Using Phones with No-SIM Cards and Other Privacy Experiments

if you watch my videos you'll have gathered a dilemma with these mobile phones using a phone means you're going to be surveilled and profiled either by government or by big tech the threats will be things like the pegasus attack via the cell baseband modem to stingray to flock profiling by google using a device fingerprint in this video we're going to experiment with some technologies and see if we can mitigate the threats to our privacy and security with various solutions this is experimental i bought a few devices to play with in addition to a couple of devices i already have and then what we'll do is analyze what threats would become ineffective with each technology and what threats would still exist some of these solutions might work for some of you but even if it does not the idea here is to understand different privacy threats from different players and see which are defensible and which ones are not and here's the first device for this experiment this is a netgear m1 which is an lte modem router hotspot and this is the next device it's a voice over ip system from uma together with a handset next i have a d google phone here but what's interesting with how i'm going to use this is that i won't have a sim card on it so it won't have cell service and finally my last device is a brax router which is a vpn router i'll play around with various combinations of these and answer the question can you hide yourself with these devices stay tuned i'm on the platform odyssey.com and i'm now one of the top creators on there just for insurance in case i get the platform please follow me there using the link in the description i have a vpn service bytes vpn my company also sells d google phones and vpn routers these products are made to make your identity disappear on the internet if you're interested in them they are on my apprax me the link is in the description this is a solutions experiment video so i'm not going to be explaining what the different threats are on the phone but i invite you to check out two specific videos that give an introduction it's their phone back door and the other video is what it's like to use a d google phone in real life then there are so many videos addressing different threats and i will list them in the description suffice it to say that there are different threats which i will generally categorize as big tech surveillance government stingray and state level hackers the first experiment we will conduct is to see what happens when we use a d google phone with no sim card together with a netgear m1 modem router now this experiment will actually mitigate several threats first by its design a the google phone is very interesting because it has no identity you never log into the phone and since there are no google apps installed on it there's no central tracking of things like a device id and various carrier identifiers like the imsi and the imei so a google phone is an awesome solution by itself because it stops big tech tracking cold this cannot be beaten by any ios or google android phone but one thing that it cannot protect against are state level attacks like a sim jacker attack a pegasus attack or an ss7 attack because these focus on the cell baseband modem which in reality is a separate computer on the phone and all phones have a cell based band modem my guess is that these attacks work only because they utilize some backdoor on the baseband modem via hidden sms or texting messages but from my analysis i believe that many of these attacks are possible only with a phone number and a sim card so once the sim card is removed i don't think the phone can be addressed by an attacker another threat that can be prevented is a government stingray attack a stingray or mz catcher shouldn't work without a sim card because the mz is in the sim card and that's their primary mode of identification my premise then is that without a sim card and using just your home wi-fi this kind of attacks will fail since the attack source is sms or texting it should be clear that you cannot use sms on the phone without a sim card so you have to rely on some alternate messaging solution for example your family can communicate with you using the app signal which you can use for messaging as well as for voice and video calls all done through the internet additionally you can still use apps on the phone like kindle spotify and so on as long as you have a wi-fi connection you can watch my video on the google phones to know what you can do and what you cannot do on the phone but having no sim card poses a problem if you're not near any wi-fi for example while in a car you cannot communicate and of course it's a pain to constantly be looking for wi-fi and finding a password to it so the solution i came up with is to pair the google phone with a portable lt router this particular one that i found is quite a device the netgear m1 one thing that's unique about this device is the speed it has a newer chipset with the ability to do something called lte advanced this can potentially work as fast as your home dsl if you have four bars or so and you can even extend the antennas now it's not small enough to put in a pocket but it is definitely portable the battery can last 20 plus hours and if you turn it off when it's not being used it could potentially last for a few days this uses a standard usbc connector so you can charge it using normal phone chargers even in your car remember this is an lte modem which of course means it needs a sim card and you might say that that would defeat the purpose since the sim card can cause it to be vulnerable to various back doors and attack points at the cell baseband modem because yes a netgear m1 has to have a cell baseband modem but here's the difference this is a standalone device the baseband modem is not connected to a mobile phone in my video on phone backdoors i discussed that the memory of a phone is shared by the cell baseband modem so it was possible to attack a phone directly and do things like steal photos and files from a device read text initiate phone calls track gps position and so on well lo and behold you cannot do any of this on a netgear m1 router because it doesn't have a gps sensor or any motion sensors as far as i know there's no capability to make a call or send a text there's no hardware for it this device is data only so the only thing that can theoretically be intercepted is the internet connection but let's just say i turn on the vpn on my phone the phone i'm using with the netgear so the phone is de-googled no sim using the wi-fi of the netgear m1 lte router and using vpn for encryption then at that point the isp can no longer see anything but encrypted traffic because the phone itself is isolated from the cell baseband modem of the carrier it's looking pretty tight this netgear lte modem by the way is not slow i happen to only get three