(#pknsrda) @movq Yeah it's frightening how much our "devices" talk to "things", things we don't even know about or have any control over (_or very little_) 😳 I've been doing this for my personal Mac with Little Snitch, and I've blocked so much shit™ directly from my Mac. Quite happy with that. Not I just have to figure out how to do similar things for my iPhone 📱

(#pknsrda) @prologic > things we don't even know about or have any control over (_or very little_) That’s the thing: It’s not *apps* doing weird stuff, it’s the phone’s operating system itself. I can choose which apps to run and which permissions they have, that’s all fine, but what the fuck is “ImsApp” and why does it need access to GPS and my camera?! Completely untrustworthy.

(#pknsrda) @movq Yeap! I totally get it 🤣 It's the same as some macOS stuff that I found that "proxies" egress connections on behalf of other apps. I'm like wtf?! Get fucked 😅

(#pknsrda) @prologic Get fucked, indeed. 🫤

(#pknsrda) I wonder what Android does now that I’ve blocked all those connections. Will it queue all the data and just send it the next time it has an internet connection (which will happen sooner or later)? That would mean my blocking attempts are mostly pointless. 🥴 No way of telling what’s going on, it’s all encrypted …

One thing I’ve learned from locking down my Android phone (see #pknsrda): The data for assisted GPS does not come from *Google* or, better yet, *A PUBLIC SERVICE*, but from a server hosted by the *hardware manufacturer*. Without regularly fetching fresh A-GPS data, the GPS performance is *much* worse (). This means that the hardware manufacturer has (more or less) direct control over whether I’m able to use GPS or not. This isn’t an Android setting, it’s buried deep within the device, no way to change the URL. If that manufacturer decides one day to cut me off, for whatever reason, or goes bankrupt or whatever, then I’ll have to buy a new phone. And of course, this data transfer is encrypted as well, so I don’t know what my phone sends to those servers. All this smartphone business is such a clusterfuck. I should have never bought one of those things.