I have banged on loads, and with reason, in the right sidebar about the vast benefits of equipping yourself with a smart-phone and a google account and tracking everything.
In response to *many* emails and messages, this is my 101.
As previously discussed;
- Get an Android smartphone
- Sign up for a google gmail account
- Set the gmail account in the smart-phone and set everything to sync
Now, the details.
Android is great, but it is the apps that bring it all alive.
I have already discussed Google Latitude providing you with a historical record of WHERE you were at any given time or day, now let’s boost it.
Once you have done steps 1 to 3 above, you can sit down at any computer with a web browser and point it at https://play.google.com/ and login with your gmail address and password, it will log you in to the play store, and identify the phone you created the account on in step 3 above.
Now you can use the search function to search for apps, and even install them to the phone automagically from this browser window, get all these and install them.
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SMS Backup +
This app creates two new folder in your gmail account, “call log” and “sms” (you can rename them) and will either manually or automatically back up all call logs and sms / mms messages to these folders, it will also restore if required… in addition, it will also add the call log records (incoming and outgoing) to your google calendar.
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This is a barcode reader that reads all sorts of barcodes, including QR codes, you can do all sorts of neat stuff like share phone numbers, full contact info, map locations, wifi accounts, it is “just” a utility app, but so useful you should grab it and use it.
- AirDroid
SAND STUDIO
AirDroid starts a service on the phone, over wifi, that allows any computer to type a URL such as 192.169.0.10:8888 into a web browser and see an interface to the phone… this URL, along with the required password, is displayed on the phone screen. From the computer browser you can then send and receive SMS, up / download photos, browse files, listen to music, etc etc etc… very handy tool
- Dropbox
Cloud storage, if you grab an app called Sandisk Memory Zone it will do an online backup to cloud storage of selected directories on your phone, eg DCIM / camera.
- Titanium Backup PRO Key ★ root
Titanium Track
Titanium is pretty much the Android backup tool for backing up installed apps and user data, but it is pretty pointless unless you back it up to a removeable miniSD card in the phone, and NOT to the phone internal memory, because anything that wipes the phones internal memory will wipe your backups too, and many tools like Odin etc are capable of wiping and moving partition tables on your phone’s internal memory.
- Cheetah Sync for Files/Folders
JRTStudio
Wifi File Explorer is the tool to use if you want to browse the file structure of your phone from a web browser on your computer, and while it is good for moving single files to and fro, it doesn’t work for quantities of files, enter Cheetah sync, which can sync from phone to PC, or PC to phone, or both ways, just select the folder on the phone, the folder on the PC, give that sync job a name (you can store many different sync jobs) and whenever you feel like it, run it… I have one job that syncs my entire 32 GB miniSD card in the phone to a directory in my laptop
There are others, SeekDroid is handy for locating a lost phone, or remotely wiping it, Qik is an app that uploads a photo to a web-server as soon as you take it (handy to defeat po-lice instructions to wipe / delete), WhatsApp is a handy way to send pictures without incurring a charge as you would as MMS, Magnify turns your phone into a handy magnifying glass, Brightest Flashlight is self explanatory, there is a WordPress app to allow you to post to blogs like this, and one for Drupal if you host yourself, the beat goes on …
The point is, you are walking around with a technological marvel in your pocket that would have utterly blown away not only the entire moon landing effort, but also anything that ran the first “modern” version of Windows, 95a, aka Chicago, WITH ALL THE PERIPHERALS INCLUDED.
Most people only use 1% of the functionality.
All I suggest you do is use 5% of the functionality, you are getting tracked and traced and recorded anyway, this way you and your legal representatives get access to that data too.
There is NO EXCUSE for a man to get convicted of a false accusation of DV or sexual abuse.
The only downside is other extreme laws, and this article would not be complete without mentioning them, this especially applies to all you men out there with kids who have a smartphone.
- In many places, such as the UK, extreme and child pornography is an “absolute” offence, and the “absolute” means that in Law, no defence can be made. You ARE guilty.
- In many places, such as the UK, “possession” is defined as being in a position of responsibility, if your kid comes to visit on your one weekend in the month, and this kid has illegal shit on their phone, it is in your house, they are a minor, you are the responsible legal adult, you will be deemed to be in “possession” in Law.
- In many places, such as the UK, “making” is defined as what your web browser already did when it displayed the image above.
To sum up, if that image above was of a girl who was, or WHO APPEARED TO BE, less than 16 years old, it WOULD be classed as child pornography, to which no legal defence is possible, you own the device it is displayed on, or the property in which the device it is displayed on is sat, so it WOULD be classed as possession, and of course as per point three you WOULD in Law have been making that image.
Making and possession of child pornography, no defence possible, guilty, sex offenders register, probably prison time too.
These are not possible or probable outcomes, they are absolutely guaranteed as certain as death cancer and taxes outcomes.
Being in the company of a child is now far less dangerous legally than being in the company of the smart-phone in the child’s pocket.
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Encryption.
It is one option, you can encrypt your phone, and your PC, and sooner or later the word privacy will be mentioned, but you don’t have any privacy, all this data I am talking about making available to yourself above is already being collected anyway, that is how the technology works, so there is no privacy, and once you realise that then encryption ceases to be a tool to protect your privacy, and starts to be a tool that law enforcement see as a sign of guilt…
Sure, the fuckers have access to all that data anyway, they just tell your cell provider to pony up and grab your computers and smartphone, but the key phrase with law enforcement is the thing they say to you when they arrest you.
“Anything you say may me taken down and used in evidence against you.”
Doesn’t say shit about anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence to exculpate you and eliminate you from enquiries.
Standard procedure is in fact to simply ignore anything that might show your innocence, all they are looking for is stuff that makes you look guilty… encryption makes you look guilty, and doesn’t prevent them getting cell data anyway.
A citizen under arrest and caution is the last motherfucker on the planet who should be arguing about civil liberties.
