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Comment by iamnothere | Hacker News Reader

False. You can:

1) Leave the phone at home

2) Use a phone with a hardware toggle switch that physically kills power to the cell modem, or turn off the phone and put it in a tested Faraday bag

3) Conspire with other citizens to make such location tracking illegal and to enforce that law

I’m tired of privacy doomerism. You have options, use them.

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> If you have a phone, people that want your location have it and there is nothing you can do.

> False. You can: 1) Leave the phone at home

Then you dont have a phone, do you? Come on you are being pedantic for no reason.

Not all the time, no. But I can make calls over wifi and forward texts to myself. And nobody’s tracking me. Why would I always need the phone with me?

I do the same… and I don’t own a phone!

So people can give you a call even if you're not home? I mean, this has been the main selling point of mobile phones for over 30 years, and especially before smartphones became a thing. If you don't take your phone with you, you might as well wire in a landline and just use that.

> So people can give you a call even if you're not home? I mean, this has been the main selling point of mobile phones for over 30 years, and especially before smartphones became a thing.

It was the selling point of mobile phones before smartphones became a thing. It obviously hasn't been the main selling point of mobile phones since then.

You making a lot of calls in 2026? Messaging services seem to be more popular with people I know.

I have a phone so I have options if I need to be reachable or reach someone immediately while out (rare), or for travel. And because some services, mostly banks, refuse to accept VOIP numbers but require a verified phone number.

I'm young, and although most people prefer using texting or online messengers, I still call others and receive calls from time to time. I don't understand why everyone immediately locked onto proving that calling is unpopular now, because it doesn't disprove the point I was making. Phones are, first and foremost, portable communication devices. Be it calling, texting or using the internet, the point of the phone is to make you reachable on the go, and to let you reach other people from anywhere. If this wasn't the case, why would I and everyone else still be paying for a phone number? Sure, modern smartphones have gotten a lot of secondary functionality that is sometimes even required for participating in society. But the reason why I carry one around is so my friends, family and so on could reach me if so needed. If I chose to leave my phone at home most of the time, what's the point in having one? I might as well just use my computer for everything.

>> Nothing can stop the tower equipment manufacturer like Ericsson from knowing the location of your phone

> False. You can: > 1) Leave the phone at home

If you're going to be pedantic, at least be pedantically correct. The tower (and carrier) would still know the location of your phone in that case. (It just wouldn't be with you.)

Also, run an OS that doesn't allow every running process to read your GPS location. And allows you to turn off your cell modem.

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