> Enjoy unlimited high-speed data; after 50GB, speeds may slow to 256 kbps.
Last I checked 256 Kbps is not high speed. You can advertise this as unlimited data, or you can advertise it as 50 GB of high-speed data, but you can't call it unlimited high-speed data.
>Protect yourself from persistent tracking by rotating your IMSI every 24 hours, so you appear as a new subscriber each day.
But nothing for IMEI, which is fixed for a given device. Unless you got a new phone to use with this service, it can instantly be linked back to whatever previous service you're using. If we assume that whatever carrier they partner with keeps both IMEI and IMSI logs (why wouldn't they?) it basically makes any privacy benefits from this questionable. It's like clearing your cookies but not changing your IP (assuming no CGNAT).
The other benefits also seem questionable. "Disappearing Call Logs" don't really help when the person you're calling has a carrier that keeps logs, and if both of you care about privacy, why not just use signal?
They're asking $99/month for this, which is a bit steep. If you only care about the rotating IMSI, don't care about PSTN access (ie. no calls/texting), you can replicate it with some sort of data esim for much cheaper. The various e-shops that sell esims don't do KYC either.
So it's an MVNO mostly on the AT&T network with extra privacy features? I think it still all then comes down to how you use your phone and how much you can trust the whole pipeline. I use Credo Mobile which doesn't seem totally different. https://www.credomobile.com/our-story
"Identifier (IMSI) Rotation", "Secure Global Roaming" and "Network Lock" do look interesting *IF* they can actually address some of the baseband vulnerabilities that plague all modern devices. That's a Big If.
SIM Swap Protection you already get by using a VoIP number rather than a cell number.
And the other features are irrelevant if you're using over-the-top end-to-end encrypted messaging, like Signal, rather than Plain Old Telephone Service and SMS.
Are there solid VoIP providers that aren't detected by 2FA SMS services? I can't use my Google Voice for a decent chunk of sign-ups because it is detected (and rejected) too easily. I hate getting spam, so I try to keep my primary phone number only for friends and family.
Objectively, it gets even worse in regions where Google voice isn't available. The only options seem to be online SMS portals where a relatively small set of numbers are shared across many users.
If anyone knows of a good, secure VoIP provider outside of the US I'd be keen to hear about it.
Use sms verification services that spammers use. They're implemented by using banks of sim cards placed in some apartment somewhere, so it's as "real" as it can get.
>do look interesting IF they can actually address some of the baseband vulnerabilities that plague all modern devices. That's a Big If.
Baseband vulnerabilities are overhyped, imo. On proper phones (eg. pixels), their access to memory is restricted by IOMMU, which protects the rest of the phone from being compromised if there's some sort of an exploit. Once that's factored in, most exploits you can think of are "on the other side of the airtight hatchway[1]". For instance if you can hack the baseband to steal traffic, you should probably be more worried about your carrier being hacked or getting a lawful intercept order. Or if you're worried about the phone triangulating itself, you should probably be more worried about your carrier getting hacked and/or selling your location data.
They built their own mobile core, does that help with resolving your "Big If"? I'm not a cellular guy, I don't know which pieces of the stack cover which attack vectors: I'm genuinely asking.
Do they own the enodeBs or the RAN? How many hops does it take to get to their core? Not sure how MVNO works maybe they have encrypted VLANs to their systems. Not a RAN guy.
>Know Your Customer regulations require the company to … know the customer
Which KYC regulations exist for carriers? AFAIK you can walk into any store and get a SIM card. The most they ask for is maybe E911 which they don't check.
You might check out who the CEO is here and how he runs the company and then consider whether you'd trust them. And look at the infra providers they use. Not what I would call the most upstanding bunch.
Hey, John Doyle here (CEO of Cape). I'm happy to dig into how I run the company, or the infra providers we use. I actually think we're pretty upstanding! If there are questions I can answer that will put your fears to rest, let me know.
This probably doesn't cover what OP said, but after reading the CEO's intro post, I left a little more depressed. Make money off surveillance, and then make money off selling a privacy product.
> At Palantir, where I started in technical roles more than 10 years ago, I learned about a wide array of vulnerabilities in the cellular network that present a threat not only to mission-focused organizations in government, but also to everyday people. I came to see mobile phones — and the networks that power them — as perhaps the largest risks to our privacy and security.
> If you told Americans twenty years ago that corporations and governments would conspire to attach powerful tracking devices to nearly every adult worldwide, it would’ve sounded like science fiction. And yet, that’s not far from where we are today.
Unfortunate that it doesn’t seem to support Linux phones. Phreely or Purism’s AweSIM would be a better fit for anyone running a non-Android/non-iOS setup. Hopefully they add this in the future.
I use Cape every day on my iPhone. The service is excellent, and the security features haven't ever interfered with my use of the phone. They have a convenient mobile app for setting up extra features like the IMSI rotation and getting support. As a tech savvy user, it matches what I want.
