Jeff Moss

That latest report on mass location surveillance using SS7 makes me want to try a test.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/firstwap-altamides-phone-tracking-surveillance-secrets-assad-erik-prince-jared-leto-anne-wojcicki/

I’ll enable airplane mode and VoLTE, and see how calls and messages perform when only using VPN over WiFi.

If that works reasonably well then the next step is to us a mobile hotspot for the WiFi.

In the end my SS7 location would always show the geolocated IP address of where the VPN terminates.

Does that sound about right #Privacy #DefCon #Phreaks?

The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you

Inside the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.

Mother Jones
Oct 15, 2025 at 10:39amWeb
Show threadBai ShenOct 15, 2025

@thedarktangent I'm curious to know what your results end up being.

I know using speedtest behind a VPN will cause your exit geolocation to change due to polling the phone's gps.

Show threadJeff MossOct 15, 2025
@baishen This is why you set Safari to have Java and location set to disabled, but I’m sure there are other sneaky ways to discover location
Show threadKasTasOct 15, 2025
@thedarktangent probably related technical details pointed out on July, basically legacy hardware and mis-masking:
https://cybersecuritynews.com/ss7-bypass-attack/
Surveillance Company Using SS7 Bypass Attack to Track the User's Location Information

A surveillance company has been detected exploiting a sophisticated SS7 bypass technique to track mobile phone users' locations.

Cyber Security News
Show threadEhay2kOct 15, 2025

@thedarktangent

Maybe I'm not understanding their technology, but I thought that they use SS7 protocol to get cell tower data to track you. So, if you are using Wi-Fi only, and have all cell services off, then they won't see your true location. I didn't see anything about geolocation of IP addresses.

For fun, you could even get a burner phone, use it as a mobile hotspot and leave your phone off except for Wi-Fi, and still use a VPN. Then you have wireless mobility.
Or maybe an eSIM?

Show threadJeff MossOct 15, 2025
@Ehay2k You would be on WiFi using the VoWiFi protocol to still make and receive calls. I’m not 💯 on what ends up discoverable by SS7. I’m guessing it would report something as your location, But is it your Mobile Operator IP? Your gateway IP?
Show thread4naestheticOct 15, 2025
@thedarktangent In case this throws off your testing - from what I understand the IPSec tunnel that enables VoWiFi bypasses your phone's VPN settings if you have the VPN configured on the device (at least on Android).
Show threadJeff MossOct 15, 2025
@4naesthetic That is a good thing to test, thanks.