Will Dove  00:00 We live in a surveillance state. Everything we do, everywhere we go, governments and corporations are watching and listening. Data has become a currency. There are whole companies who make hundreds of millions by simply collecting data and selling it, once again to governments and other corporations, so they in turn can control you or profit from you.   Will Dove  00:30 If our government succeeds in implementing Digital IDs and social credit scores, it will get even worse. And the majority of that tracking is done through these. Almost all of us not only have one, but our society has reached a point where you can’t function without your phone. It’s not just communication, it’s navigation, information, entertainment and social interaction.   Will Dove  01:01 Sure, if you’re very tech savvy you can degoogle your phone, and even take other steps to protect your privacy, but how many of us know how to do that? I was in a technical career for years and I have no idea.   Will Dove  01:18 But what if there was a phone you could buy that would protect your privacy and security out of the box? And what if it worked almost exactly like the phone you have now, if you have an android? And if you have an iPhone, the learning curve for this secure phone is quite manageable for most people. And what if this phone could be purchased for no more money than any other phone, or even less, when compared to some iPhone models.   Will Dove  01:48 Hakeem Anwar used to work for big tech in New York City. While very good at his job, Hakeem was also awake. Surrounded by leftists who were buying the various narratives, Hakeem understood that everything we did, said and even thought, was being recorded and analyzed by those who will use that information against us. Hakeem is also a core member of the Freedom Cell Network, and co-producer of The Greater Reset.   Will Dove  02:22 And so, he founded Above Phone, spent many months on coding and development, and produced a truly secure phone. Above also provides secure laptops. Hakeem joins me today to explain, in plain English that any of us can understand, how it all works. How you can continue to use and carry a phone, while having your privacy, identity and security completely protected.   Will Dove  03:01 Hakeen, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.   Hakeem Anwar  03:04 It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.   Will Dove  03:06 Your company, Above Phone, came to my attention when Rain Trozzi, Dr. Mark Trozzi’s son showed me one of your phones. And he was explaining how it's a truly secure phone, I think, at least as secure as a phone possibly can be. And we're going to talk about that today and explain how it all works to our viewers. But before we do that, I'd like to talk about some of the common vulnerabilities of the Android and iPhones that most of you are walking around with.   Will Dove  03:35 There's a lot of, I guess, misinformation that goes on to the point where people don't really know what's true and what's not. I personally am fairly confident that yes, they can send a signal that would turn on your microphone and listen to your conversations. Let's start with that, is that true? Can that be done?   Hakeem Anwar  03:54 Yeah, absolutely. When you hear from these big tech companies, they have very catchy slogans like privacy, like Apple. And they give you this impression that they care about privacy. And they empower you to set your own settings, which can limit maybe the amount of data that gets sent out to them. But there's, at its core, there's really no transparency. There isn't any control.   Hakeem Anwar  04:18 And it's been proven now, not because we have access to the source code for any of these phones, but that Google has been working with public health departments, for instance, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and they can turn on different sensors on your phone remotely. In this case, it was Bluetooth for contact tracing, which we can talk about. But you get the sense that your phone isn't actually yours. It's more like something that you're renting that Apple and Google can change the settings whenever they want, if it's for their benefit.   Hakeem Anwar  04:50 So, it's definitely an illusion. And I think that this technology, because it's so pervasive, you know, there's one phone for almost every human on Earth, just the power of having the visibility into someone's life. That is something that should be protected. That is something that should be sacred. And so, once I started to get to see how it was being used as a weapon, technology was being weaponized, I decided, well, hey, we can also find some things for self-defense. And so that's where the company came to construct.   Will Dove  05:21 And you do have four models of phones. So, folks, this isn't something that you install to the phone you already have, you purchase the phone from Above Phone, and it's all set up. So, let's get into the details of that Hakeem and talk about what are the features of these phones?   Hakeem Anwar  05:41 Absolutely. So, the company is called Above Phone. We do phone, we do private phones, we do private laptops, and we also do private software services. I don't want to start by saying it's not just one single thing that is going to keep you completely private. It's the combination of all these different technologies, and also your own habits, your own empowerment and as to how you use that technology.   Hakeem Anwar  06:03 So, the way the phone works, it's using a deGoogle operating system. That means it's using, Android, which is Google's collaboration with open-source developers, they created the Android operating system. And what these deGoogle operating systems are doing is taking the source code, kind of the foundation of the operating system and removing all the Google bits out of it, which there's tremendous amounts of tracking that isn't needed. There’re integrations with Google software services that aren't necessarily needed, but due to useful things in some cases. And so, these phones, strip all that out, and then also implement hardened security features.   Hakeem Anwar  06:42 So, the Above Phone uses an operating system called GrapheneOS, which is open-source software, developed by a nonprofit. And what we do is we professionally, we have our own image of GrapheneOS, where we set up everything the phone needs to be a complete product, right? GrapheneOS is a raw operating system, and it takes a technical person to install it in the first place. And then you have to learn actually how to use it on. We thought we needed to be a little bit quicker to that, people need to get a phone out of the box and be able to use it. And so that is Above Phone.   Hakeem Anwar  07:13 Now there is a ton of different features. Mainly, it's what isn't there, right? It's the same with eating organic food, you look at the ingredients in it, what's important is what isn't there. And in this case, it's all the connections, regular connections back to Google and/or Apple, which if you look at independent studies, your Apple and Google will never tell you this. But if you look at independent study, like Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland did on Google and Apple phones, they found that they were phoning home every five minutes.   