Thanks for posting your minireview, OP! I’ve heard of other things like this. Freeli was it? Similar sounding thing.

Lots of it sounds good to me. What I have to think thru is how alleged privacy from that company, interacts with ALL the ways mobiles can be ID-ed.

These companies piggy back on the big carriers, b/c ofc they can’t afford an entire ass cell network buildout like T-mobile or other huge co can do. So OK, they don’t collect customer info about me. That’s cool. But now I turn on my device at my home and the cell network triangulates me to the place I live. Even if I make sure to disable GPS and w/e on my phone.

This is where my understanding goes super fuzzy. I guess they rotate IMSI to help against this. But until the IMSi rotates, everything I do with that IMSI ties to my home, right? So like, I call my friends Alice and Bob. That call comes from an IMSI that the network can pinpoint to my exact location, or very close, doesn’t it?

So maybe if I use a faraday bag and never use the phone from home, that’d avoid it? Or maybe I just don’t understand.

Then there’s IMEIs. I need to read up on IMSI vs IMEI. I’m real fuzzy on the diff. For anybody else in my shoes, here is what I intend to read. IMEI. IMSI.

IDK. Maybe someone who understands this stuff better can add some clarity. Like assuming the co does what it promises, how far does that really get you?

Screams glowie. I would not even advise my own mother whom is huge bitch to use that.

At first I thought this was the Israeli company run by “ex” Mossad that owns all the VPNs. But after going through the website, the company is called Privacy Inc. and appears to be run by a bunch of rich ex-US intelligence people.

They do a really good job of hiding their staff and company name and physical location, revealing only what’s legally required. That means they at least have the chops to do privacy right… but it always gives me a funny feeling when a company doesn’t stand behind its own brand but instead depends on third party promoters.

And they call themselves a global private telecom, but appear to be very US-focused, with two US locations (but no addresses available).

They certainly have lots of claims and appear to have thought about company structure, but this looks really similar to a Langley shell company to me.

Referral Code: 8DHE3HVV

I have Cape and they have been great so far. I’ll leave some info below. Skip the first paragraph if you want to avoid their advertising scheme, but it was the big reason I could afford to switch to them so I thought I might be helpful to others.

They are currently running an early adopter promotion until the end of the year where you get an unlimited plan that is $70 per month for life, and if you use someone else’s referral Code it drops you down to $50/month for as long as that person stays on Cape. What’s crazy is that it then drops to $30 for another referral, $10 after another, and $0 after that. For as long as those other people are on. I thought that was a pretty cool deal honestly given that I was previously paying $55 a month for T Mobile.

So a quick review from my experiences so far.

Sign up was easy and basically needed no identifying information. I use Cape on Graphene OS through the stock messaging app. It allows me to send videos, images, and so on. There are some issues with group chats still I think, but I haven’t really fiddled with that. The coverage and speeds have been solid.

The IMSI rotation is automatic and a great protocol. They have a bunch of other very smart architecture choices. I used to write patents for telecomm companies like Ericsson and Qualcomm and I’m really impressed with their engineering. My friend is an independent security pentester and educator, and their company recently audited Cape. They said they did excellently and had no reservations on recommending them to me. I also watched a lot of interviews about the company and their system. After that, I felt comfortable testing Cape out. My hope was that they would be way more reliable approach than my previous set up (I followed the Bazzell set up with Mint under a pseudonym and VoIP.ms but voip.ms has been really spotty lately and I have young kids so that’s no good).

I still have VoIP.ms for my old number, but I use my main Cape cell number for close family and friends who won’t get on Signal for whatever reason. They also give you two free burner numbers for texting only, so I use those for 2FA and sign ups if needed. You can only text to those numbers and you currently can’t port them out, but I believe they are middle to end encrypted (check me on that one though).

There are many other features and caveats (like they’re working on RCS, they have different available features for iPhone users, etc.), but I recommend their interviews with channels like the hated one or techlore or elsewhere. Those helped me a lot.

I’m happy to answer any other questions. It took me a while to decide to try them out because I’m pretty tedious about my privacy set up, but I’ve honestly been pretty impressed so far and I love the idea of having a mobile core telecomm company adopt some actual privacy architecture in this middle space.

Edit: I just reread my post and realized how much I sound like a shill and how much I repeated what OP said. Sorry, I’m just high in my bed.

I’d be interested if they had WiFi calling, RCS, and other basics implemented. Hard to say how true the service is to its claims, but the feature set sounds compelling

I’m interested to try them, but as far as I can’t tell, they only offer last mile app-based SMS and voicemail on iOS.

This is an important feature, to me, as it would be a (potentially better) alternative to JMP.

It seems like the ideal setup would be to port my main number to Cape and then use an anonymous data-only eSIM, but that won’t make sense until they add SMS to their Android app.

I also heard that they are adding RCS support. That will be awesome, too.

How do the speeds on Cape compare to your previous carrier?

I’m skeptical, there are legal requirements for telcos and data retention. “Privacy as a service” beyond basic level has rarely worked as advertised. To to better, DIY.