It is true that some hardware manufacturers, such as Intel and Nvidia (which are in many laptop and desktop computers), provide "backdoor" access to their chips for our intelligence agencies in certain circomstances. This is a byproduct of the "for national security reasons" argument that Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon also provide the same access to these agencies. The information collected and functionality enabled through such access at the hardware level is, however, extremely limited.

It is also true that the mobile carriers themselves can gain access to your location data. Although I discuss this topic at length during our Digital Privacy Training bootcamps as well as how you can mitigate this from happening, the simple reality is that if you're name and contact information is associated with the phone number you are using with one of the major 3 carriers in the US, or one of their wholly owned subsidiaries, you have of course made it very easy for them to know where your specific device is located at any given time.

This being said, through our continued testing and research we have not found the Pixel devices we use, after stripping it of the Google Android operating system and installing GrapheneOS as well as our list of vetted applications, to be making unwanted "calls" to Google or other entities without the approval and knowledge of the user.

To be clear, we do NOT claim our Ghost Devices will prevent extremely sophisticated hackers and intelligence agencies from tracking you. Much like in physical security, I can be a master martial artist with advanced weapons training and hiding in a bunker with armed guards outside but if someone with enough means and motive needs to find and eliminate me they can and will. I may have made it exponentially more difficult and costly for them to do so, which will hopefully deter the vast majority of people who may want to find and eliminate me from undertaking the effort.

With this in mind, we do know that the cost and coordination required to try and spy on, and gain access to, one's communications who are smart about using open source systems, encrypted communications and secure online search tools (VPN, browser, etc.) is exponentially more difficult. The "good guys" we know who formerly worked as black hat hackers or with various intelligence agencies have confirmed that the beaurocracy involved to authorize a complex communications "hack" on individuals is extensive and the cost to do so is over $1M per authorization.

As such, our primary objective is to provide you with a few tools and training to prevent you from freely and willingly giving all your data and location information to BigTech, and byproxy, hackers and our own government agencies. We are empowering you to learn about and regain control over some of the basic decisions about who and what should have access to your data.

Hackers, like most criminals, focus on easy targets. Again, with enough means and motive a sophisticated hacker can still steal your information, but you will at very least be making it much more complicated and expensive for them to do so.