OPSEC. Operattional Security

[RogerOver]

I use Veracrypt as well, for all my computers and flash drives. All encrypted.

And that doesn't directly have to do with any mongering activities, but just feels natural for me to keep my private data locked down and encrypted.

Same. My mongering shit is completely removed from my daily driver. I keep everything encrypted because I like it that way. I could toss my computer and storage in the street and not worry about it being accessed by anyone.

[RogerOver]

First link is about private cloud for virtual research, second is about "learn from this app" function vs signal. Both has nothing to do with on the device data protection.

I suggest you attend criminal trial at your local court just to see how easily LE can obtain any piece of information from your phone.

Go ahead and provide an example of what you're talking about and how LE exploits it. Any court case will do.

[CanaPunter]

https://security.apple.com/blog/pcc-security-research/

https://activistchecklist.org/signal-ai/

First link is about private cloud for virtual research, second is about "learn from this app" function vs signal. Both has nothing to do with on the device data protection.

I suggest you attend criminal trial at your local court just to see how easily LE can obtain any piece of information from your phone.

[Peter Johnson]

Yep. I gave up on bitlocker years ago, especially when they started uploading the private key to the cloud. I recommend something like veracrypt whole disk encryption.
/

I use Veracrypt as well, for all my computers and flash drives. All encrypted.

And that doesn't directly have to do with any mongering activities, but just feels natural for me to keep my private data locked down and encrypted.

[RogerOver]

Yes your private key to decrypt needs to be stored locally, on your device, as is the case with Signal. Some people used Bitlocker and backed up their keys to Microsoft cloud and then Microsoft gave those to law enforcement when asked. Such a dumb, lazy mistake.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/01/22/microsoft-gave-fbi-keys-to-unlock-bitlocker-encrypted-data/

Yep. I gave up on bitlocker years ago, especially when they started uploading the private key to the cloud. I recommend something like veracrypt whole disk encryption.

Key stored locally on the phone is pretty meaningless as both Apple and Signal can read it. In Windows Signal the key protection is even worse. You need pgp on linux for real message encryption.

This simply isn't true.

https://security.apple.com/blog/pcc-security-research/

https://activistchecklist.org/signal-ai/

[CanaPunter]

Yes your private key to decrypt needs to be stored locally, on your device, as is the case with Signal. Some people used Bitlocker and backed up their keys to Microsoft cloud and then Microsoft gave those to law enforcement when asked. Such a dumb, lazy mistake.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/01/22/microsoft-gave-fbi-keys-to-unlock-bitlocker-encrypted-data/

Key stored locally on the phone is pretty meaningless as both Apple and Signal can read it. In Windows Signal the key protection is even worse. You need pgp on linux for real message encryption.

[Peter Johnson]

I see end to end encryption is misunderstood in general public. E2 EE is only meaningful if you control your encryption keys e. G. You get encrypted message from the messaging app and decrypt it using the key that only you have access to. If your keys live in the app, then the app owner can freely read all your e2 ee messages because they they can decrypt them using your decryption key.

Yes your private key to decrypt needs to be stored locally, on your device, as is the case with Signal. Some people used Bitlocker and backed up their keys to Microsoft cloud and then Microsoft gave those to law enforcement when asked. Such a dumb, lazy mistake.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/01/22/microsoft-gave-fbi-keys-to-unlock-bitlocker-encrypted-data/

[RegularJoe1985]

...Administrative subpoenas are a bit of a strange animal. Many agencies are empowered to issue their own subpoenas with respect to matters under their jurisdiction. For example, the Dept of Labor might issue an admin subpoena for the payroll records of a business. But some agencies have developed a nasty habit of issuing them for records that rightfully require a warrant or GJ subpoena and then using coercive or deceptive tactics to obtain compliance. It's truly despicable how they're being misused. What's even worse, if a company hands over your info when they shouldn't have, or weren't required to, good luck trying to challenge that later or get any relief. On the brighter side of things, if an admin subpoena is challenged or ignored, the agency will have to go to court and convince a judge that the subpoena is justified and should be enforced.

