It should be no surprise for anyone to hear that your cell phone is one of your largest liabilities. Long before the NSA leaks, we knew the general tracking capabilities of government intelligence and surveillance agencies around the world.
But today we found out a bit more about their specific capabilities — namely that NSA collects geographical data from cell phones 5 billion times every day, and is not only able to retrieve call history but also historical geographical data. One thing we talk about in the Security Manual (which is being updated in light of significant new information), is the concept of co-geolocation. Two cell phones, whose owners are known, in the same location are now associated by proximity, even if previous associations between the two individuals were unknown and had never contacted one another through those cell phones.
So what does this mean for the resistance element?
Well, for one, it means that everywhere you’ve ever been with your cell phone is now a liability. In the Operations Security (OPSEC) portion of the ICAC, we cover that the only two ways to disable your cell phone from rendering its location data is to a) remove the battery completely; or b) purchase a radio frequency shielding bag that blocks all signals to and from your cell phone. There are theories that even if the battery is removed from your phone, someone with the tools could still get a weak signal through charged capacitors or ions or protons or photons or something.