I'm a target for a variety of things, and knowing that no one can SIM swap me is worth the subscription alone. The SS7 protections, encrypted voicemail, secondary numbers, IMSI rotation, etc are all a bonus.
I’m a skeptic. It’s only been a handful of years since Anom was backdoored by the Feds. The surveillance data provided by cell phones is simply too good to let someone work around it
I've been using my Google Voice number for something similar. But Cape doesn't specify if/when these numbers are rotated in any way - you have three numbers to track now, and you can't retain these numbers if you switch services.
Do not fall for a word of this. If you've spent any time dealing with actual SIP providers (ie not the shit you'd hook an app up to, the ones debt collectors use), you'll know exactly how much you can trust them. Same difference
I have a conflict of interest here (I am an advisor to Cape, also a security expert, and my company has done security audits for Cape), you should absolutely look more deeply into what Cape has created. Their service is fundamentally different than other "security-focused cell providers" (mostly snake oil IMHO) because Cape wrote their own mobile core, nearly from scratch. They control the whole software stack and have done really innovative things with it.
Here are a few things you might want to look at more closely:
> Enjoy unlimited high-speed data; after 50GB, speeds may slow to 256 kbps.
Last I checked 256 Kbps is not high speed. You can advertise this as unlimited data, or you can advertise it as 50 GB of high-speed data, but you can't call it unlimited high-speed data.
>Identifier Rotation
>Protect yourself from persistent tracking by rotating your IMSI every 24 hours, so you appear as a new subscriber each day.
But nothing for IMEI, which is fixed for a given device. Unless you got a new phone to use with this service, it can instantly be linked back to whatever previous service you're using. If we assume that whatever carrier they partner with keeps both IMEI and IMSI logs (why wouldn't they?) it basically makes any privacy benefits from this questionable. It's like clearing your cookies but not changing your IP (assuming no CGNAT).
The other benefits also seem questionable. "Disappearing Call Logs" don't really help when the person you're calling has a carrier that keeps logs, and if both of you care about privacy, why not just use signal?
They're asking $99/month for this, which is a bit steep. If you only care about the rotating IMSI, don't care about PSTN access (ie. no calls/texting), you can replicate it with some sort of data esim for much cheaper. The various e-shops that sell esims don't do KYC either.
What about crypto payments?
How does this compare to silent.link?
So it's an MVNO mostly on the AT&T network with extra privacy features? I think it still all then comes down to how you use your phone and how much you can trust the whole pipeline. I use Credo Mobile which doesn't seem totally different. https://www.credomobile.com/our-story
From their "Features" drop-down:
> Minimal Data Collection
> Identifier Rotation
> Secondary Numbers
> Disappearing Call Logs
> SIM Swap Protection
> Network Lock
> Encrypted Voicemail
> Private Payment
> Last-Mile Encrypted Texting
> Secure Global Roaming
"Identifier (IMSI) Rotation", "Secure Global Roaming" and "Network Lock" do look interesting *IF* they can actually address some of the baseband vulnerabilities that plague all modern devices. That's a Big If.
SIM Swap Protection you already get by using a VoIP number rather than a cell number.
And the other features are irrelevant if you're using over-the-top end-to-end encrypted messaging, like Signal, rather than Plain Old Telephone Service and SMS.
Are there solid VoIP providers that aren't detected by 2FA SMS services? I can't use my Google Voice for a decent chunk of sign-ups because it is detected (and rejected) too easily. I hate getting spam, so I try to keep my primary phone number only for friends and family.
Objectively, it gets even worse in regions where Google voice isn't available. The only options seem to be online SMS portals where a relatively small set of numbers are shared across many users.
If anyone knows of a good, secure VoIP provider outside of the US I'd be keen to hear about it.
Use sms verification services that spammers use. They're implemented by using banks of sim cards placed in some apartment somewhere, so it's as "real" as it can get.
https://cotsi.org/methodology
>do look interesting IF they can actually address some of the baseband vulnerabilities that plague all modern devices. That's a Big If.
Baseband vulnerabilities are overhyped, imo. On proper phones (eg. pixels), their access to memory is restricted by IOMMU, which protects the rest of the phone from being compromised if there's some sort of an exploit. Once that's factored in, most exploits you can think of are "on the other side of the airtight hatchway[1]". For instance if you can hack the baseband to steal traffic, you should probably be more worried about your carrier being hacked or getting a lawful intercept order. Or if you're worried about the phone triangulating itself, you should probably be more worried about your carrier getting hacked and/or selling your location data.
[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060508-22/?p=31...
They built their own mobile core, does that help with resolving your "Big If"? I'm not a cellular guy, I don't know which pieces of the stack cover which attack vectors: I'm genuinely asking.
Also, the 50 foreign countries seems interesting.
