What Mobile Carrier Should I Switch To?

Developer-Dude

@gMan , off topic, but a question for you. Do you happen to be on the 4runners.com forum? Just a hunch I had when I saw this user.
https://www.4runners.com/members/gman2530.31923/
If its not you, never mind, but I had to ask, lol ;)

gMan

Developer-Dude ha! no, that's not me - i'm sure 'gman' is a popular nick, but i chose it for this forum because i like short nicks and 'g' stands for graphene

Developer-Dude

gMan lol, just had to ask. You never know! :)

CrYpT999

I don't even bother because your main number will always be tied to your identity and easily searchable on whitepages (or other public OSINT). Any MVNO uses the big three's towers (T-mobile, att, verizon) so there's not much to be done unless you have burner phones, multiple numbers, voip, etc. I just consider some parts of my phone as public and tor/crypto/keepassxc is private.

JollyRancher

CrYpT999
Cape is head and shoulders above anyone else when it comes to secure & private cell service but it is still cell service; by its very nature that means relatively insecure and public.

Unless your threat model is a US government (federal or state), or to a lesser extent an entity that the US government is willing to aid, then Cape is secure and private.

SS7 attacks, SIM swap attacks, data broker attacks; Cape stops all of them cold.

Meierme

JollyRancher I got my new Pixel swapped to Graphene and will try out Cape while still using my old phone to compare service and data. If I'm satisfied I will completely drop my old number and finish making the switch.

securitybrahh

JollyRancher SS7 attacks

How does cape protect you from ss7?

venti334

Most big carriers sell your location data anyway. I switched to a smaller prepaid MVNO a while back and noticed way less targeted spam. Just make sure they use the same towers you're on now so you don't lose coverage while traveling.

JollyRancher

Meierme
Well if you want $10 a month off, feel free to reach out for a code via the SimpleX link in my profile.

gMan
IMEI is tied to the hardware of your phone. IMSI is tied to your SIM card.

Switching IMSI makes it harder to track you and harder to associate you with the data, but not impossible. If law enforcement has your IMEI number and is willing to put in the effort to track you with it then they can do so.

Ultimately Cape is about protecting yourself against entities that aren't US law enforcement. While it would make their job harder than any of the other carriers, it won't protect against them.

pixelfairy
That calling it an outright scam is a bit much but its really close. Its basically Mint Mobile but you can pay with crypto (note that you can pay for Mint with a prepaid visa gift card) and they don't directly sell all your data (T-Mobile, who has like 99% of that data still sells it all though).

BeepBeep

Been thinking about a change to Cape, if for no other reason that they're at least trying. The thing that gnaws at me is that even with IMSI/TMSI rotation, you are still broadcasting your IMEI to the tower owners (Big Tel). The tower operators can track you across TMSI swaps with that, so what real use are the TMSI swaps? It's another step to tie an IMEI to a personal identity, but I'm not sure that's terribly difficult. I'm hopping GOS' upcoming hardware supports Cape's Obsidian feature set which also enables IMEI rotation.

gMan

BeepBeep I'm hopping GOS' upcoming hardware supports Cape's Obsidian feature set which also enables IMEI rotation.

is that possible? i was under the impression that IMIE is tied to the carrier, therefore switching it would result in a loss of service (unless of course the new one matched one that is known by the carrier)

BeepBeep

gMan

Cape's Obscura (I wrote Obsidian before, sorry) phone hardware (not available to consumers, at least for now) switches IMEI. IMEI is tied to your phone hardware, not your carrier. Regular phone hardware doesn't support their IMEI switching.

gMan

BeepBeep right, but doesn't the IMEI get registered with the carrier? i think it does because the only way Cape can switch it is if they have a bunch of unused IMEI's in their possession (which they do) - so in other words, if AOSP supported IMEI switching, the customer would lose service as soon as they switched, no?

pixelfairy

Anyone here try phreeli? What do you think?

Winston

I personally dont get why the price of Cape is appealing when you can get more for less with a setup like jmp.chat piggybacking off data from an MVNO. No KYC, sim lock, multiple numbers, multiple platforms, etc., etc..

Voyager

Winston

What is jmp.chat? What's MVNO? Maybe the value is just simplicity for those who don't know how to do what you're referring to?

LoggdN

gMan

Winston because jmp.chat isn't as reliable as many in this forum claim. I tried for one or two months to use as a phone, and over half the time my calls fail, and/or they sound terrible. Often when the calls do connect, it takes 30 seconds. It's not uncommon that whomever is calling me to just hang up thinking I disconnected. I have to call them back using a different service. I still use for text messaging, but have had group chat problems and missed calls.

davin

Was thinking about moving over to Cape but the fact that their CEO was employed by Palantir makes me a little nervous. Not sure if I'm just worrying too much about that aspect.

securitybrahh

On Cape:

IMSI rotation without IMEI and EID rotation wouldn’t amount to much.

https://codeberg.org/luxferre/lexipwn/issues/3

“Secure core” helps in esim provisioning not being routed through malicious servers.

The plan is very very expensive and you have to use their app. I haven’t tried their service but if I have to guess for IMSI rotation you need to download and apply new esim profiles.

Location isn’t decoupled so you can still be triangulated and stringrays will still work. (Jmp chat protects against this)

Cape claims they don’t use ss7 but if they didn’t they won’t be able to contact a lot of operators, they prob do ss7 filtering but that requires the app and the app needs location permission

de0u

securitybrahh Cape claims they don’t use ss7 but if they didn’t they won’t be able to contact a lot of operators, they prob do ss7 filtering but that requires the app and the app needs location permission

SS7 filtering based on location checking by an on-device app seems to be their claim: https://www.cape.co/blog/product-feature-enhanced-signaling-protection

KitchM

So some points I've noticed on the subject:

Don't give out personal information and no one has anything to sell. Use providers who do not require it.
Isn't the issue that one wants a service provider that uses roaming? And how does that help privacy and stopping tracking?
Grahpene recommends silent.link, but no one responds to chat. Also, they charge $98 per year, and no pay as you go. Need to make one or two calls a year and/or receive a couple chats? Sorry, no voice. Pretty expensive! What kind of phone service is that?
Pikasim?
Nadanada.me?
It seems evident that we cannot use the regular provider companies, so there is no need to mention them at all.
Don't we need a private phone and an everyday phone as well? (Just to clarify what we're talking about here.)

I may be missing a lot here. Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you.

Zsul

KitchM
Thanks for this list!

I have similar concerns with silent.link and to some extent with the other 'anonymous' providers as well. There is zero information on their website about who they are. There is no physical address, no company registration, no T&C, no privacy policy, no owners, no anything. It is not even clear which jusirdiction they operate. It feels like dealing with a masked dealer on the black market selling products of unknown origin. It is maybe good if you are a black market dealer yourself and just want a burner sim, but as an ordinary citizen, I would probably prefer to know who am I dealing with and trust if there is a problem, there will be somebody to contact, and I won't be just robbed of my money for a fake service, or even worse, getting tracked by unknown criminals instead of state regulated companies.

Isn't there any intermediate route between a company tracking my entire life and selling it to anyone who is willing to pay for it, and dealing with fully anonymous weird entities?