Hi from Glenn!
Admit it, you take your smartphone with you everywhere.
It sits on your nightstand while you talk in your sleep. It accompanies you to work, to school, to the grocery store, and to the gas station. It’s a third wheel on intimate dinner dates with your spouse and at important business lunches with your clients. It probably even entertains you while you do your business in the bathroom.
You chat with your friends on your smartphone more than you do in person. You text your doctor questions from your phone more often than you visit his office.
Not only that . . . but your smartphone is in your pocket when you confide your innermost secrets to your pastor or your therapist.
It sees what apps you use and what websites you visit. It knows what you spend your money on, and what games you like to play.
You and your smartphone are joined at the hip.
So, it’s a good thing you don’t live in a world in which your phone has been turned into a surveillance device, isn’t it?!
Isn’t it wonderful that we can trust powerful corporations, such as Google, to do the right thing, to respect our privacy, to put safeguards in place that keep the knowledge that they gain about us to themselves and to not use our own information against us and our children?
Aren’t we lucky that we can trust our government to respect our God-given rights, and that our intelligence agencies, the FBI, the NSA and our judicial system respect not only our individual liberties, but the limits placed on them by our wonderful Constitution?
Well, maybe we aren’t that lucky.
Your smartphone does spy on you. It betrays you. It tattles on you. It allows people the world over to peer into your private life. It allows governments to illegally track you and monitor you, and they use your information against you.
As the saying goes, information is power. And when they have information ABOUT you, they have power OVER you.
Maybe you’ve seen an ad pop up on your mobile phone for a cruise to the Italian Riviera right after telling a friend that you want to see Italy someday.
Or perhaps you’ve seen an ad for dog toys appear on your phone immediately after gushing over your cousin’s adorable puppy. At the time, we thought the coincidences were eerie. Now we can account for them.
We all remember when, 12 years ago, Edward Snowden revealed that NSA spy programs could turn on our phone’s microphone or camera under any pretext. That revelation alone confirmed that our iPhones and Androids are high-tech versions of Benedict Arnold. They betray us behind our backs.
Knowing that our phones are purposely made to be trojan horses that spy on us, can we do anything to protect ourselves from their treachery?
Yes. But before I explain, let me share some shocking statistics. Around the world, 4.8 billion people use smartphones. More than 98% of these smartphones use one of two operating systems—either iPhone, which is produced by Apple, or Android, which is controlled by Google.
In other words, if a government wants to spy on its own citizens, it needs to compromise only those two companies.
Google has developed a reputation for questionable ethics, which at one time were supposedly embodied in the slogan “Do no evil.” These days, though, Google is at the very heart of many evils that are being perpetrated across the planet.
But Apple can’t be trusted either. Although it convincingly plays the role of the good guy, Apple showed its true colors on November 9, 2022.
That’s when Apple removed the “AirDrop” feature from devices in Hong Kong and China. The Airdrop feature allowed people to communicate via direct connections between phones, thus bypassing China’s stringent control of the internet.
But on November 9 two years ago, Apple released an update to its operating system. Rather than listing the changes, as it often does, the company simply said, “This update includes bug fixes and security updates and is recommended for all users.” But hidden in this update was a change that only applied to iPhones sold in China and Hong Kong.
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In other words, Apple betrayed its customers by submitting to an inhumane and autocratic dictate from the Chinese government. Don’t think that Apple won’t do the same in collusion with the US government.
So, let’s get back to the question, “What can you do to protect yourself from your snooping phone?”
The answer: Use a de-Googled Android OS on your phone.
Unlike the iPhone, the Android operating system is open source. This means we can see what is going on in the operating system and, better yet, we can modify it to ensure that everything in it that communicates with Google is stripped out.
There are many different de-Googled operating systems, including Calyx, Murena, and eFoundation. The best, and the one that I use, is called Graphene OS.
Not only does Graphene OS strip Google out of the equation, it adds many additional privacy and security features. After investigating them all, I believe Graphene OS is the most private and secure phone operating system on the market.
If you are familiar with Android phones now, switching to Graphene OS will be a breeze. If you are used to iPhones, it will take a little bit of adjustment.
There are two ways to get the Graphene OS. First, you can purchase a phone with Graphene OS preinstalled (click here) or, second, you can install Graphene OS on your own phone yourself—assuming you have a compatible phone. Click here to learn how to install Graphene OS yourself (use this option only if you are technically inclined).
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There have been some questions about the iPhone, so let me clarify. The difference between iPhones and Android phones is that the iPhone is locked down. The operating system is encrypted. We can't see what is going on behind the scenes, nor can you modify it. An iPhone is an iPhone. Period.
The Android operating system is different though. It is open source, which is to say that it is an open book. We can see everything that is going on behind the scenes, AND we can modify it and make versions of it that are stripped of everything having to do with Google. There are, in fact, many de-Googled* versions of the Android operating system, such as Calyx, eFoundation, Mureno, Copperhead and, my favorite, Graphene OS.
These alternative operating systems offer a number of great features above and beyond just disconnecting from Google. Graphene OS has many privacy and security features that are not available on iPhone or Android. For example, Graphene has a randomized Mac address for Wifi, which simply means that your WiFi signature can't be used to identify you when you walk around with your phone with your WIFI turned on. There are many other benefits like this.
So coming back to the iPhone, there is nothing you can do to make your iPhone more private or secure than simply changing some settings. You are completely trusting Apple to provide you with a safe and secure phone. That doesn't mean, however, that you should change to a de-Googled phone.
Imagine your privacy/security actions on a scale from 1 to 100. 1 is total convenience without a single thought about privacy and security, and 100 is as private and secure as you can get, which would sacrifice convenience and ease of use. The vast majority of people exist at level 1. They want absolute convenience and they don't even think about privacy and security.
You want your privacy and security score to be as high as possible, and every step you take will move you further along the scale, but it could be at a sacrifice of some convenience. So, you will have to find your balance point. You want to be as private and secure as possible while still living your life as you want to live it.
A Graphene OS phone is very similar to an Android phone. If you are familiar with Android now, I don't think it would be a big change to move to Graphene OS. If you have an iPhone, it will be a bigger change. And to be honest, you may not want to make that change. It may be a hard change for some. You will have to make up your own mind.
One of the reasons I recommend the company that I do is because they have good customer support and training to help you make the adjustment.
I hope this clarifies things.
Thank you, Glenn, Does this mean you are recommending this instead of the Above Phone or Efani?