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Setting up a Privacy Phone is an essential step toward self sovereignty. Freedom is very difficult to achieve without first securing your online privacy.
Hi friends,
Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?
Well perhaps you should trust that feeling. Because it might just be closer to the truth than you realise.
We’re not talking about someone peeking through your windows or following you around town like they do in the old detective movies. Nobody spies on you like that anymore. There are now far more effective ways to put you under constant surveillance, without having to be anywhere near you.
What we’re talking about of course are the handy little devices we carry with us everywhere we go; Our mobile phones. Why would anyone need to follow you around in person, when you voluntarily carry more surveillance tech than they could ever dream of, right in your pocket?
Through your mobile device, major corporations and governments have everything they need to know practically everything about you. They can track your location; your financial transactions, the websites you visit, and monitor who you speak to and associate with. The idea that you have any semblance of privacy when a device like this is always within two feet of you, is a fantasy.
Most people, despite having some understanding of being tracked online, still wave away this invasion of privacy as being relatively benign.
“It’s only companies collecting data to push annoying targeted ads at us, you can just ignore them. Besides, I’ve got nothing to hide, so what’s the problem?”.
Well, the problem is, this invasion of your privacy is far more sinister and insidious than just being a method to promote products to you. Through your mobile device your entire life is being monitored and analysed in remarkably granular fashion:
And those are just the headlines!
With this amount of personal data, it’s possible to build an extremely detailed picture of not only your habits and movements, but even your darkest fears, and your wildest desires. This little companion of yours probably knows more about you than even your closest friends and relatives and it also has a perfect memory!
They used to say that your eyes were the windows to your soul. Perhaps today it’s now our mobile phones…
One of the biggest problems with all of this is that you don’t get a lot of say in it. Most users have no idea what personal data is being captured, which 3rd parties it gets sold to, or where any of it is being stored or how secure it is.
Ifwe’re being honest with ourselves, how many of us really go through the Terms of Service with a fine-tooth comb when signing up to a new website or app?
Giving our personal data away so willingly like this can in some cases have catastrophic consequences. Major data breaches are becoming increasingly common, and it’s all too easy for your information to be lost to malicious hackers who might use it to steal your identity, commit fraud or even blackmail you.
Worse still, it’s not just hackers you need to worry about. If you live under an oppressive government that punishes you for expressing the wrong views, then having every detail about your online activity being traceable becomes a very real problem.
And it’s time to realise that this is not just hyperbole. Even in Western countries we are seeing a rise in authoritarianism and direct attacks on free speech.
Consider that in the UK the current prime minister, ‘dear leader’ Kier Starmer has been having people arrested for tweeting ‘wrong think’. Meanwhile France has detained Telegram founder Pavel Durov on spurious charges all because he provides a private messaging service that the state cannot access. Big brother is watching you, and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.
The good news however is that there are steps you can take to protect yourself and reclaim some of your privacy.
One of the best steps to take is to start using a privacy phone!
Well, as the name suggests a privacy phone is one designed to protect your privacy from all this tracking, advertising and surveillance. But what does that mean in real terms?
Let’s put a bit more meat on the bone and explain it in a bit more detail…
Conventional smartphones come preloaded with software and applications that track your activity right out of the box.
In contrast, a privacy phone affords you better protection by using privacy-focused hardware loaded with an open-source operating system. This means you no longer need to use proprietary software designed by companies known for data harvesting. A well configured privacy phone can go a long way in minimising the digital footprint you leave behind, making it much more difficultto track, profile or target you.
Privacy phones can be setup to use a wide range of useful features that will help protect your personal information:
In essence, a privacy phone is a tool that empowers you to take control over your digital life. It allows YOU to be the one who decides what information you share and what information you keep private.
If you store your wealth in Bitcoin and have embarked on the journey of becoming your own bank, then you can’t avoid the fact that alongside the benefits, you must also take on a lot more responsibility when it comes to protecting your wealth.
If you’re holding Bitcoin, then you now have critical data to protect, and the buck stops with you!
One of the best ways to help ensure your critical data remains secure, is to not make a habit of leaving your data on display for all to see in the first place. A privacy phone can be a very helpful tool to achieve that, whilst still giving you the benefit of being able to use Bitcoin while on the move.
For example, with the right Mesh VPN setup you could broadcast transactions privately from your phone via your own full node located in a completely different location without revealing what you’re doing to prying eyes.
With a privacy focussed phone you could even check the status of your transaction on a block explorer without leaving breadcrumbs that tie your personal identity to that specific transaction and potentially information about your entire stack!
Without a privacy phone, doing activities like broadcasting transactions or tracking them on a block explorer are things you most definitely want to think twice about doing. Who knows who could be paying attention to your activity and do you really want a whole host of corporations, 3 letter agencies and your government to know what you’re doing with your Bitcoin?
In many ways then, a privacy phone helps you unlock even more potential when it comes to using Bitcoin. Both are useful tools, but when combined they both become more powerful and useful.
Setting up a privacy phone for yourself and for the other members of your family is a smart move to make.
The challenge however is knowing how to go about it. To get your setup as optimal as it can be requires you to appraise the pros and cons of various hardware options and then make a series of decisions when it comes to choosing which open-source operating systems and software to use.
If you’re not overly experienced with hardware or software this can be a bit of a mountain to climb if you try and go it alone. It’s certainly possible to learn this yourself, but you will be embarking on a process that involves a lot of trial and error, and a lot of uncertainty as to whether you have made the right decisions and trade-offs.
That’s why, at The Bitcoin Way, we offer a dedicated service to guide you through setting up a privacy phone that is already configured in the best way possible. We have done the curation process for you already so that not only can we remove the uncertainty, but we can get you using your new privacy phone to its maximum potential in no time at all.
You would never dream of letting anyone invade your privacy so egregiously in the real world, so why wouldn’t you extend that same principle to your online life as well? When you’re ready to take this essential step to securing your privacy and your data, then book a call with us. We would love to help.
Learn from our 25 years of cybersecurity expertise
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