Datasapiens Yeah, I highly doubt anything as sophisticated as Pegasus. This was just an old woman who reached a point in her later years of clicking lots of things she shouldn't have, and anything targeting her would almost certainly have been far more modest in its capabilities... right? But, as I said, I'm a noob, and my frame of reference is limited, so I don't really know the malware landscape well enough to know if it's just Pegasus-adjacent stuff getting to the firmware and hardware level, or if other stuff targeting the elderly can get down there, too.
thmf A fair question and point. I was thinking that anything using wifi/data on a device can gather some info on my location (am I misjudging this?), and thus that I may keep everything pretty pared down, in terms of apps, on a Pixel that follows me around in my pocket. Just Signal or Molly, Organic or CoMaps, Vanadium, Thunderbird, some functional basics so I can crunch numbers and take pictures, do most else sparingly in the browser, and leave any more specialized apps (as few as possible with as limited permission as possible) on an iPhone with a new bare bones Apple account. My initial thought, before thinking iPhone, though was wifi-only iPad (not freely at my fingertips, presently), since it would have no phone number or GPS, and won't be following me around. It all might be flawed logic, though. Shower thoughts.