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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Drag and drop the .apk files into the devices files from your computer.
  4. 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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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

23 Comments

  1. VAdeputy April 23, 2021 at 06:20

    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 !

  2. Anonymous April 23, 2021 at 07:04

    5

  3. Gordon April 23, 2021 at 07:44

    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.

    • NC Scout April 23, 2021 at 08:35

      Definitely should root it to completely remove the google.

    • wwes April 23, 2021 at 08:40

      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.

  4. Stonks April 23, 2021 at 10:06

    Can’t you still be tracked by Wi-Fi triangulation?

    • NC Scout April 23, 2021 at 10:07

      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.

  5. OlderNdirt April 23, 2021 at 12:18

    Would an old Android v5.9 inactive cell phone [wi-fi capable] work?

    • NC Scout April 23, 2021 at 12:27

      No. It’s still pinging towers, active plan or not.

  6. americanlife702 April 23, 2021 at 15:12

    Awesome! Thanks!

  7. Vishay April 24, 2021 at 20:53

    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!

    • NC Scout April 24, 2021 at 22:44

      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.

  8. Thomas Angle April 24, 2021 at 21:39

    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?

    • NC Scout April 24, 2021 at 22:41

      Have you done this or comprehend what this entails, exactly?

      • Thomas Angle April 25, 2021 at 00:03

        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…

  9. Thomas Angle April 25, 2021 at 09:42

    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.

  10. Steve Lowe April 25, 2021 at 14:56

    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?

  11. Encouraging Angels April 25, 2021 at 18:51

    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

    • NC Scout April 25, 2021 at 20:13

      Yeah. 10 is a tough but to crack, on purpose.

  12. Red April 27, 2021 at 23:55

    Did you use Towelroot or KingoRoot to root your MP4 player?

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