Stingrays are dangerous, but they don’t even need them. In the US our cellular providers are directly accessible by the government without a warrant or probable cause. They get IMSI logs immediately, and they can triangulate off of that alone. This is far worse than a device which anyone could detect using software on their phone.

Stingrays were used extensively by the US in the middle east for service disruption (jamming bombs triggered by cellular) and for targeted assassinations (our missiles lock directly onto the cellphone after the target is identified). Fun stuff! Coming to a place near you!

I mean, OK, that’s certainly a list of things, and Imma take issue with a lot of those.

first off, the “cox doesn’t have a phone” thing is behind a buncha (pay)walls and I’m not going through that to get his take on it.

second, the premise that $260 for a used phone that someone rubbed, spat on and took to the shitter is somehow an OK price is bonkers to me. I get like five competent used phones (8 GB SDM845 or better) for that price and use and gift them with zero regards; lose/break any one of those, zero sweats.

finally, the prevailing sentiment that only grapheneOS is somehow viable is based on a dogshit premise that everyone’s this MIT-educated Jason Bourne with a hard-on for democracy and civil rights whilst on the run from 5eyes and friends and ample time to play sysadmin for this pocket computer.

yes, if you’re truly one of the handful of people planet-wide that’s beset with threats from all sides, including nation-state actors, truly there’s no better thing.

but that’s not my threat model, or anyone’s I’m in contact with. it boils down to these two simple things:

a) a lost/stolen device doesn’t compromise me - the fucker can’t get at my nudes, data, whathaveyou and/or impersonate me with credentials stored on the device, and b) the OS and apps I install respect my privacy - yes, I do want the weather app to use my location and gimme the relevant weather data, not to open a fire-hose to its maker and dump all my data from this point onward, forever. you’re running on my device, you’re here to do my bidding, not your maker’s.

both of those things are easily accomplished with said $50 phones (even cheaper if speed and RAM aren’t your priorities) with LineageOS and an assortment of FOSS apps.

it goes without saying that you’re installing adblockers of the maximum variety from the get-go; that industry lost any and all benefit-of-doubt privileges, forever.