Move Sim Contract to Graphene

User7654

Hi, apologies but this has probably been discussed a million times already!

I have an iphone at the moment and have tried to lock it down as much as possible, but now I just get notifications all the time about turning things back on. Therefore I think it’s time to move over to Graphene.

I would say that I have a low threat model and am really doing this as part of a journey to being more security conscious.

Currently my phone number is used for Personal and Work purposes, although people do rarely call my phone. My phone contract is paid by me and is linked to my home address and bank.

There is a lot of discussion around getting a pre-paid sim and maybe for me moving my current sim over to VOIP. I dont know how practical something like this would be in the UK and really how to go about it and remain anonymous. If anyone has suggestions as to how to achieve this I would be very grateful in hearing. The flip side to that, is do I really gain much by doing this over moving my current SIM to a graphene phone, or am I completely missing the point of using Graphene?

Im really looking for some good advice as to what the risk is of using my current Sim in a graphene phone, and if it’s a really bad idea, why, and what a good approach would be based in the UK.

Thanks for any assistance!

dhhdjbd

what exactly is your concern?
i mean with the sim and number?

i am not sure if i missed some news,
but honestly it is normally not really worth worrying about, if you cant easily just get a cash sim card or something like that (does not exist in all countries)

User7654

Thanks

Ive been reading a book about Extreme Privacy and then trying to implement some of the suggestions into my life. And one was around trying to be anonymous with the phone purchase and also the sim so that there is no link to you as an individual.

It felt a little extreme but probably very relevant to some people, but also probably not overly relevant to most people. So I just wanted an opinion from people as to whether I was over complicating or not. Im just trying to gauge whether I just move my current Sim/Contract over to a new Graphene phone or like I say thats defeating the object of using graphene because essentially the new phone gets linked to me (I guess the IMIE of the phone). (Im not entirely sure about what I am saying to be honest!)

Probably9857

User7654 So I just wanted an opinion from people as to whether I was over complicating or not.

Probably. Unless you have a specific reason for not wanting your phone tied to your real identity by your carrier.

For normal people who just want to improve their privacy, it's probably not worth the inconvenience.

Also keep in mind, it requires ongoing opsec, not just a one-time thing. For example, if your phone spends every night at your home, connected to the mobile network, it is trivial for the network operator to know it belongs to someone who lives there.

dhhdjbd

User7654

okay thank you,

essentially you should ask yourself who do you want to protect yourself from, in my opinion.
Like a something like the NSA or more like "hackers", private companies, and normal goverment?

I was about to write something longer,
but essentially just getting a cash phone and sim card wont protect you either long term from NSA type threats. Data analysis capabilites are astounding, for this behaviour change is required and this is going to signitifcantly reduce your quality of life for no real world benefit for you, for a threat that might even only exist in theory. This is my opinion.
(and be aware it is mostly about phyiscal location tracking)

I would suggest to rather focus on trying to not have google and co. collect all your data, to later use against you in some end stage capitalistic hell.
This is already hard enough.

(and for this i would not buy directly from google and not use esim (but not that critical), but more importantly: if you want to use your number for account creation, and used your current number for this before, you can consider to get a new one, so that it is not linked to your old account)

anyone feel free to correct me please if i am wrong

Aeon

I personally moved my prepaid card with my number i have since 2005 over to the Pixel when I switched from my old G5 to a P7 with GrapheneOS.

I wanted the increased security and privacy with GrapheneOS and not much unimportant notifications. Stock Android tends to be "noisy" with notifications.

My threat model is fairly moderate and I only use one Profile on my phone with Google services installed. I use it like any other Stock phone just with the additional control over app permissions and Graphenes top notch Security and privaxy.

User7654

Thanks everyone, some really good information in here. I think im not going to be sufficiently disciplined enough to disable the radio before getting close to home and im very likely to get text messages from family members which is probably going to join the dots together anyway, so staying with my current Sim is probably an acceptable choice for me.

Thanks everyone