i try to preserve it. i do have a mobile, but there’s no sim and it’s a glorified messenger when i don’t want to lug my laptop around.