I always buy Chinese phones. I know the government is spying ... but at least it isn't my government spying on me.

You can get an unlocked phone from Ali express or Amazon that will work on American carrier networks.

stay far away from Samsung galaxy-bloated garbage that never works

Like said before no phone is snoop proof. That being said I feel better about using an unlocked android running lineage os with no google apps. Its as close as you can get I think to a safe smartphone. They do ota updates now and its not as hard as you think. Dedicate like 4-5 hours to unlock the phone ( you have to learn adb and download some commands to unlock the boot loader on most phones) then you can run a custom ROM. I like lineage but there are a few good ones out there. Its worth it, super useable, most apps will work fine( you have to either use an appstore other than play or just download and install the .apk files). Trust me its not as hard as it sounds, I'm basically a Luddite but I can follow directions and I was able to figure it out with little trouble.

search amazon for "4G flip phone" and see what is available. not sure your carrier, but just make sure you get something compatible.

There’s only one way to find out if your phone won’t work after the deadline. To answer your second question, I am certain there is no such thing as what you describe, best to invest in carrier pigeons.

Get a Google pixel, any model, root it, run a custom Rom like lineage Os or graphine and don't install Google services. Voila, a 4 G phone that doesn't track or listen. Take control of your software!

This probably won't prevent a state sponsored actor from hacking your phone, but you would likely have to be targeted to be compromised.

>I hope they have 4G phones still available by the way. They are pushing 5G like everyone else really hard. I say ask what 4G phones are available, and then research the best one (don't get the faggot iPhone).

Kyocera phones are good and are what I used until recently when having the same ultimatum handed to me.

While Apple is less than desirable, I have more confidence in their settings actually turning stuff off over Android settings. Both phones are only as secure as you make it and treat it. If a microphone is plugged in, it is listening.

Will my phone truly not work after that?

I don't know, but it seems consistent with what AT&T said about my previous phone. They even sent me a free (really) replacement of some crappy android, informing me that it would be activated automatically in a couple weeks.

Put the kabosh on that and got a low-end android.

Verizon and other carriers are shutting down the 3G cellular infrastructure which I assume your phone uses. This shutdown has been in the works for years and will affect many cellular devices besides phones. There were similar shutdowns with 2G, EDGE and analog cellular technologies over the years. At some point they will shutdown 4G as well. This will continue as technology evolves.

There is no snoop proof phone. Every kind of phone technology is compromised. The towers and lines themselves can be snooped on so the phone doesn't make much of a difference. This is how the world is now. It's bad but it is reality nonetheless.

I have no answers for you other than to say that yes 3G is being shutdown. You'll have to get a 4G phone and police yourself to stay relatively protected. Beyond that just know that anything you say can and will be used against you.

There are no snoop proof phones, including the one you have now. Dumb phones may have a lower attack profile but also have no way to tell if you have been compromised.

You have two paths here: A phone from a large corporation that actively and aggressively patches vulnerabilities and may be providing a back door for zog

Or a smaller distribution which values privacy but is probably going to have less security budget in which Zog will simply compromise when desired.

If you chose the first poison I would go with an Iphone as their business model is not based on selling your data like google

If you choose the second poison I would probably go with a pine phone since you probably arent using apps it should be stable enough. Or alternatively a Librem 5 as a step up.

Just note that neither option is secure the second option does offer hardware disabling switches which can better ensure privacy when you truly want a private conversation.