ok after reading this thread:
stackoverflow.com/questions/1621
I answered most of the question myself. But still I would be interested to hear your opinion.
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It's not useful in the real world so it makes no sense to include it. Exposing root to the application layer would be a substantial security loss too. It fails to offer any value to make up for that beyond appearing to be useful to people that don't know any better. It isn't.
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or even silent sms. I'm glad I asked you. I was sure you would have something to say about the security loss. Just wasn't sure what it would be
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It's snake oil. The network can't be trusted, whether or not there's local interception. Use encrypted messaging and encrypted calls. If you don't want to be tracked by your carrier and others, you inherently need to turn on airplane mode. Silent SMS is not a real world concern.
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It simply doesn't matter. Can you explain why these things are a real world issue? You can be tracked by the carrier without sending an SMS. It doesn't matter if it's silent or not, that only controls whether it will be displayed as user-facing. What about that makes it worse?
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I agree 100% with you that the network can't be trusted. I only use signal for communication over ivpn. No other ways. My idea with snoopsnitch was to be informed about targeted surveillance.
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For example you are a journalist in some shady democracy and they decide to investigate you. Like to get your phone number. If you are with a burner number the telco doesn't have it tied to your name. So when they wan't to track you. They have to use an imsi catcher first
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if I understand it right. The baseband has knowledge about the 3 towers you are connected too. And it knows the distance. When in your home area a new tower pops up 30 meters away from you. And there is a van sitting in front of your house. You'll get informed about this imsi
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and later on when you get every hour an silent sms you can be sure it is you. You are right. The telco can track you without this sms. But it helps them waking the Baseband
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It's completely unnecessary. Even if they had to send an SMS, which they definitely do not, it doesn't need to be a silent one. Sending a non-silent spam SMS isn't going to alert you to anything. If anything, due to people thinking like you are here, silent SMS is less stealthy.
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Use airplane mode when you don't want the carrier (or governments / law enforcement / carrier partners) to know your location. Receiving a silent SMS doesn't mean you are being targeted since anyone can send them, and silent SMS are not even useful in the real world for tracking.
Media coverage of technology privacy and security issues should be viewed with a high level of skepticism. Journalists are effectively just doing press releases for companies selling products to solve problems, many of which are not real world issues, like these ones.
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Think about it. It doesn't make any sense. Why is a silent SMS any better than a spam SMS or one of those automated spam phone calls, especially when there's all this media coverage claiming silent SMS is a real world tracking issue? Why would they even need to do any of that?
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