While it seemed inconceivable even recently that in Europe anyone might introduce the Taiwanese approach quoted, I've been taken by surprise by what's possible, in the last weeks, so, who knows. This Taiwan technique amounts to Digital Shackles, so I guess once it comes that far, it's pretty much game over.

And the other quote:

"
My thought is: nobody can legally enforce this, full stop.
But of course there might be differences depending which country you live in.
You don't specify, so I assume USA - might be a problem there.

Generally speaking: most so-called "alternative" mobile phone OSs are based on Android anyhow, and compatible app-wise.
As long as it's possible to install the app you don't win by changing OSs.
"

I live in the UK. With these things in mind, I suppose: Not all that much is gained by using Replicant, on a phone, or even, to get a proper Linux phone.
OTOH, having a non-phone Android or Replicant device (small tablet), with GPS, for reading and offline map (OSM) use, will be beneficial for me, helping to turn on a phone less often.

OK, so this, sadly, is really happening in Taiwan.
Your usage of "They" sounds like you're extrapolating from this - admittedly bleak - situation to what? The whole world? Your country? I don't get it.

As I understand contact tracing via smartphone in the US will be voluntary. It is based on Bluetooth to protect physically distancing. If you contract the virus and report it via the app everyone that came in contact will be notified. Supposedly what ever personal and location information recorded will be protected.

Many countries have more aggressive or extreme forms of contact tracing as the posted article reported but it has worked in keeping the spread of the disease controlled.

According to the experts when the world starts to get back to normal there will be an increase is cases. Testing and finding out how it is spreading is very important until a vaccine is developed. In addition there will be an recurrence when flu season returns.

The other ramifications of tracing hopefully will not materialize and one day the world will be back to "normal".

I'm interested in this point, particularly in understanding constraints, with regards to module, sim card, and OS.

If turning the module off causes GPS to be off, is it possible to take the sim card out, and continue to use GPS? Or would the answer to that question depend on OS, for instance stock Android vs Replicant vs Sailfish vs proper Linux?

I'm asking because some tablets are available with WIFI and GPS, and optionally with sim card (4G, LTE). I find having that option attractive, as long as it doesn't prevent the operation with GPS while no sim card is inserted.

I found a device called Gemini PDA which, apart from Android, can run Sailfish and Linux, hence the OS aspect of the question...

I'm pretty sure GPS works without a SIM card, regardless of the OS.

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I'm embarassed I didn't try this out earlier, and can confirm that it's the case on my Mate 9 with the stock EMUI Android. I find OsMand to work, with GPS. Not sure how the belief had wedged itself in my mind that my phone would be somehow crippled without the sim card.

The weird takeaway from all this is now for me that the haptic/mechanical characteristics of the process of inserting/removing the sim card, ends up being the deciding factor for the feasibility of routinely doing this.

In the Mate 9 for instance, but this will be true for most nowadays phones, I have to take off my phone cover first because the designers never expected people would often want to do this. Then you need a needle-like tool to get the tray to pop out, which is sooo delicate that you def wouldn't to do this on the road, for example to use a bus checker.

This is where it would help tremendously if you could use an OS (Linux comes to mind) to 'pretend' no sim-card was present, just to avoid the sheer hell of this mechanical process.

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Every respectable phone OS should have software for doing this.
All of my phones in the past 5 years had this in their settings.

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Now I'm confused. This appears to my mobile-clueless mind to be in contradiction with some of the posts earlier in this thread. But maybe it's not and there's some subtle distinction that I'm not getting.

The objective would be, not to be connected to the cell tower, with some unique id. Not just the inability to productively use that connection, from the phone's point of view. I.e. the towers should not be able to triangulate the phone.

The way I read the posts in the beginning of the thread, I gathered that a software switch such as 'flight mode' doesn't reliably prevent this. Did I misconstrue this?

Is a setting that tells the phone "no sim is inserted" different from flight mode with regards to this?

I was wrong about this.
If you have a multi-SIM-card phone you can disable one of them but not both - for that you need to indeed remove the SIM card.
But even that is no guarantee for the phone not connecting to any cell towers.
We are getting to a level where you essentially distrust the software, the firmware and ultimately the hardware to "do what it's told". And rightly so, as some research (keyword: baseband separation, or rather lack thereof) will show.

At least on the software level one can move away from Google's data mining OS completely, see my post #15.

A workable solution might be to use only non-smartphone systems for internet (e.g. a small laptop with a 3G/4G/5G card) and only non-internet systems for telephony, a.k.a dumbphone, they still make those. Advantage: they don't even contain the hardware to send data via internet or use GPS or...

As long as you use mobile telephony and/or broadband, those cell towers will see you, but on the laptop you at least have the baseband separation, and can disconnect the mobile broadband device.
And the dumb phone knows nothing about your internet activities for obvious reasons, and can be switched off.

To conclude: I think you should inform yourself about smartphone hardware and software generally. they're not like very small PC laptops.

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I hope you're right, however based on the last several months there's a good chance the virus/lockdown will last quite a bit longer. If the PinePhone ships on time it'll be usable before the lockdown in my area gets lifted, And if the virus does disappear there's a big chance that it or something better will be back, it's too successful. One thing sure, internet privacy/anonymity is completely gone(not like it ever existed to begin with, but...). Looking at history reveals that temporary laws/measures aren't always so temporary.

Much pondering later. Yes, those mini PC based laptops, 7 inch or so, are probably the way forward. Combined with a dumbphone. It's just a question of getting over the loss of the convenience attained in the last 5 years or so, putting up with a small weight and size penalty.

I guess you're right there.
What I wrote was

• deliberately provocative, dissing Purism in particular
• based on a situation that since has evolved - right now it looks to me like normal busines relations will resume globally before this virus is fully conquered, so those devices might well become available before "this is all over"

Internet privacy/anonymity has never been complete, but it surely has been a topic for a long time, and its importance as well as implementation grows as the data that is obtainable from users also grows.
Yes, history knows that the USA left certain measures in place after 9/11 (and other states very possibly did similar things), but it would be wrong to generalise that.
So, let's add a stress on "always" here.

And what a question that is!
People are so accustomed to the 2 major smartphone OSs & devices with all its convenience & UX design.
Addicts, the bunch of them.
Surprisingly many even manage to actively care about online privacy yet totally refuse to see the simplest solution: stop using Android/iOS. :facepalm: