Saw this ad - what do we know about Cape?

Yes. Cellphone carriers are a stupid concept. If I paid for my own cell service, I would use VoIP.

Hell half of the front page posts seem to be ads anymore

Something can't be both "100%" and vibes based lol

Unless you mean "I am 100% basing the following opinion on vibes".

You need evidence. Please don't respond with more vibes.

What makes you think encrochat was a honeypot? Am I missing something?

I've seen this ad here in Australia where cell towers are essentially all owned by a single telecomm (Telstra), who leases them out. No idea how their cell network could be private given that info

"Is any SMS/phone call coming out of your personal number something you should consider private from the government? Probably not."

Well your phone calls themselves -- the actual conversation -- shouldn't be accessible without a warrant for a wire tap, that's pretty longstanding precedent in the U.S. Cell phone location information is also protected by a warrant (Carpenter v. U.S.), but pen registers (logs of who you call) do not require a warrant (Smith v. Maryland). I'm not sure if governments are prevented from purchasing data from carriers, just as any data broker could do. Additionally, who knows if governments are secretly collecting phone call and cell phone data and storing it, but only accessing it once they have a warrant. It's impossible to know what's fully happening on the back end between big telco companies and the gov't.

Either way, at the end of the day, whether you have Cape or some other service, if you're at the level of the government getting a warrant for your data any legitimate company is going to comply. That's why the best thing is to have a company that can only turn over limited amounts of data because that's all they have.

I saw this video on YouTube with a rep from the company and while there were some positive things put forward, the biggest red flag to me was when he wouldn't disclose what networks they partner with. They are a virtual network so they don't own the cell towers, and that means they're running off someone else's. Why can't you say who? Other virtual carriers have no problem saying that they run on Verizon or T-Mobile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1C-bR728ro interview for Cape starts at about 30 minutes in. Ironically, the podcast is called "Snake Oilers" and it's a paid-promotion thing, sooooo take this with a grain of salt.

True, expensive. Prosper to offset no selling customer data.

Yeah it looks like the cell network is the consumer facing product

This is the exact reason that it is a hard no.

And almost every cell provider that is small is only piggybacking of one of the big 3.

I don't have an issue with telcos complying with lawful warrants, which is what Lawful Interception requires. but if your telco can only turn over limited amounts of data because that's all it has access to, then that's a plus.

Separately, do you have a source that telcos are unaware when LE is wiretapping? LE would likely need the assistance of the telco to do so and the telco should require the warrant.

The feds have already pulled a similar stunt with another manufacturer+software combo. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield#Distribution_and_usage)

The only thing that makes this smell legit is the fact that it is a provider and probably only eSIMs. But even then, this is not very good opsec to be deliberately using a marketed product that will likely have an identifier for their cell traffic. Graphene works as well as it does because it runs of pre-existing hardware to be more inconspicuous.

So, they have their own phone that is for high risk individuals and is not available to the general public. Then, separately they have their own mobile network that you can use with any regular phone and they sell Pixels on their website (for $50, you can have them pre-load GraphineOS). The AD i posted is for their cellular network, which is not related to their own first-party device.

The best answer

That's always the concern with privacy-focused services, especially if they're not open source or audited.

But if we think about the practical application -- who needs a honeypot for cell phone services? Carriers already collect so much data (location, telemetry, payment, government-issued ID, etc) and sell it willingly to whoever wants to buy. How could Cape be any worse? lol. If they adhere to any of their stated policies it seems like a plus, no?

Additionally, at least to me, Cape is not marketing the way the Anom phone did, where it trying to gain adopting by nefarious users. That's my take - I'm not advocating for Cape since I don't really know much about them, but I'm trying to put things in context.

https://lemmy.ml/post/33176527

You get you phone number through them and they act as your carrier and then they use other telcos that have the physical infrastructure to service calls/data. Not that different from how Mint or other virtual networks operate, but Cape alleges to collect little data about its users and not to sell any user data.

They offer IMEI spoofing, geofenced profiles, etc. It would function better than a VPN in theory.

I don't think this is really a replacement for the offering that Cape is proposing. Airalo are data only eSIMs and target consumers who need short-term data plans while traveling abroad. This is not a replacement of your primary carrier service and doesn't give you a phone number. Additionally, other than the transient nature of the temporary eSIM you buy, there are no notable privacy-focused features behind Airalo.

Not saying Cape follows through with its claims, just saying these are not really comparable offerings.