Many agencies regularly send admin subpoena to many orgs / companies / entities including cashapp, textme. Don't ask me how I know this LOL.

Nothing is safe but it is not worth the effort to get to mongers, unless of course some other crime.

But, in end-to-end encryption messages are locked with a user-specific key on the device, that is not with device maker. The private / public key pair is on device and maker gets only the public key. That is why on iphone, one needs to have ADP for cloud backup since regular backup also backs up private key which can be accessed by agencies.

[CanaPunter]

I must politely disagree, and the overwhelming majority of data that is end to end encrypted, at least with the open source Signal app is not vaccumed up by the NSA (or similar agency) and stored somewhere. What is a technical explanation of why you are so confident that this is not the case? I must (politely) insist that it's not possible through "magic" and there has to be a technical way to do it.... or it simply isn't happening.

I see end to end encryption is misunderstood in general public. E2 EE is only meaningful if you control your encryption keys e. G. You get encrypted message from the messaging app and decrypt it using the key that only you have access to. If your keys live in the app, then the app owner can freely read all your e2 ee messages because they they can decrypt them using your decryption key.

[Peter Johnson]

https://www.404media.co/fbi-couldnt-...-mode-enabled/

There are more details on what was mentioned earlier. Of course these phones have proprietary encryption, so you generally have to trust Apple or Google (with Android) that they are secure, but the evidence points to that.

With the Signal app, it is open source code, and anyone can review it and look for back doors or other vulnerabilities. Signal supposedly upgraded their encryption protocol to be quantum resistant as well, but I wouldn't necessarily count on that, 100%. But it is almost certainly completely secure at this point, and you don't have to trust the Signal Foundation that is the case.

Of course if someone can get into your phone, they can read Signal messages, but not the ones that are no longer there, from the Disappearing Messages option being switched on. I usually set it to 4 weeks with most of the girls I am talking to, but I have it as 1 day, with a crazy ex-gf. And also 1 day with my father because he is terrible with OPSEC, and his phone has a crappy password.

As we can see from the idiotic Xxxxxx hysteria, our current society frowns upon older men having sex with younger women, even if everything was consensual. But if money is exchanged, they really want you locked up, if not buried under the prison. Ok not in most cases, but just saying there is zero sympathy for the evil "predator" men who pay the innocent female "victims" for sex. it's better to keep this all on the down low, and far under the radar, when possible.

And yes if you are Public Enemy #1, they can still get you somehow, but that's not going to be the case for all of us (I assume) and at least make it harder for them to f*ck with you, by using encrypted communications, at least that is my attitude.

[JmSuttr]

Thought it might useful to post about the different kinds of "paper" usually required in order for LE to gain access to different levels of information. But one important point needs to be made first: There's a lot of info LE might have access to without needing to obtain any order at all, BUT what they can use in court is limited strictly to what paper they were able to obtain.

For example, an enterprising LEO might manage to get hold of email or text message content, but they can't use that info (other than for leads) without a search warrant. Also, if they try "back door" their way into a warrant by trying to write an affidavit with the knowledge they've gained, but with WITHOUT disclosing that prior knowledge, any subsequent warrant would likely be invalidated and that LEO could find themselves in hot water. They might be able to use leads obtained from the info to develop an independent basis for a search warrant, but that's a tricky proposition and could still collapse.

Warrants and Grand Jury subpoenas are court orders, with compliance being mandatory and (usually) banks, phone companies, and other institutions are commanded to not disclose their existence. It's unlikely the existence of a warrant will be known before it's been served. For a GJ subpoena, if the existence is disclosed before the compliance date, it's possible to petition a judge to quash the subpoena.

