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Is having your phone on airplane mode the same as it being turned off? (still trying to ping towers regardless?)

Also, if a phone has no antenna/no data connectivity/no GPS, but has wifi functionality. What is tracking situation there? I assume one could forward calls to the phone through wifi or is that a terrible idea?

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About airplane mode, I'm not sure.

About the wifi-only phone, I recall an old guide from Mike Perry about configuring Android devices to use only wifi.[0] But Copperhead is gone, so ???

0) https://blog.torproject.org/mission-improbable-hardening-and...

Wifi only won't help because other peoples phones have precisely geotagged the location of wifi hotspots, and your phone is likely reporting wifi signal strength to the mothership.

Ah, yes. So basically, you can't use your main phone anywhere and for anything that you don't want linked to you. You need one or more secondary phones, purchased as anonymously as possible. Each of those must only be used in specific locations for specific purposes, and otherwise stored in a Faraday bag or box. Perhaps only once, as a "burner phone". In other words, phone use must be compartmentalized. If it matters to you, anyway.

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