A Brigada reader is asking for input. In a few weeks, he will be traveling into a hostile, closed country and is hoping to take a phone that could not be traced back to him or his contacts. Yet, he needs to have WhatsApp, Signal, and a few key contacts. He hopes to take pictures in the country and communicate with key people both within and outside of the country. Can anyone help him out? What would you recommend? Thank you for your input for our fellow brother!
There’s no such thing as untraceable. The government can always track you, it’s just a matter of how big of a priority you are to them. If the authorities are after you, tracing you, following you, they already know who you are, so it really doesn’t matter whether they can trace the phone back to you or not, because they already know it’s yours.
But let’s say you are caught with your contacts doing “illegal” activity, then they will have your phone and you will be forced to open the phone for them. So how do you protect your contacts then?
For that, I would recommend that you have a lot of contacts on your WhatsApp, Signal, etc. You want it to look likes a regular phone you use. If your phone only has a few contacts, it is suspicious and everybody on your list will be contacted. Also if the authorities get a hold of your phone, with a lot of contacts, it will take them longer to get through all your contacts and they may simply just randomly pick a few people. Basically, they are looking for things that stand out. A name that doesn’t sound or look Western, for example.
Also, do take a lot of pictures! Look like a tourist! Take pictures of buildings, food, people walking on the street, anything that a normal tourist would take. Take pictures with random people on the street. Take pictures with police officers.
And your contacts, why are you with them? Because they are your friends or friends of friend. There’s no need to deny you knowing them. And do you know they are Christians? Yes, that’s why you are with them because you are too.
Each country is different, but those are some recommendations from my experience.
I agree with Derrick overall. Still what I would do is: 1. if you can obtain a new to you (even if previously used by others) UNLOCKED phone, you can do a factory reset, then install WhatsApp or other apps via a wifi connection under a new account name (Apple or Android). Use your stateside phone number to authenticate the WhatsApp, which can then work via wifi connection. 2. Then add the needed contacts manually with no cloud backup. Yes, I know Meta and Google grab everything they can and they will co-operate with overseas governments if it allows them to operate in that country (their revenue is more important to them than you are). 3.Establish a web based throwaway email address and leave a trusted U.S. contact to forward anything critical to you at that address and you sent email only to that address. 4. You can buy, in most international airports, a travel SIM that will work in most countries (check ahead with the vendor) but only IF you need voice or non-wifi data service in that country. If you are asked why you are using such a limited phone, you don’t want to lose your expensive U.S. phone or get high costs for any data fees or software upgrades while traveling (all very true). You also don’t want your contacts at home to be subjected to scammers and virus attacks if your phone was to be lost or stolen while traveling (Also true). Anything going thru wifi or local phone data links in a hostile country can/might/will be subject to search and review so keep that limited, not to protect you but to protect your in county contacts as much as possible. As a foreigner you are more likely to just get deported, but your in country contacts face much worse consequences, so be wise (Mt 10:16)
Take a lot of pictures, as Darrick noted, as long as they aren’t sensitive like government buildings, airports, stuff like that. Look as much as you can like a cheap tourist just interesting in learning about local culture and food.