As an Australian who wrote about the demonstrations while on campus, I gave my phone a superficial clean before flying to the U.S. I underestimated what I was up against.
The encryption key is wiped and overwritten on a factory reset. Encrypted data can be recovered, but good luck decrypting that.
It would take a classified amount of capability to get through that, likely isn’t possible at all, and isn’t likely to be used against random dissidents.
They will get your IMEI, which doesn’t change. This can be used to see where you’ve connected to cell phone towers in the past.
For nearly everyone a factory reset of the phone is just as good as a burner phone, unless you need to hide your IMEI history.
Both a factory reset phone and a burner phone are vulnerable if you use them to sign into existing accounts.
The encryption key is wiped and overwritten on a factory reset. Encrypted data can be recovered, but good luck decrypting that.
It would take a classified amount of capability to get through that, likely isn’t possible at all, and isn’t likely to be used against random dissidents.
They will get your IMEI, which doesn’t change. This can be used to see where you’ve connected to cell phone towers in the past.
For nearly everyone a factory reset of the phone is just as good as a burner phone, unless you need to hide your IMEI history.
Both a factory reset phone and a burner phone are vulnerable if you use them to sign into existing accounts.
This defeats the point of a burner.