I would actually be interested in knowing the specific methodology of their request. Obviously you can't just flag everybody who shops at bass pro because that's like half of America and would make a very useless watchlist. There is probably some poor understanding of Bayesian statistics where if you buy X and Y and Z the odds of you being "dangerously based" goes up.
It's also good to know this stuff for self preservation purposes. Maybe you don't want to buy fishing rods off the dark net but doing transactions with significant cash at innocuous stores might be a good idea.
@Moon their communication structure would have to be exceptionally poor if they can't simply run queues on state level databases to keep track of this stuff. When you buy a gun that purchase has to be approved by the government of whatever state you're in.
Maybe they really are that incompetent though, idk. My state website is in a constant state of disrepair.
@RustyCrab I am running through the possibilities in my mind and another one is that they can get all their information in one place by looking at financial transactions.
@tyler the good news is that as far as we can tell, most dragnet surveillance appears to be implemented in the obvious places in software. Using custom roms etc would probably go a long way.
@tyler calyx is pretty good these days and lineage is alright if you can't. The only significant complication is that you have to make sure you get a phone with the bootloader unlocked.
My biggest limitation is at my home I have no service, I rely on WiFi calling, and you can't usually know if itll work on your phone until you flash it.
CalyxOS, looks like my pixel 6a is supported, but "how supported" is always the question 😩
@tyler@robbie
Battery: the pixel 6 pro is known for poor battery life in general. I didn't notice it being any better with stock but I only had it for a few days. It still lasts me a good 12 hours but much longer if I am not actively using it.
Lag: I don't experience anything that stands out in my mind. It just feels like typical android.
Gotchas: access to the google play store is done through an anonymous proxy that let's you install apps. Said store is mostly reliable but has had a few hiccups when google changed their protocols/API. I don't use the play store but for a single app so it hasn't been an issue for me.
Google apps like maps work how you would expect but you HAVE to opt into micro-g on install. Micro-g has worked shockingly well.
Other general advice: a phone is still a phone and phones are exceptionally bad for security no matter what your operating system is. I wouldn't keep anything on it that a state actor would frown upon.
@tyler@robbie on one hand we know that the NSA has basically unlimited power to fuck with big manufacturers and software developers.
On the other hand, every time we catch wind of mass surveillance it's always significantly more primitive than you would expect. Prism was literally just the NSA asking nicely for all the user data in a big god damn zip file. Stuff like this kind of financial monitoring seems unnecessary and silly if they have universal eyes on every word you have ever written into any computer. The people who really care about and research this stuff don't seem to believe that's happening.
I try to avoid spreading beliefs like that because it leads to a form of defeatism where people just say "oh well might as well just use windows on a naked ISP"
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