this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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Shitty article. Doesnt even contain the words SIM card or IMEI so it has no business advising people on whats safe to bring to a protest. There is no such thing as cop-proofing a mobile phone unless all wireless modules have been removed. The cops can and do track peoples cell tower signal derived locations and they can log active Wifi/Bluetooth MAC addresses in their vicinity.
As others have said, just dont bring it if you are scared. Consider just using a bodycam or gopro style camera.
Modern phones rotate random MAC addresses. For WiFi, capturing SSID probes can be enough to track somebody though (some phones also have some mitigation for that too, like not probing for an SSID after it hasn't been seen for some amount of time). Even when turned off, many phones, including iPhones, turn into BLE beacons similar to AirTags, which can be used to track you.
almost worthless. I just learned that the android 13 xiaomi phone of a family member broadcasts some of the wifi AP names it knows when scanning for available networks! constantly! why the fuck it does I don't know because neither are hidden networks that would need this, and there's no setting for it
Are those networks marked as hidden SSID networks? Hidden networks require the client STA to broadcast them to find them.
they aren't. one of them is an AP from another phone, so I believe that one couldn't even be configured as hidden by accident, because the phone does not offer it. another is one I sometimes use, and it's not hidden either.