Here’s something [1] that’s was public almost 20 years ago at this point. Things have advanced a lot since then. I don’t think you quite understand just how much of a pipeline there was for this kind of technology that went almost directly from quite classified SIGINT stuff in the GWOT to casual LEO / domestic stuff.
I know the whole no phone thing sounds like a real high speed operator move but it’s very literally a signal they go looking for when trying to sift through large amounts of data.
[1] https://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_re...
Btw, to help understand the technical challenges involved with this, the whole reason Tesla focused on vision-only for its self-driving was the difficulty of integrating sensor data from multiple sources, e.g. lidar + vision would be significantly more difficult to achieve. It’s not that this isn’t possible in theory - it’s just that there’s no evidence of anyone having done it for “lack of phone” detection, and that’s probably because it’s not really a requirement that’s in high demand.
They realised that technology had changed for them even that long ago that all it was doing was just making a really clear signal for the opposition as to who they were and that they were someone interesting.
I think the advice you have is very literally decades out of date.
If you have an hour or two to kill I’d recommend taking a look at this for a real no bullshit modern way of thinking about this problem space: https://youtu.be/0_04-lTu2wg?feature=shared
But the OP article is about a Stingray operation covering 30 blocks, and other discussion in this thread is about protests such as the anti-ICE protest which gathered cellphone info from the protestors. In those kinds of environments, if you don’t want to show up on surveillance, you’re much better off not carrying a phone.
Being more specific, this comment of yours is not supported by evidence:
> No phone actually stands out a lot in real life surveillance systems and will very quickly get you a bunch of additional attention because it’s so unusual.
But, if you’re getting your information from videos like the one you linked, I can see why you have these beliefs.
I have very good reasons to know what I’m talking about here but again, I’m not here to argue with you.
Perhaps if I read you my last comment in a voice lowered a few octaves like in that video, you’d believe me.
You are exactly right!
Because the gub'mint can track the nasal implant inserted when I was anally probed by the aliens!
You're making a ridiculous claim that makes exactly zero sense.
If folks are tracking cell phones, they can track yours just as well as everyone else's. Which means they can identify you.
If you don't have a pocket surveillance device on you, unless you're broadcasting RF waves with your (tiny) penis, you cannot be tracked via radio/cell. Full stop.
That's a reach. Literally.
The aliens are very efficient!
Your chance of even being able to move from your home to a protest and back completely anonymously is close to zero without you standing out very quickly. Honestly, do what you want but I’m telling you with a great deal of certainty that the only thing you’re are doing in reality is inviting a greater deal of scrutiny and your security situation is actually worse as a result of it.
Before when I was talking about the needle in a haystack problem which is the biggest weakness of the modern big data era.
So to give a really concrete example imagine you need to meet a source clandestinely in the past it’s lots of sneaking around doing surveillance detection routes and meeting in hotel rooms and things like that. Those days are completely dead. You stand out immediately.
Instead you’re looking to have very normal and plausible reasons to be in the same space together while remaining in a large crowd and not having contact usually outside of that.
So imagine you and I both get season tickets to the local sports team and we go there to watch a game just as regular fans and we find a way to communicate in that crowd.
Even the best data analysis / ML algorithms are only ever going to see two people going to a sports match every few weeks. There’s nothing interesting about either one of them that stands out.
It’s just a very different way of doing business basically but hopefully that’s an illustrative example to show you what I mean.