So you want to attend a rally?
So you want to attend a rally or protest, but you have to find a way to get there. In a world of connected cars, connected phones, and connected lives, doing so while remaining anonymous can be quite the challenge. Here are some tips to help limit your exposure if you decide to attend an event and you have an EV. These tips aren’t 100% fool-proof but can help more easily hide in plain sight.
Don’t register for the event
Whether or not you have an EV, you don’t want a paper trail of you attending the event. That means you need to just show up to the event and don’t register for it. It’s a good idea to view the event’s website using a VPN or through the Tor network to help ensure anonymity. Mullvad VPN is one of the most difficult-to-trace VPN services you can buy and is just $5 per month. You might also have VPN support built into your computer natively if you pay for iCloud, but remember Apple does keep records of its data.
You can also use your local library to learn more about the even with their computers. Just remember libraries often have cameras, so you’ll want to wear a good N95 mask to help conceal yourself (while also protecting yourself from getting sick).
Get some prepaid gift cards
Cash is king, and you should have cash with you to buy everything you need. But with your EV, you might have to stop somewhere to charge. You should try to find a dumb level 2 charger (something not connected to the internet at all) to plug into, but that’s often slow, and dumb chargers are increasingly difficult to find in public. That means you’ll need to use a connected charger.
Find a station that accepts credit card payments that you don’t need an account for. Most Electrify America, EVgo, and ChargePoint stations will take a credit card without an account, even if they don’t encourage it. Be sure to get a Visa or MasterCard, and skip the American Express. You don’t want to find a charger that won’t take your card for some reason.
You should also buy those cards with cash, at a place you don’t frequent, while wearing the before-mentioned N95 mask. When you’re doing this, leave your phone at home.
Leave your cell phone at home
Your phone has a bunch of built-in security measures to make it difficult for law enforcement to gain access without your permission, but the device is constantly connected to things that are much easier for law enforcement to access, including location data from cell phone providers. Leave your phone at home. If you use your phone as a key for your EV, use your backup key or key card. Your phone is the biggest provider of data about where you are and what you’re doing.
Ditch the Apple Watch, too. Especially if it is a cellular-enabled one.
Log out of any in-car services
Are you logged into Google in your car? Log out. The car is still going to track where you are, but don’t make it easier for people to figure out where you’ve been. You should also avoid using the built-in satellite navigation, as that can often remember where you’ve been. If you’re logged out of Google and have Google Maps built-in, the car still phones home but your data is more difficult to link to you. You still should probably factory reset your car after the journey.
Park far away from the protest
If you have a “dumb car” that isn’t connected to anything, this is less important. But since you have an EV it does have a connection to the internet nearly all the time. As a result, even with your best efforts, your car is going to have a good idea of where you are. So park somewhere far away from where you’re going. A mall parking lot, a metro station, or any place with a lot of cars and a lot of movement.
Your license plate will still be read by cameras, and security traveling through the parking lot might take notice of that, too. But if you’re parked somewhere you have plausible deniability, the better. Is the protest a 10-minute walk from your favorite Starbucks? Park there and walk.
Remember your N95 mask for whatever walk you take, since there’ll be cameras all along the way tracking people coming and going. While that’s not by design, necessarily, all of that camera data is easily accessible by law enforcement and you want to make it more difficult for the state to link anything to you directly.
Take a different route home
Don’t drive suspiciously, but try to take a different route home than the route that you came. Anything you can do to make it more difficult to link you to a specific location, the better.
Consider public transportation
If there’s mass transit that can get you from where you are to near where you want to be, taking it would lower your risk. These systems are monitored, but many take cash and with so many passengers traveling daily, your risk of standing out is lowered.
If you do get arrested
If for some reason you get arrested, keep your mouth shut. Demand a lawyer and refuse to answer any questions.
Privacy is difficult
With connected cars these days, privacy is more and more difficult. Just by using features like Apple Car Play in your car, you agree to share tons of identifiable information with both the car maker and Apple. These convenience features come at a cost, but you can lower your profile if you follow some of these steps and be smart about things.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a handy guide with way more information about how to attend a protest anonymously that you should take a look at.
