Phone is obviously continuously sending data

Upstate1618

DeletedUser216
I wanted to tell OP that it's recommended against to turn off automatic updates. Someone just disables updates without knowing the security risks it brought so it's completely necessary to repeat this again and again.

GrapheneOS This isn't correct

Did you mean to disable apps one by one and check the result to determine which app is to blame?

Schmucks RF frequencies

I think Pixel also has RF even in 2G but maybe it is lower than 4G. I also think WiFi, Bluetooth and UWB can also create RF.

Schmucks

Upstate1618
I'm doing RF detection now for 5 Years: since 2G standard all mobiles used to save battery and therefore the Standards for 2G an 3G used only to send signals back to the mobile tower antenna after 3 to 8 minutes for around 2 seconds to tell the towers around where the mobile phone is and to ensure it is logged in at the nearest antenna. In between mobiles where apps were not sending data in kind of standby / background, the mobile was "silent" concerning sending radio frequencies, however the mobile was always listening / receiving if a tower antenna was calling it for somebody tried to ring you up! In 2G and 3G standard (+ also 4G standard until a few months back, as I had described above it has changed now), your phone used to listen / receive all the time but was not sending / producing RF - like a conventional radio tuner or like GPS is never sending but only receiving RF signals. RF mobile communication can be compared to human beings: if you just hear with your ears that does not take much energy, but when you answer somebody who is opposite the street you have to shout what will take much of your energy and will exhaust you or if you shout directly into someones ear it can harm his ear (same with possible harm to your reproductive / DNA system by sending strong RF mobile frequencies in your pocket next to your body) - that is the same with the battery in your mobile, when it is only listening for antennas around if somebody calls you or you have lost the antenna you had been logged in (if you drive in an car e.g.) the mobile will search for a new antenna around and log in there....

domnru

To see what connections are made you could use wireshark and create a hotspot from your machine where wireshark is installed. Another thing you can try is to setup a proxy and read the traffic there. The simplest way would be to setup NextDNS and see your DNS traffic on their website. But disable it, after you found the reason.

Schmucks

Schmucks
I'm doing RF detection now for 5 Years: since 2G standard all mobiles used to save battery and therefore the Standards for 2G an 3G used only to send signals back to the mobile tower antenna after 3 to 8 minutes for around 2 seconds to tell the towers around where the mobile phone is and to ensure it is logged in at the nearest antenna. In between mobiles where apps were not sending data in kind of standby / background, the mobile was "silent" concerning sending radio frequencies, however the mobile was always listening / receiving if a tower antenna was calling it for somebody tried to ring you up! In 2G and 3G standard (+ also 4G standard until a few months back, as I had described above it has changed now), your phone used to listen / receive all the time but was not sending / producing RF - like a conventional radio tuner or like GPS is never sending but only receiving RF signals. RF mobile communication can be compared to human beings: if you just hear with your ears that does not take much energy, but when you answer somebody who is opposite the street you have to shout what will take much of your energy and will exhaust you or if you shout directly into someones ear it can harm his ear (same with possible harm to your reproductive / DNA system by sending strong RF mobile frequencies in your pocket next to your body) - that is the same with the battery in your mobile, when it is only listening for antennas around if somebody calls you or you have lost the antenna you had been logged in (if you drive in an car e.g.) the mobile will search for a new antenna around and log in there, otherwise there is no need for your mobile to send (= speak/shout) and your phone can stay silent in listening mode to safe battery (and your balls)....

So, to ask all grapheneOS developers: it would be wonderful for the future to have an option in my mobile where you can switch your mobile in an "only phone call mode" when 4G will not keep on communicating with tower antenna (which now is not working when switching off mobile data in 4G) and maybe an option where your mobile checks mobile data e.g. only once in 15 or 30 minutes for 30 seconds to update WhatsApp, emails etc. and switch off data communication in between the 15 or 30 minutes? That would be a great contribution to everybody's health!

thmf

Schmucks maybe an option where your mobile checks mobile data e.g. only once in 15 or 30 minutes for 30 seconds to update WhatsApp, emails etc. and switch off data communication in between the 15 or 30 minutes?