bars at the most at this location and i'm getting 42 megabits per second download and 17 megabits per second upload i'm using a t-mobile service just for comparison the plan t-mobile gave me for this is 50 a month which is a 100 gigabyte plan for full throughput and it goes to a slower service after 100 gigabytes apparently the reason it operates faster is that it does something called carrier aggregation which i believe means the device makes multiple cell connections and then combines the bandwidth of the connections it also receives data from four separate antennas one other thing i can tell you about using the netgear m1 lte router each time i turn it on and off i get a different ip address now why is this important since most of the tracking on the internet occurs using ip addresses this piece of data the ip address will be meaningless to attackers since it will not persist for the long run when using a netgear m1 in other words it functions similarly to a vpn with the exception that the carrier does know who you are i mentioned earlier that a government stingray can't target a phone without a sim card well it can't target much on the netgear m1 either since the only thing flowing through it would theoretically be encrypted traffic no phone calls and texts you can also use this device as an alternative home router instead of using dsl there's an ethernet port in the back and you can expand the network that way you can even make it so it becomes a substitute for your cable modem now let's analyze the problems with the solution one it's not that portable you have to carry the netgear and one with you at all times if you're a woman you can leave it on your handbag so it may be doable then but it's too big for pocket use second you can only communicate using phone voice or video using apps there is no texting capability so you have to rely on messaging apps and email however the phone side is not a dead end it depends on how far you want to go to risk your privacy you could use skype or viber on a google phone that has no sim card and that is able to make direct calls to any phone number and there are other similar applications that can do this both skype and viper are voice over ip apps and we will be talking about voice over ip next and that has pluses and minuses too alternatively you're able to use voiceover ip apps on this phone so it can function normally for phone calling purposes though it may seem inconvenient but that's the price of being able to hide by the way if you're an active surveillance target of law enforcement then you can't hide with this device so this is not an aid for criminals a government can determine your netgear m1's imeimz and so on based on how the account was set up with the carrier they can also find all the ip addresses that they've ever given to you over time however this is not too significant of a threat for normal people because nothing much can be acquired other than that you were on the internet at a particular time the bigger threat is that it's possible to track the approximate location of a cell device like a netgear m1 using cell tower triangulation triangulation might give you a one-half mile square area or larger depending on the number of towers this is not that exact though on lte on 5g this will be more of an issue since the beamforming can pinpoint your exact location but it is possible to search for a device by its mz by flying a drone or aircraft searching for a specific mz within a mile square area for example so generally this solution is amazing for privacy but not too portable and certainly missing conveniences but for those wanting to go the extra mile like the snowdens and mcafees of the world then it's an approach not perfect but it can do a great job unless a government puts in an act of surveillance on you especially if they know who you are in which case you need to really talk off-grid next let's talk about another device which is the uma this is a voice over ip solution voice over ip or voip allows you to connect to the phone network which is called the public switch telephone network pstn over the internet if a voiceover ip provider provides a gateway to the public switch telephone network then you can make and receive calls on an internet phone device like this this uma device here comes with a base unit this was the umatello air 2 model which actually came with a wireless handset as well i believe i paid 89 for this an uma device requires internet it can connect to a router using an ethernet cable it can also connect to any wi-fi so you don't have to do any wires it just needs internet and then using the identifier in the base station here it connects to the uma hq and then uma manages your incoming and outgoing calls to the pstn this device is always connected to the uma hq so it is able to ring immediately if a call is received for your number at uma hq so what makes this device interesting for one it's a landline replacement it's pretty cheap to operate actually you just pay taxes of approximately five to six dollars per month there's no other cost unless you subscribe to uma's premium services which are completely optional a landline is not used that often so this is pretty good as a replacement the sound quality is very good if your internet is good it can also be paired with the netgear m1 the phone number will stay with the base station even if you change internet connections the advantage of using a netgear m1 with it is that you don't have to reconfigure anything including the wi-fi as long as the wireless is on it will work immediately although you can pre-program multiple wi-fi's on it so you don't have to reset that now what are the privacy and security advantages to this well the first advantage is that the phone is not a smartphone so there's no data on the phone to be captured there's no sim card to be hacked no cell baseband modem no files and photos no apps with telemetry no identity or locations to pass to third parties or big tech it's basically like the old wired phones it's even safer than a flip phone since there's no sim card and you can add several wireless voice over iphones in your house with this and they all connect to the base station just like any old wireless phone of the old days is this any better than using a google phone without a sim card well yes it is because you can get a real phone number and then your friends and family can reach you the normal way the umo base station also access an answering machine so it can record the messages and even email to you if you wish as i said before a degree phone without a sim card can only communicate using some app like skype to the outside world of a normal phone network or you stick to communications within a messaging app like signal but the advantage of a physical phone is of course simplicity a low-tech family can take advantage of it if you have a netgear m1 you can then pack up your phone with you