Cloaked Wireless vs Cape for cell service??

5c00by

Hey I've been looking into a seperate number for my GOS phone and came across Cape and also saw that Cloaked has a cell service now.

I've been trying to do some research into which would be the better service to go with as both have their good points and concerns. I've also checked here and a few sites and haven't found much in way of a review or anything so it's hard to judge.

Basically from what I've read with Cape:

pros:

They contol a signifigant portion of the cell signal process
You can switch personas with the IMEI and spoof the phone basically
They state they're specicially tailored towards GOS
They have decent coverage area including international

Cons:

They're kinda pricey ($99/ month flat rate)
The payment isn't exactly anonymous, they try to obfuscate KYC but no option for crypto but they still retain data in some cases for a month or two Also they have a chart laying this out here

With Cloaked:

Pros:

Cheaper service
You can anonymously sign up

-You can pay by crypto

Staff has no access to your account as it's handled by 2fa options so Sim Swaps are almost impossible.

Cons:

Not much information about the service at all so not sure how well it works
International rates are rather high
No listed secuirty review or anything despite it being under Cloak so seems kind of odd.

I'm fine with paying for either service but I admit I kinda want to lean towards Cape but would like some insight on it before I make the jump.

CrJ

5c00by

A.couple of things to be aware of with cape.

1) The IMEI, IMSI rotation, and the geofencing people see in videos is only available if you can get Cape Obscura which is not available to the general public. Right now its only available to government officials, journalists, lawyers, etc.
2) I've been having a problem with GrapheneOS not recognizing the Cape eSIM in secondary user profiles, so the owner profile is the only one that can get a network connection when not connected to WiFi, and the only one that can use phone, SMS at all.
Cape insists that it is a GrapheneOS problem (I've spent hours with Cape support trying to figure it out). I've also posted about on the GrapheneOS issue tracker (Github), as well as the issue discussion forum with no resolution, from Graphene or Cape.

BeepBeep

I saw an interview with the founder of Cape wherein he said Cape was planning to make TMSI rotation available to non-Obscura hardware later this year. IMEI rotation requires a hardware API only available in the Obscura phone made for them by Nothing. ( A Graphene manufactured phone could be constructed to do the same.)

Are eSIMs for other telcos working in secondary profiles?

tom552

@5c00by have you made a decision yet? Also curious about these two services

5c00by

Yeah I ported my number from tello over to cloaked for now. Its cheaper and I can pay in cryoto and not have to give up information so it works for me.

While I do want to try out cape I have some reservations on it. I've worked in telco before and while the idea of them owning the mobile core is sound the fact that the CEO was ex palatir is a Lil off putting to me. I know they said they had a partnership with Proton and donate the first month of service to GrapheneOS. Still that's layering trust in the tech itself and hoping it isn't a honeypot.

Also there was a reddit thread a few days ago where one of their team jumped into address things as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/s/kMnFLvsg1z

In the end Cape sounds good and I may try it later but right now it sounds a bit too good you know? Plus they market to government officials so that could leave a cause for concern as to exactly how much autonomy they really have especially if pitching this commercially too.

I am not in a situation where I'd have to worry about that level of threat from a government other than the current United States lean towards authoritarianism but I don't want to introduce problems if I don't need to by blind "Trust me bro" guarantees.

I may try cape out on a random test phone that I care nothing for but definitely gonna wait for someone more knowledgeable than I am to truly sus out if they're on the up and up.