The Black Lives Revolution (BLM)

It seems a lot of people are concerned about their digital safety when it comes to protests. I'll try to cover what the cops can realistically do.

1. What are stingrays?

Stingrays are essentially fake cell towers. They're listening on any SMS, Voice Call, and Internet usage you have while connected to the stingray. Will you know you're connected to a stingray? Probably not. It's not impossible but it's difficult, and there is not easy way to just find out that works for everything.

2. What does "listening" to SMS/Voice Call/Internet usage mean?

With voice calls and SMS they can reconstruct exactly what you've said or typed. However, with Internet usage this gets a little bit more complex. They can see what data is going through their transport system (lets call this the transport layer), but the internet is built upon the assumption that the transport layer is compromised. This is why https and other forms of encryption exists.

If you're using iMessage (blue texts), Telegram, WhatsApp, etc etc your messages aren't immedietely available to law enforcement. If you're using Facetime, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc to make voice calls, your calls aren't immedietely available to law enforcement.

With some of these applications, your conversations will NEVER be available to law enforcement (assuming they're doing end to end encryption correctly.) For example, with Telegram Secret Chats, it's effectively impossible for the state to read your messages without getting access to your or the person you're talking withs phone.

Don't bypass any security warnings when you're out protesting, because that might mean they're trying to look into the decrypted data. But as a general rule, you're safe to be using the internet even if you're connected directly to the NSA (and guess what, most of us actually are, but these systems keep us safe).

3. Will a VPN help?

Kinda? A VPN will guarantee that you're not going to be able to use the internet if the police is actively trying to break the security protocols I mentioned above, but it might decrease the stability of your connection. You can try free VPN applications like 1.1.1.1 put out by cloudflare. Again, the VPN just masquerades a transport layer and the web is still going off the assumption that the transport layer is compromised.

4. Should I take my phone with me or not?

I would say yes. I'm convinced the government is making up these concerns about taking your phone with you to protests because they're amazing organizing & documenting tools. Think about it, if you're the state and you're going to start running people over with your cars, would you want people to easily be able to record it? How about people having access to a device that can immedietely tell them where cops are going or which street isn't safe. Do you think the state would want that?

Your phone is your best tool in protesting. Hold it close to you.

5. What precautions should I take if I am going to take the phone with me?

You should remove fingerprint/faceID based unlocking. Make sure your pin/password is non trivial (use something random that your parents cant guess) to get into your phone. Don't store any information that you don't need on your phone. If you're about to get arrested, toss your phone into the crowd, it's less dangerous in the hands of other protesters than in the hands of police.

Also, keep your phone updated with the latest updates.

6. What if they use my phone to find out I was breaking curfew?

Realistically? Assuming these protests die down and the police go on a revenge trip (which is really unlikely), they'd have a VERY difficult time making the charges stick. What if you lived in the area and your phone pinged the tower? What if you were passing by? What if the data is straight out fucking wrong?

They'd have a VERY difficult time trying to prove anything, and the charges for not listening to a curfew is likely to be extremely small "punishment."

I just don't see it as a viable option for the state. It doesn't really solve anything for them.

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