As a workaround you can look into enabling and disabling Airplane Mode using some automation software.
Quick search revealed, for example this app. I'm not related to the app in any way and know nothing about it, and I'm sure there are other/better options, so please do your research and let us know how it goes.

IcyScroll

Hello Schmucks thank you, this was insightful. I'm curious about possible health concerns coming from RF, wireless networks and smartphones as well.

Schmucks So, to ask all grapheneOS developers: it would be wonderful for the future to have an option in my mobile where you can switch your mobile in an "only phone call mode" when 4G will not keep on communicating with tower antenna (which now is not working when switching off mobile data in 4G) and maybe an option where your mobile checks mobile data e.g. only once in 15 or 30 minutes for 30 seconds to update WhatsApp, emails etc. and switch off data communication in between the 15 or 30 minutes? That would be a great contribution to everybody's health!

This is very interesting. However, I think such modifications should not be expected from GrapheneOS. The developers focus on security and privacy. Such changes could also negatively impact some users - this behaviour would likely make them stand out, possibly putting people who depend on GrapheneOS in problematic areas at risk.

I believe that health aspects should be covered by upstream - Android, OEMs, cellular providers and regulators. This way a lot more people would be able to benefit. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen without public pressure. As many of us here know, getting people to even acknowledge certain problems is often tough.

I would call this mode something like "minimal transmission". To satisfy the need for security it should somehow use 4G/LTE. 2G is really insecure and will be phased out eventually. Honestly, I don't even know if it's possible.

de0u

Schmucks Now, I found out, when still using 4G, it had changed with both Pixel 8 and my old Samsung (which also had been not keeping up connecting all the time a few months back). Interesting is also, even when Mobile data is switched off, the 4G connection still is continuously keeping up connection with antenna towers and sending little data around each second! So this seems to be an issue of the new 4G system.

Perhaps.

As is the case with Wi-Fi access points, which can support various forms of client-side power-saving modes with various parameters, it seems quite likely that a given cell site can influence how often a registered device transmits.

But based on the information provided so far it's not 100% clear exactly what is being detected. Mentions have been made of multiple "RF meters" and "gadgets", but the details of those have not been provided. For all we know one of those "gadgets" is measuring something that isn't cellular transmissions... maybe it is Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, or perhaps a spurious emission occurring when the GPU is powered down.

Schmucks So, to ask all grapheneOS developers: it would be wonderful for the future to have an option in my mobile where you can switch your mobile in an "only phone call mode" [...] That would be a great contribution to everybody's health!

Perhaps.

But I think a lot more details and experimental data would be required, and the phenomenon would need to be repeatable by others.

For example... which "RF meters" and which "gadgets"?

Chipper

Schmucks What happens if you turn '4g calling' off, change 'preferred network type' to 4g only, and turn 'wi-fi calling' off? and then disable 4g data, shouldnt you then be able to recieve calls, and prehaps your phone will do less shouting?

Upstate1618

Pixel RFE info indicates that the highest SAR is lower than 2 W/kg. Is that true according to your observation?

locked

raccoondad Understood. I suppose it's up to each individual to decide which method works best for them.

IcyScroll

@Schmucks are you still around? Would you be interested in checking how Mullvad's DAITA affects RF emissions?

Chipper

Chipper and also try disabling the location permission on the lmsService (system level app)

GrouchyGrape

I'm just here to say that I've seen zero evidence to support the idea that phones (even in the 5G NR range) are capable of producing any biological effects (besides theoretically heat). We did a lot of RF testing at my university with people much smarter than me showing what RF can and can't do, affecting a biological body is something it just wasn't capable of.

I'm happy to be proven wrong with evidence.

Far more interesting to me is what data is being transmitted.

n3t_admin

GrouchyGrape the only thing that comes to mind is long-term exposure. Something that can't really be replicated in a lab setting. But I also think that the radiation coming from the phones themselves is unproblematic due to the low power of the transmission. A much, MUCH bigger problem might be the cell towers themselves that operate in the kilowatt range.