on vacation and your phone number is the same and you could turn it on in your hotel room or your vacation spot as long as there's cell service for the netgear m1 and being just a regular voice over iphone with very little in terms of additional functionality you're also not an easily reachable target of hackers let me tell you about a cool feature with the uma i can make and receive calls using the phone number of the uma phone even remotely you can do this by running an uma app and i found that this works even on my google phone so i can leave the uma unit at home and have the benefit of voiceover ip but using only the app i think that this is likely the most practical way of using this instead of lugging all this equipment around i can make it and receive calls and it does ring the mobile device that has no sim again you don't need a sim card to have this functionality if you're using a netgear m1 this will allow you to make actual calls with just an internet connection and without using a skype or viber which need a subscription to make a phone call by the way this video is not sponsored there are other voice over ip devices this seems to be the most sophisticated one for home use there are competitors like magicjack vonage ringcentral and some app-only providers like skype and viber this seems to be the most user-friendly setup that i found but i will keep looking for similar products in the future now this is not perfect either so let's talk about the disadvantages once again there is no sms texting so you have to rely on some other alternative method of communicating instead of using text because of habits of most people and the use of phones for calling has declined i would say that not having sms is the biggest disadvantage of any of these solutions of course you can always have a standard degree phone with a sim card and i still expect most people will just use it like that and then you can choose to remove the sim card occasionally as needed the next disadvantage of course is the bulk of all of this just the fact that each device requires a separate charger is already a big pain the netgear though can be charged using a normal phone charger the uma requires two wall warts one for the handset and one for the uma base station it would have been nice if the uma base station had a battery so you can disconnect for periods of time but it doesn't have that included i believe you can buy a usb battery though the handset does have a battery so at least that does not always need to be plugged in as i said earlier though you could just leave the device at home and use the uma app so the bulk isn't necessary even if you go abroad the phone number is the same and you do not need any sim cards just an internet connection either via wi-fi or wired or you can use a netgear m1 which is the one with the sim card by the way one thing that is not obvious with voice over ip is that it is subject to the kalia law just like any other mobile phones kalia is the communications assistant for law enforcement act in the u.s the law requires that the voice over ib provider just like the sale carrier have the equipment to do wiretapping as required by law enforcement although to be honest i'm wondering how much of this matters in today's world since we can all use a signal app if we need to and most people do texting and very little calling but it has to be stated kalia applies to voice over ip as well as regular voice and text the next device i'll introduce is a vpn router this is one of my own products called the brax router and i want to talk about it only in conjunction with the netgear m1 it just needs to be plugged into the ethernet port of the netgear m1 router and then it's good to go with a wi-fi connection that's routing all your traffic through the vpn optionally instead of a vpn router we can also load vpn and software on every device that will access the internet on the netgear which is tedious for a family but it is doable for a single person using this with a couple of devices the problem here is the uma voice over ip since this is a separate piece of hardware we have no way of loading a vpn on it if you want to vpn the uma then the only solution is a vpn router so the simplest solution is to have a brack router if you equip your netgear m1 with a brax router then you never have to worry about any device not having a vpn just connect to the brax router instead of direct to the netgear m1 it's just another wi-fi after all this kind of configuration will work on the go since the only requirement of a brax router is that there be an ethernet port and a netgear m1 has an ethernet port now of course here's another device to connect to the chain and that introduces more setup complexity especially if you're trying to use it on the go for most cases it is enough to load the vpn on each individual computer or phone and the netgear m1 already rotates the ip addresses anyway but a vpn will make you invisible to the carrier if you want a complete solution with the utmost level of security and privacy it's hard to beat obviously these solutions are not convenient hiding is not easy this is the reason many are drawn to using your smartphones because everything is easy to do however that ease of use comes with so many compromises and privacy that people wonder if there are alternatives i just want to give you food for thought alternatives that may mitigate privacy risks some of this may be a big sacrifice for you but to sum it may be acceptable to summarize the possibilities the google fonts without a sim card paired with a netgear m1 lte router voice over ip hardware like the uma added to this mix uses an app or a physical phone and maybe adding a vpn router like brax router to make sure even the uma is vpn i hope you find my videos of value if you do please hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you get more of this content you can support the cause by joining us on patreon or checking out our vpn vpn routers and google phones in my store on braxtme thank you for watching you

Channel: Rob Braxman Tech

Views: 134,741

Rating: 4.9557948 out of 5

Keywords: internet privacy, internet privacy guy, privacy, tech privacy, ooma velo air 2, ooma, no sim phone, phone no cell carrier, ooma voip, netgear nighthawk m1 mobile hotspot 4g lte router, netgear m1, lte modem no sim, magicjack, ring central, vonage, skype, viber

Id: qhzU0NHIBrc

Length: 21min 46sec (1306 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/sobakablack]

Rob Braxman Tech: We will test out various technologies that allow us to communicate on the phone without using a SIM card -- in other words, no cell service. We will also check out other solutions like VoIP.

This will result in several privacy and security benefits. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using a De-Googled phone without a SIM card, an LTE Modem/Router, a VoIP Hardware solution, and a VPN router.