I'm not responding to be mean, so I'm sorry if this feels like bullying. I've had friends and comrades arrested and jailed, and I don't want anybody falling into that trap if it can be easily avoided. I'm trying to point out the Ideologies (*sniff* ), the things you don't know you know, so that you can operate a much stronger security posture.

Sure , not using a phone is of course the best option. If that is an option. For most people, activist or criminals of any kind. Not usually an option.

• The first Ideology is using the same device in both high and low security environments. Don't. Use multiple devices and compartmentalize aggressively. In security posture, you are only as secure as your weakest point. This is why those "criminals" use a different burner phone. Using a single device to communicate with grandma and radicals is a recipe for baking and arrest. I consider a low-security place where I shitpost and goof off, but I absolutely do not engage in any here because it would be trivial to trace it to me. Same with my regular cell phone, which I text grandma baking recipes but never use it during protests.

• The second Ideology is thinking you are excluded from those so called "activists and criminals" while participating in very leftists and public online spaces. I guarantee and watch both Lemmygrad and Hexbear as I type this, and they don't give a single ! Rude! To them we are all being gay and doing crime. Have fun giving them but you deliberately never go beyond that.

You can at least verify the Foss code. Or trust the people that verify it.

• This is the third Ideology. You are trusting somebody you don't know for your safety, and you are trusting they did their job. Likewise, yes you can verify yourself, but did you actually verify yourself? Again, attack surface. Yes there are ways to mitigate this, and yes you could verify, but it's mitigation not exclusion. Excluding tech renders you invulnerable to this. Freedom/Libre software can only guarantee your freedom, not your security/safety, and this is why every FOSS license disclaims all liability for use of their software. Looking at it another way, why put yourself in a position where you must trust somebody else for your safety?