That’s the Vietnamese government for you. Such blatant overreach and I’ve seen little discourse on this issue. So many people blindly trust it because national unity/national security/patriotism or whatever. If you dare to oppose the government, they’re taking you to the police station for questioning. There’s basically no press freedom and internet freedom is shit as well so where the hell are people going to get differing opinions? All the articles I’ve read are simply parroting the government. This shit would never fly in a democracy. The writing has been on the wall for a long time. I’ll be finding ways to get tf out of here
Just as a heads up, Exodus is highly misleading
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of people here don’t have such a threat model. Our threat model is mostly preventing corporations like Google and Facebook from accessing our data. If your threat model is so advanced that you need to prevent tracking via connection to a cell tower (i.e state actors targeting you), the only thing you can do short of putting your phone in a faraday cage/taking out the cellular radios/ not having a phone at all is to turn on airplane mode. This is because your phone still maintains a connection to a cell tower without a SIM card.
Pixel Experience has zero advantage for your privacy. LineageOS really doesn’t do much to protect your privacy (or security). That’s hardly surprising since privacy&security was never the goal of LineageOS to begin with. The only things Lineage will do for your privacy is 1. Remove Google Play Services 2. Remove your OEM’s built in tracking. Installing Google Play Services will negate 1. If you are serious about your privacy and is willing to make sacrifices, your best option would be GrapheneOS, followed by DivestOS. The latter supports many of the devices supported by LineageOS, so check if your device has support.
If you REALLY need it, I’ve seen some people recommend ClamAV but really, I don’t like the concept of antiviruses. They run with I’m assuming full access to your storage and generally bog down your system performance. IMO, the best line of defense for your system is you. Use your common sense, stray clear of the shady websites, stick to well known and safe recommendations (especially relevant since you sail the high seas) and don’t run random commands from the internet.
I’d get the Pixel because of the long, not to mention timely software updates and security patches, better hardware and GrapheneOS. If you do get the Fairphone, use DivestOS. See this comparison
There’s this “resend” button on the site I guess but I don’t know, I’ve never tried. I usually just use a number for a one time verification.smspool.net works great for me. Tried with GMail, Apple ID, and ChatGPT.
From this discussion, I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole.
Your situation is different from mine. Facebook might not be popular in your country anymore but it’s the largest social media platform in mine. Young people don’t use SMS for communication in my country anymore. The majority has switched to Facebook Messenger now. SMS is only for carrier messages and verification codes. Even if I did get like one or two friends to use SMS again (unlimited SMS not included in phone plans by the way), how do you propose I solve the problem of Messenger group chats? I need them for family, for friends, for college and for work. How do you propose I solve that?
Here’s what I do. I have GrapheneOS with 3 user profiles for compartmentalization. Mullvad VPN on and set to different locations in all profiles except owner profile. I straight up don’t use the owner profile. I let it sit empty. I only use the two other profiles as they don’t have as much access to the phone. One’s my FOSS profile, which is my main profile. The other one’s my big brother profile, which has Sandboxed Play Services. I think that’s good enough for me, and I try to keep on top of permissions to limit what apps can access. You can always go further though, with more compartmentalization, no Play Services whatsoever, using no SIM/toggling airplane mode,FOSS dedication,… but it all depends on your threat model. For me, I think what I’m doing is good enough.
If it’s for a one-time sign up and you don’t need it for anything else afterwards, then try smspool.net . They’re pretty cheap. For example US numbers for Google signups are like 40 cents. They’ve worked pretty well for me too.
DNA and voice is voluntary at least for now, but they will do a mandatory iris scan. Doesn’t make it any better in my books. The fact that the government even wants this much biometric data is ridiculous.