Do they own the enodeBs or the RAN? How many hops does it take to get to their core? Not sure how MVNO works maybe they have encrypted VLANs to their systems. Not a RAN guy.
Not sure what IMSI rotation has to do with baseband vulnerabilities?
Will not pass muster with FCC. Know Your Customer regulations require the company to … know the customer. They will not last.
>Know Your Customer regulations require the company to … know the customer
Which KYC regulations exist for carriers? AFAIK you can walk into any store and get a SIM card. The most they ask for is maybe E911 which they don't check.
not in Europe no more for a few years now.
"Europe" isn't a monolith, and there are quite a few countries that don't require any KYC, UK and NL to name two.
No way this isn't funded by the CIA
You might check out who the CEO is here and how he runs the company and then consider whether you'd trust them. And look at the infra providers they use. Not what I would call the most upstanding bunch.
Hey, John Doyle here (CEO of Cape). I'm happy to dig into how I run the company, or the infra providers we use. I actually think we're pretty upstanding! If there are questions I can answer that will put your fears to rest, let me know.
...care to elaborate?
This probably doesn't cover what OP said, but after reading the CEO's intro post, I left a little more depressed. Make money off surveillance, and then make money off selling a privacy product.
> At Palantir, where I started in technical roles more than 10 years ago, I learned about a wide array of vulnerabilities in the cellular network that present a threat not only to mission-focused organizations in government, but also to everyday people. I came to see mobile phones — and the networks that power them — as perhaps the largest risks to our privacy and security.
> If you told Americans twenty years ago that corporations and governments would conspire to attach powerful tracking devices to nearly every adult worldwide, it would’ve sounded like science fiction. And yet, that’s not far from where we are today.
https://www.cape.co/blog/building-the-future-of-mobile-priva...
I hear what you're saying, though another framing would be "learn about serious problem, build company to fix serious problem."
Palentier and A16Z connections...
Unfortunate that it doesn’t seem to support Linux phones. Phreely or Purism’s AweSIM would be a better fit for anyone running a non-Android/non-iOS setup. Hopefully they add this in the future.
If anyone uses this and could tell us about your experience, please do!
I use Cape every day on my iPhone. The service is excellent, and the security features haven't ever interfered with my use of the phone. They have a convenient mobile app for setting up extra features like the IMSI rotation and getting support. As a tech savvy user, it matches what I want.
I'm a target for a variety of things, and knowing that no one can SIM swap me is worth the subscription alone. The SS7 protections, encrypted voicemail, secondary numbers, IMSI rotation, etc are all a bonus.
I’m a skeptic. It’s only been a handful of years since Anom was backdoored by the Feds. The surveillance data provided by cell phones is simply too good to let someone work around it
https://www.vice.com/en/article/anom-backdoor-fbi-years-of-a...
If you're not doing "fed" level shit and just don't wanna make your petty shit trivial for the locals to dredge up that's probably fine.
Like they're not gonna burn that kind of capability over tax evasion, state civil law violations, etc.
Secondary numbers sounds neat:
https://www.cape.co/blog/product-feature-secondary-numbers
I've been using my Google Voice number for something similar. But Cape doesn't specify if/when these numbers are rotated in any way - you have three numbers to track now, and you can't retain these numbers if you switch services.
How does this compare to Phreeli [1]? Has anyone here used either of the services?
1: https://www.phreeli.com
I hope this succeeds and isn’t backdoored
Do not fall for a word of this. If you've spent any time dealing with actual SIP providers (ie not the shit you'd hook an app up to, the ones debt collectors use), you'll know exactly how much you can trust them. Same difference
I have a conflict of interest here (I am an advisor to Cape, also a security expert, and my company has done security audits for Cape), you should absolutely look more deeply into what Cape has created. Their service is fundamentally different than other "security-focused cell providers" (mostly snake oil IMHO) because Cape wrote their own mobile core, nearly from scratch. They control the whole software stack and have done really innovative things with it.
Here are a few things you might want to look at more closely:
Encrypted voicemail uses public key crypto: https://www.cape.co/blog/product-feature-encrypted-voicemail
How they use full control of the mobile core to detect SS7 signaling attacks https://www.cape.co/blog/product-feature-network-lock
Swapping SIMs is done via digital signatures, not customer support https://www.cape.co/blog/cape-product-feature-secure-authent...
They're the only provider that can rotate your IMSI, and do it continuously for you https://www.cape.co/blog/product-feature-identifier-rotation
They're also one of very few organizations doing original research on cell network security:
Collaborating with the EFF to release software for detecting cell site simulators (e.g, imsi catchers et al) https://www.cape.co/blog/how-eff-and-cape-collaborated-to-im...
Identifying novel weaknesses for physically tracking people on cell networks https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3636534.3690709
I’m curious if you’re able to comment on the IMEI question raised above - rotating the IMSI is good, but are the towers still collecting IMEIs?
Is it free and open source software?