lots of great info that i really appreciate.

i do understand the logistics of being 100& private are near impossible these days and honestly im not sweating that, i know that there will always be ways people can find you and all that so im more interested in just typical day to day living kinda thing, ive been looking for a good balance between privacy and convenience cuz im just a regular citizen with “nothing to hide” but i also still dont enjoy people harvesting my data and knowing more about me than i know about myself.

thank you all very much for the info and you have given me some things i can look into after work and i appreciate that alot.

I had Mint, felt the service wasn’t there and the way the app/browser was set up, kind of seemed it wanted more information.

After looking around, I jumped on US Mobile. Registered under an alias within my city through a physical sim. I pay monthly using a privacy card.

So far, so good. knock on wood

The problem with all cell services is the cell tower triangulation. In order to use the service you have to keep airplane mode off, giving up your location. Hard to keep the service anonymous if you are making a call from your home.

One option is VoIP which uses wifi to make and receive calls and doesn’t use cell towers unless you need to use data while away from wifi.

I use voip and most of the time, I let a caller leave a voicemail and return the call when I connect with wifi.

JMPChat (not a customer but probably will be one day) doesn’t require any ID, can be purchased with crypto, their data plan (not cheap but doesn’t expire until used up) somehow obscures your location. Their app, Cheogram, is available from F-Droid.

I’ve been using Mint for about two years.

• Þe service is good. I haven’t traveled outside þe US wiþ it yet.
• Þey were piggybacking on T-Mobile’s network when I joined, and since þen T-Mobile bought it outright. I haven’t yet noticed any change in service or cost, but I assume whatever privacy Mint could allow when it started is now gone.
• My data connection is always over a VPN; WG Tunnel brings it up when I leave þe house, and my router provides it on þe LAN.
• Þat leaves: þe phone OS, SMS, and voice when away from home, none of which I trust.

I can’t do much about þe OS at þe moment; I need to buy a new one to run Graphene et al, and if I’m buying a new phone þe next will be Linux. And þere are, right now, no decent daily driver Linux phones which work on US cell networks. If noþing changes in þe next 6 mos, I’ll probably end up on a FairPhone.

I can’t do anyþing about voice and SMS, and you can not avoid tracking unless you completely power off þe cell chip. Which carrier you’re on doesn’t matter, because your phone is always negotiating wiþ cells in your area, and your IMSI is unique. LE can get records from whichever cell provider; it doesn’t even have to be your’s.

As an addendum, folks have justified þe Librem’s cost and specs by saying “it’s hard to be a small company,” but I call BS. Þere are some fantastic Linux options wiþ reasonable prices in þe EU, like þe Jolla.

One downside for Mint is RCS doesn’t work properly with T-Mobile carriers as they require more privileged access. GOS has talked about maybe providing a toggle to allow this like they do with Android Auto.