Administrative subpoenas are a bit of a strange animal. Many agencies are empowered to issue their own subpoenas with respect to matters under their jurisdiction. For example, the Dept of Labor might issue an admin subpoena for the payroll records of a business. But some agencies have developed a nasty habit of issuing them for records that rightfully require a warrant or GJ subpoena and then using coercive or deceptive tactics to obtain compliance. It's truly despicable how they're being misused. What's even worse, if a company hands over your info when they shouldn't have, or weren't required to, good luck trying to challenge that later or get any relief. On the brighter side of things, if an admin subpoena is challenged or ignored, the agency will have to go to court and convince a judge that the subpoena is justified and should be enforced.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/03/ho...trump-critics/

As for info about you that's available to intelligence-gathering agencies, the only protections for the individual are those found in the Constitution, relevant laws, and internal agency regs. That's not much in the way of peace of mind, except for the fact that there's a kind of firewall between the LE world and the intel world, which simply means that (for most people) all that derogatory intel info will likely stay behind the curtain.

[RogerOver]

Everything in your phone is stored data not only in your phone but in data centers. Believe whatever you think or read but it's all easily accessible to anyone that wants it enough and knows how, no warrants required.

Depending on how you've configured security and privacy options on your phone (particularly the iPhone), this simply isn't true. It might be true for you and others, but it's not accurate for me.

[VaPlay]

Sure they can extract data from "a locked phone", and I never said otherwise. There are hundreds of millions of phones out there, and some of them can have data extracted, when they are locked.

What is also true is that they can absolutely can *not* extract data from other locked phones, (at least from all the publicly available data and evidence). Sure a phone from 10+ years ago with Android 1.0 is probably not very secure. With the latest Pixel 10 Pro or the latest IPhone, there is no evidence or news reports that they are breaking the device encryption and unlocking those. In fact there is evidence to the contrary, as the other member posted earlier.

Again, it's about math, physics, and encryption, and until quantum computers are developed, no one can break advanced encryption and get into those phones.

Everything is not binary.

Everything in your phone is stored data not only in your phone but in data centers. Believe whatever you think or read but it's all easily accessible to anyone that wants it enough and knows how, no warrants required.

[Peter Johnson]

I know for a fact that this isn't the case after a family member's trial. They absolutely can extract data from a locked phone.

Sure they can extract data from "a locked phone", and I never said otherwise. There are hundreds of millions of phones out there, and some of them can have data extracted, when they are locked.

What is also true is that they can absolutely can *not* extract data from other locked phones, (at least from all the publicly available data and evidence). Sure a phone from 10+ years ago with Android 1.0 is probably not very secure. With the latest Pixel 10 Pro or the latest IPhone, there is no evidence or news reports that they are breaking the device encryption and unlocking those. In fact there is evidence to the contrary, as the other member posted earlier.

Again, it's about math, physics, and encryption, and until quantum computers are developed, no one can break advanced encryption and get into those phones.

Everything is not binary.

[Peter Johnson]

This is the Admin speaking. Some of you mother fuckers need to learn to be more civil. We have fight threads for stupidly like I just cleaned up.

A2

It doesn't matter if the messages are erased because fucking everything, and by everything I mean every mother fucking piece of electronic info in the world, is hoovered up and stored in this data center..

I must politely disagree, and the overwhelming majority of data that is end to end encrypted, at least with the open source Signal app is not vaccumed up by the NSA (or similar agency) and stored somewhere. What is a technical explanation of why you are so confident that this is not the case? I must (politely) insist that it's not possible through "magic" and there has to be a technical way to do it.... or it simply isn't happening.

And BTW, my first message below was very civil, and then was hit with some unprovoked uncivil replies, so I then just responded in kind. But sure, I get that I still I could have toned it down a bit, and I never want to break any rules of the site.

Unfortunately some of what was in my replies was valuable info for other members, now lost from the conversation. Oh well, I guess anyone who cares, can google or ask AI about E2E and Signal app and come to their own well informed conclusion. But don't trust SMS (even on a burner) because it is true that all of those messages are certainly vacuumed up, no doubts about that.