Setting Up A Clandestine Communications Device
There’s a mountain of data collected by cell phones. This fact is literally indisputable, and everyone from competent criminal gangs to spy organizations to reporters know the dangers posed by the information both gathered and mapped simply by the carrying of a phone. Arguing to the contrary is downright silly and there’s a lot of dead insurgents to prove you wrong.
But the fact remains that the ability to communicate is a critical one. And, believe it or not, there’s a solution to building a device to communicate, completely off the grid. What you’ll need is a WiFi device, like a small android-based tablet or MP4 player, and a handful of apps that can be downloaded and used for secure peer-to-peer messaging. Download them from the source- do not use Google Play.
Running a WiFi-only device mitigates the IMSI and IMEI data that’s constantly being collected by conventional phone systems. And considering publicly accessible WiFi is nearly everywhere, messaging and voice apps such as Signal and Wire which utilize VOIP allows us to contact anyone also running that app, with no other data exchange being made.
How to set it up:
- On the device, open Settings and search for “Enable third party apps”. This allows you to install the .apk files (the app itself) without Google Play getting involved.
- Plug the device up and select “allow data transfer” from the USB options. This is going to be on the homescreen when you slide the menu down.
- Drag and drop the .apk files into the devices files from your computer.
- Go into your device’s files and you’ll see the apps. Select them one at a time and pick Install.
Set up your accounts in the apps, and now you’re good to go. Make sure you’ve set them to delete your messages after you’ve sent them and never, ever send ‘group’ texts.
Nah, its not convenient. Tradecraft never is.
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I knew you had talked about it a few times on Radio Contra, but it’s much better seeing it in an article. Thanks, Scout !
5
Great article. I have a Walmart tablet I have been trying to set up. It’s Android 10 and so far have not been able to root it. Do you still recommend we do that? Would be a tablet running 6 be better?
Thanks for again for all that you do.
Definitely should root it to completely remove the google.
I haven’t been able to root the android 10 system either, and I am also running a tablet like yours. If anyone figures it out, I’m sure there are quite a few of us that would be interested in a write up of how to do it.
You can get old Nook’s cheap, I am working on trying to set one of them up as a comms device, I just haven’t had much time to really mess with it yet.
Try this: https://magiskroots.com/blog/how-to-root-android-10-with-magisk-manager/#:~:text=How%20to%20root%20Android%2010%20with%20Magisk%20Manager,to%20Root%20Android%2010%20with%20Magisk%20Manager.%20
I’m currently running Android 6 with that MP4 player I linked, so rooting it is pretty straightforward.
Thanks for this, I have tried Magisk and wasn’t able to root it, but I was also using an older version of Magisk. it’s also been about 4 months since I messed with it. I wish it had an older version of android on it instead of 10.
Have you tried running android on any of the older Nook’s that are out there? Looks pretty straightforward to install android on them, and then I would think that all of the comms apps discussed would work.
Can’t you still be tracked by Wi-Fi triangulation?
Depends on how big of a target you really are and what patterns you’ve set for yourself.
It all boils down to patterns of life.
Would an old Android v5.9 inactive cell phone [wi-fi capable] work?
No. It’s still pinging towers, active plan or not.
Awesome! Thanks!
Hi Scout! Great info! Does this wifi-only approach expose your MAC address, and if so how big a deal is that? Also, should I infer that one purpose of rooting the device is to scrub all the Google apps, and if so are there any that simply must left alone for the device to stay working? TrI am trying to avoid “bricking” the tablet accidentally. Thank you, sir!
It can, but that’s so far down the rabbit hole already. This is to mitigate the tracking that’s going on with phone data which is happening in real time.
On rooting, this is a top priority- the Google apps are constantly running and recording data in the background.
Why would you trust any company and their servers? Would it not make more sense to build your own servers and run your own applications?
Have you done this or comprehend what this entails, exactly?
If you are talking about setting up servers and such, yes, been doing it for over 20 years. It is really not that hard to set up a simple chat, email, file sharing server. There are ways to make it pretty secure, that is if the developers have not put a backdoor into the software for the government.
So, back to the question, why trust others servers? What make Signal any more trustworthy than google? It is a serious question that should be thought over. Do they hold some kind of mystical power that make them immune from the governments bribes, blackmail, IRS, etc…
Ok, not that call me out on claims to be a techie. It is quiet clear in my question that I was talking about other people’s servers. The encryption ends there. For example, all emails are stored in a database or in a test file. They can be read by the administrator/root user of the machine. Most applications you can log a lot of information, such as MAC, IP, time/date and in some cases you can even store log conversations.
Every major application allows the “admin” to monitor anything they want. I cannot think of any major companies that have or will not buckle when big brother comes knocking. Once you send the information across the internet it is intercepted. It is also a known fact that the government has broken all the major encryption algorithms. So encrypted or not, once they have it, then can crack it. So even if it is sitting on Signals servers, if they want it they can get it and they crack the encryption.
Don’t believe me, how can Apple “unlock” you iPhone? MS servers have keys that can open any server. Most Linux/Unix servers are not encrypted at the disk level, so boot to live distro, get what you want including the shadow file and or SSH keys and you are in.
One last questions to ask yourself. What was in the code on the last automatic update on any of your devices? Yep, you do not have a clue what they can do when they want to do it. That is the way you need to think about it.
I purchased a qunyici Y7 Android tablet (32gb) for this purpose, and likewise, have questions & set up issues needing guidance.
As a non-techie, we seem to go down the rabbit hole fast as we attempt these non-standard set ups. It’s easy to get over our heads.
Suggestions? Are there any support companies or people available (for a fee) that you can recommend? Might this be covered in an RTO class?
Scout, based on a few of the comments it seems that folk are having a bit of trouble with rooting the device if the device is android 10.0…would you say that it would be better to buy a new tablet with android os 6.0 through 9.0 to help technonoobs like myself get through the rooting process? These can still be found with a little work on Amazon…thanks
Yeah. 10 is a tough but to crack, on purpose.
Thank you NCS.
Did you use Towelroot or KingoRoot to root your MP4 player?