Decoy devices are easier to set up and less stressful to maintain than “untracable” ones.
Journalists use these while operating in high risk countries.
Full Writeup:
A decoy phone is a secondary phone, designed to be:
- Low-risk if confiscated or searched
- Mildly misleading (i.e., doesn’t reflect your real political, activist, or social identity)
You might use a decoy phone when:
- Going to a protest or direct action
- Traveling across borders where you expect digital scrutiny
- Entering a space where you could be targeted based on your affiliations (e.g., LGBTQ+ events in hostile areas, organizing meetings)
- Operating in regions with increased surveillance
Choosing the Decoy
- Use an old phone – factory reset to clear data
- Average smart phone, with decent battery, storage for apps, and camera
Prepaid SIM card (for data)
- Tello – great for short term, low data use ($5-$25/month)
- Mint – great deal for 3 months ($45/3 months)
- eSim – like Airalo – convenient, many options
- any prepaid sim card from your drug store
Designing a Fake Persona
- Build your low-risk character, but not out-right lies. Store this in your personal password manager/notes
- ie: Danacea
- Loves: baked goods, cooking, sports
- Work: handles IT problems, calls
- Has friends working in government agencies and heard great things
- Doesn’t understand politics / policies much
Misleading + Harmless Content
- Create a Dummy Email: then sign up for social media accounts, follow + watch pro-government & harmless content.
- Photos: Food, sports, landscapes, generic selfies, pro-government posts.
- Messages: Save some family + friends numbers. Write casual messages to them on Whatsapp/SMS
- Internet Browsing: recipes, tips for health, pro-government news sources
🛑 What NOT to Include
- Activist content
- Anything critical of the government
- Sensitive data about you/your network
- Logging to your real accounts (if you feel the urge: use a browser + VPN + incognito mode; then sign out & close the window)
- For private messaging apps like Signal, remove conversations from decoy frequently
Use + Update the content on your decoy every week
- Open some apps
- Send a few “texts” to yourself/your contacts
- Take new photos
- Familiarise with the data on your decoy + make it appear genuinely used.
- Do the same for your Decoy Laptop 🙂