That’s kind of a silly answer to any of the questions I asked. No one gets to have a cell phone without trusting some company. Even the beloved fairphone is manufactured in a factory and has a supply chain that requires trust.

I was trying to “lead” you towards discussing what company or kind of company you do trust. I didn’t suggest the apple stuff to the op out of love for that company, but recognition that for someone whose new to privacy it’s a platform that has a very good history of respecting privacy and providing tools that allow users to take control over it.

So no “leading” (some folks would just call it having a conversation…): what company do you trust? Do you recognize that given a lack of zero trust architecture in the hardware, software and infrastructure of cell phones you can’t get one without putting your trust in some company or group of companies? What do you look for in a company to trust?

Part of this discussion is why I didn’t suggest a secondhand pixel dead dropped and configured with anonymous credentials on a private network. A person who is new to privacy cant be expected to do that and understand it, they need to begin to see all the different ways their data, metadata, biometrics and analytics are tracked and start to decide what they want to protect. That’s how they get to baby’s first threat model and figure out how to respond to it.