GrouchyGrape

n3t_admin we do have long term exposure studies. The sun. It emits RF in all ranges, and at much higher amplitudes compared to that of the cellular towers around us. In fact, this is where the majority of the heat from sunlight comes from. However, it's very well understood that no damage to biological bodies is caused by this. The damage is caused by wavelengths shorter than visible light (i.e. ultraviolet). So, if RF can cause bodily harm, then so does visible light, which it obviously doesn't.

de0u

n3t_admin A much, MUCH bigger problem might be the cell towers themselves that operate in the kilowatt range.

Are modern cell sites running that kind of power? Regardless, luckily they are much further away than phones!

n3t_admin

GrouchyGrape light is a very bad comparison. It is pretty unique as in: it acts as waves and particles at the same time, if we want to go down the rabbit hole of quantum mechanics anyway. So it is not really a comparable source, especially since wave length might be a deciding factor as well.

So, if RF can cause bodily harm, then so does visible light, which it obviously doesn't.

Is this supposed to be sarcasm, or did you never hear of skin cancer before? It very obviously does damage to the cells in humans. We of course can't say for sure if it causes internal organ damage, because there's always the possibility it does and we simply have no control group that lives without the sun. But even comparing RF to light is scientifically inaccurate.

n3t_admin

de0u I'm totally stealing this reply from Quora, because I don't have the time to search for sources right now and this is good enough:

In LTE (which is the current technology), to supply a 20 W antenna output on a Macro eNodeB you need approximately 150 W at the wave guide (feeder) entrance. That includes feeder loss and efficiency. You need another 50 W for the electronics to prepare the signal for transmission. Add cooling, heating (yes, in nordic countries that is needed), power supply efficiency which leaves you anywhere between 250 W and 500 W per TRX chain, depending on environmental conditions etc.

A typical LTE site today would have 3 sectors, 2x2 MIMO and 2 carriers (20 MHz frequency bands) which makes a total of 3x2x2=12 TRX chains.

So eventually you arrive at 3 kW to 6 kW of power consumption (at the site connection).

This is for a so-called Macro Base Station in a developed country. If you go to rural areas in Africa, you want to add Diesel generator efficiency, long power feed lines, and all that.

For a fair assessment you want to include the following (as a share per site):

electric power line loss (there is often remote power feed), in particular at rural sites
Power consumption of transport network equipment (which could be broadband microwave , copper or fibre)
So an assessment of 4–6 kW per site with an average of 5 would be ok.

Across the industry you do hear benchmark figures like 0.4 kW per square kilometer of covered area, in line with the deduction above.

Towards 5G a lot of energy saving initiatives are under way. With an expected 1000x increase of data capacity 5G radio networks at current energy efficiency will be a threat to carbon footprint of each country where it is deployed. The main technologies include: Remote Radio Heads (no feeder loss), dense deployment of low power consumption “Small Cells” indoor and at outdoor hot spots, increase of radio efficiency.

GrouchyGrape

n3t_admin I'm sorry, but light is scientifically accurate to compare to RF, IR, UV, etc. The damage caused by the sun to skin is cause by the wavelengths of light much shorter than visible light. RF is on the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't care how much "power" (aka amplitude) you're putting into it, there is no evidence of it affecting and biological body (other than heat if you are in the IR range which is no longer RF).

I understand your points, I really do. They're just not based on physics as I understand them (I have degrees in biology and chemistry not that degrees alone mean anything, but I have spent some time learning and thinking about this stuff).

de0u

n3t_admin In LTE (which is the current technology), to supply a 20 W antenna output on a Macro eNodeB you need approximately 150 W at the wave guide (feeder) entrance [...] feeder loss and efficiency [...] another 50 W for the electronics to prepare the signal [...] cooling, heating ([...] in nordic countries [...]), power supply efficiency [...] between 250 W and 500 W per TRX chain, depending on environmental conditions etc.

But the power used for heating/cooling and signal processing poses no threat to people the antenna is pointing toward. Twenty watts of antenna output is only twenty watts of antenna output.

« Previous Page