Egregoros

@clawfulneutral

Any cellphone that's turned on can be subject to cell tower triangulation, including when in airplane mode. Disabling location services in a smartphone OS settings might prevent installed apps from accessing the info, but it doesn't prevent the OS (google, apple, etc) or your cell provider from doing so. Moreover once the hardware (IMEI) has been associated with a particular identity, then in theory even changing the sim (IMSI) won't anonymize you. Using a faraday bag can help, but only if you never use the phone when at home, and generally have unpredictable usage patterns when out and about. Might as well just get a VOIP line and check your messages from your laptop over a VPN connection whenever you get around to it, since you won't get any calls when it's in the faraday bag anyway.

I keep all my smart cards in a faraday case too, because I don't need some jackass with an NFC reader on their phone brushing past me in the checkout isle and scraping all my info. Usually 3 layers of aluminum foil + some duct tape and cardboard does the trick just fine if you don't want to shell out for some fancy swag.

It definitely takes some sacrifices to go without a phone these days. But being GenX I grew up having to physically knock on people's doors if I wanted to say Hi. My first computer modem was an acoustic coupler where you rest the handset of the land-line on the cradle and rotary dial the number you want to connect with. I'm more annoyed by people constantly recording me with their phones without my knowledge or consent than I am with my own lack of one. The friends I lost from not being on social media 24/7 or owning a cell phone, frankly were not worth keeping in the first place and aren't missed.

@toiletpaper yeah I already use VOIP with a wifi-only handset, I’d prefer an analog telephone adapter and a Western Electric skullcrusher but I’m technically homeless so I gotta stick with the more practical option. fortunately since a couple revisions ago, wifi is robust enough to support a cordless SIP phone use case.

I’m technically GenX too by like a year but more culturally GenY due to getting online in umm I think 1990. I’d be further along in disconnecting from the Borg hive already but personal circumstances limit what I can do. but I’ve been consciously working on de-Googling bit by bit for over half a decade, albeit not perhaps with the urgency I would place on it now.

it’s not easy. normies will never have a prayer until tens if not hundreds of thousands of autists and early adopter types have blazed the trail better.

@clawfulneutral

All relatable. I didn't really get chronically online until about the mid 1990's either. I had some access at earlier points, and even got some schooling in software dev pre-teens, but had other interests until my 20's when it started to become a career option and needed to support a family.

Also spent time off and on being homeless or doing periods of urban stealth camping over the years, whether by choice or by circumstance. Even right now, technically, though my situation is stable and I own my own home, it's really just a trailer parked at the edge of the woods on a friend's property where I barter my labour in exchange for a hydro cable and internet access from the nearby barn. I have no running water nor motorised transportation. Pretty rustic. But liveable, and even comfortable in it's own way. Even if I could afford to, there's not really much I'd want to change about my situation.

My neighbours while not as techy, are aware of what's going on, and interested in setting up an autonomous rural mesh network and other distributed comms to cover this and surrounding properties. So looks like I'll have some funding to do stuff along those lines in the months ahead. That and other projects related to autonomous power systems and so on. I'm optimistic.

@toiletpaper your living situation sounds like a goddamn dream tbh. I’ve been up shit’s creek in one way or another since 2012 and would be far more capable of making a situation like that work, and staying healthy in it, than I have been in the series of late-capitalist quagmires I’ve ended up in with nothing but well-meaning addicts and their kids/pets since I lost my home in 2016.

I’ve been trying to do my best to learn skills that’ll be of use if I do luck into such a scenario. I’m still a shitty gardener but I’m a lot better than I was. I know how to eat well for not much money. and I’ve been working hard on digital resilience, with an eye to being able to sustainably self-support (meaning, not by getting “a job” that will destabilize me and lead directly to ruin) if I can ever get to a place which doesn’t interact very badly with my few but non-optional sensory & social needs.

@clawfulneutral

Also all relatable. I've definitely experienced similar.

I am kinda lucky though. I left the city (Toronto) just at the start of the plandemic, and while my experience of rural living has been a mixed bag since then, where I've been in the last couple years has been pretty chill and doesn't demand too much of me to sustain.

The main reason I'm doing so well is that I don't have any expenses other than around $20/mo for VOIP, VPN, and typically spend less than $200/mo on food. I could spend less too, but I don't begrudge myself a bit of junk/comfort food. Especially in the summer a lot of my fresh produce is foraged off the land, and much of it dried or preserved to supplement my diet through remaining months. So even with a predictable income of barely over $4K/yr I manage to save money, and all the more so when I get better paying cash jobs on the side here or there (eg. how I bought my trailers). But I wouldn't be able to do that were it not for the grace of my hosts and neighbours willing to barter with me for the essentials, including monthly trips to town for groceries, etc. Thankfully my social circles are chock-o-block with people fed up with the government and the trend towards 1984 style enshitification of everything. They span the gamut from hippies to red-necks and everything in between.

I hope something akin to that bears fruit for you too. It took a while, but once I set my mind towards it, eventually that's where things lead. I'm sure the same will be true for you given patience and scoping out enough opportunities.

@toiletpaper that’s inspiring as fuck to read tbh.

it sounds like we have a lot of similarities, I have been a social floater all my life (I have just enough autistic charm to avoid being a straight up outcast which helps but also means I don’t really ever get to pick a clique and thrive in it) and I’m definitely going down that funnel of having friends of all stripes who share a certain subset of important values. just… not enough of them, and they keep dying. but I haven’t stopped looking for more.

@clawfulneutral

Same. Most of the people I call "friends" are actually more "friendly acquaintances". As long as I keep people at arm's length we tend to get along well enough. It's exceedingly rare that I find someone I can talk with honestly without having to dumb myself down and sugar coat everything. Failure to do so has traditionally not ended well. Makes me a bit cynical about relationships in general, but not to the point that it's a source of anxiety or depression thankfully (at least not anymore). My attitude towards my immediate social circle is akin to my attitude towards the change of seasons. It's not destined to last, so might as well enjoy it for what it's worth while it does. I've experienced enough revolutions and transitions in life that it no longer scares me. I do my best to not be overly invested in situations, but instead in my own resilience.