Gen-X here. Gen-Z answers a question I had as a teen. “What the hell children will the extreme sports, tech-centric, video gaming, gangsta rap, grunge, rage against the machine, angst filled ‘slacker’ generation raise?”
I’m not american. Why not bring your phone? Around here as long as you have a legion of people pointing cameras at cops they’ll not outright beat you senseless since it’ll be impossible to lie about some bullshit justification about how you did something first.
Why not bring your phone?
Your SIM/IMEI are tied to your ID. The police can visit you at home later. Details depend on the country.
Flight mode?
Don’t trust the surveillance device to turn off because you ask nicely. Leaving it at home helps sell the idea that you weren’t at the protest you were at.
Do you actually know anything about software or are you just saying things
I’m pretty sure the SIM still connects to cell towers even if you have mobile data deactivated
Edit: on most phones it prevents the connection but there are still other ways to track like GPS
If you have an iPhone you can go ahead and try Flight Mode right now. You’ll see that it disconnects from WiFi and disables cellular. NFC, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi stay powered on, Bluetooth stays active. Yes, latest iOS has Bluetooth tracking protection on by default (varies by country, illegal in some), but it is not completely safe. I’m not sure about NFC and Wi-Fi. If you power the phone off it is unlikely to turn off the radios - they are needed for “find my iPhone” and similar features on Google and Samsung Galaxy phones.
Overall you can’t be confident that your phone does not reveal your location and identity to “law enforcement”, especially in places where police is well equipped to track you.
" … and no identifiable tattoos."
Someone should mass print the most common tattoo shapes in temporary tattoos and hand them out at protests or sell them for cheap.
Seems like a great way of just poisoning a lot of data sets
Or sheets you can cut to size that are just gibberish to cover up your actual tattoo (or lack of one) like
CAPTCHA for anarchists
The good ol’ wartime razzle-dazzle or temporary skin paint.
In my country there is a band of artists from a neighboring country that perform with hoodies and ever changing face paint. To this day, their true identities are still unknown for many years and with many TV appearances. So very effective
They make fake tattoo sleeves.
Probably going to be pretty easy to identify you with it though. You’ll be tracked by the purchase.
Pay cash
I’ll just go to my local anarchist store.
Costume stores exist. Fake tat sleeves are pretty common outside of just anarchists.
Also don’t wear any clothing you bought from a unique Etsy store (or any store you physically visited and paid with a card).
The clothes you wear to the protest should also be bought from a thrift store that you visited without your cellphone and paid for the clothing in cash.
Otherwise, yes, your clothing purchases are tracked, and the young lady who torched a cop car during the George Floyd protests was literally found by the FBI searching Etsy purchase records for people who had bought that shirt.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/lore-blumenthal-philly-protests-george-floyd-sentencing-20220728.html
Other options are facial recognition defeating clothing like this:
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/02/07/cap_able-facial-recognition-blocking-clothing/
Or this:
EDIT:
But neither of those help when we’re dealing with stuff like Gait Analysis.
For help with that, we must turn to the Ministry…
I wish the facial rec-blocking clothes weren’t too expensive for most protesters
I could retain a subpar attorney with that
Cory Doctorow has a solution: put some pebbles in your shoes, that will change the way you walk right away.
Gee, people in the US need to be this cautious when protesting? Where I live it’s totally fine to just casually show up at protests, take selfies, talk to people and whatnot.
…in the `states, police can shoot you for any or no reason: we call it at-will liberty…
It probably also depends on whether you are just holding a sign or straight up rioting.
Or holding…checks notes…
Wrench
Cordless drill
Water-hose nozzle
Flashlight
Shower rod
Cane
Broomstick
Hairbrush
Sunglasses
Bottle of cologne
Underwear
Tinfoil
Bottle of beer
Pill bottle
E-cigarette
Cell phone
Wallet
iPod
Wii remote
Toy truck
Sandwich
Bible
Hands
…can we add Acorn to the list? I think Acorn can go on there now, also.