Hakeem Anwar  07:45 So, think about that, moving around on a map, and they have a rough idea of your location every five minutes, because that phone is talking back home, it's sending unique identifiers. And so, when you're using one of these phones, these Google phones, it is stripping all of that tracking out of it. So that is one of the major points of it. What actually isn't there. Now, there are other features too, that you get on top of it, such as giving yourself more control over what permissions applications have.   Hakeem Anwar  08:14 So, this is a big one, you know, maybe some of your audience has used an app in the past which has demanded access to their contacts, otherwise, it wouldn't work. WhatsApp is a really good example of this. We have plenty of customers in Canada, this phone is available in Canada. It's also available in Mexico and other Latin American countries, where some people have to use apps like WhatsApp, because they've literally, they've infected the locals and, and thanks to unfair business practices by collaborating with Telecom, they have made their - they've gotten market share.   Hakeem Anwar  08:49 And so, WhatsApp forces you to give it your contacts. Well, with this phone, you can actually trick WhatsApp into thinking you've given it all your contacts when you've only given it the people you really need to talk to. And this way, you have a better way to have informed consent of the apps that you were using. And also, the apps are picking out which I'm happy to demo any of this stuff and show it to you as well.   Will Dove  09:14 Yeah, and we're obviously going to get to that. But something I really wanted to clarify for the viewers because I have a broad spectrum of viewers, everybody from people who barely know how to turn a computer on to people who are very technically proficient. And what I'm reading from what you're saying is that this phone is good for everybody. You could be somebody who has no clue of anything technological. And you can use this phone safely out of the box. Or if you have a certain level of technical proficiency, you can customize the settings on it to expand its capabilities.   Hakeem Anwar  09:44 Yes, that's correct. We are trying to cater to everyone. We're trying to make it very easy for everyone. I mean, you know, the majority of our customers are the older demographic and we spend good time helping them and we also invest time into building really good tutorials for them. But the phone is intuitive enough to where you can take out of the box, you simply need to activate your cell service, which is as easy as popping a card out of your old phone, putting it in a new phone. And these are all things we help you with, right?   Hakeem Anwar  10:13 I know it might be a little anxiety producing to think about all these different things you're having to do. But we make it really easy, because we have a free 45-minute call that's included with the price of each phone. So that's kind of our duty here, right? Making sure you actually use the phone. That's what we want. And so, we'll spend time with you on a live call kind of just like this, where we teach you how to use this new phone, we help you bring over everything from your old phone. So, you have the support. Don't be afraid if you're not that experienced with technology.   Will Dove  10:44 Now, I'm going to ask you in a minute to do some demonstrating of the phone itself and share your screen to do that. But I just wanted to say this, the thing that really excited me about Above Phone was I tend to leave my cell phone, I use an Android, I usually leave it in my office. I know they're listening to me, that's okay in my office, because everything I do in my office pretty much gets posted online anyway. So that's fine, they can listen.   Will Dove  11:07 But the opposite was I'm going to take my phone with me is if I need Google Maps, if I need the GPS to find something. But you've got a phone, and we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, where on the Above Phone, you can do that, you can actually use GPS. But it's not calling home. It's not telling them where you are. How does that work?   Hakeem Anwar  11:30 Absolutely. So, it's not connecting to the internet. And the way it works is it's only using GPS, which you know, just to be fully transparent GPS is a different system on its own, where your phone is receiving data from satellites, it's not transmitting data to satellites, it's passively receiving them. And through the location of the satellites, which get updated every once in a while, it can tell its general location on the map or its close location on the map. And so, we have this app, maybe I could pull it up here. Here we are.   Hakeem Anwar  12:04 If you could see my screen, this is what the Above Phone looks like. So, swiping left swiping right, if you swipe up, you get all your apps, if you swipe down from the top, you get notifications. But what we're concerned about are is this mapping software. So, this is called OpenStreetMap, which is the largest alternative maps out there. They're the only ones. Well, they're the biggest organization doing maps outside of Google and Apple.   Hakeem Anwar  12:34 And you can see I have – so, how it works is you download the world map. And then when you want to be able to navigate in the area, you can zoom in and you can see kind of above, it's telling me Hey, do you want to download this detailed map of Seattle or Washington. And once I do that, I can actually navigate to different points, I can put a pin on the map, and it'll start navigating me and it does that all on the phone, I don't need to be connected to internet. So, when you see things like Canada's Health Agency, I think they're called - working with your largest telecom providers and putting an open bid out on anonymized location data from telecom, this is how they're doing it, they're actually collecting your telecom data. With this, I can put my phone on airplane mode, and I can still continue to navigate. I'm not connecting to the internet at all. And you can use this to route yourself different places.   Will Dove  13:28 I'm sorry to jump in. But this is a really important point. For those of us who are not as tech savvy as you are. What you've just told us is that they do not need to track us for us to use GPS?   Hakeem Anwar  13:45 Yes, and I will say this in any connected system, there's always like a spectrum. These people are lazy. These people are actually really lazy. And they work where they have influence and power. They have influence and power over Google. In fact, you know, Canada got Google, pay them $100 million instead of local news sources, which I think is ridiculous, but they have power. And these other organizations are complicit. So yes, they work with telecom providers, Rogers, TELUS, and Bell, I think are the three ones in Canada. And they work with them and they buy the raw telecom data coming from the towers to detect where people are. They admitted to spying on 33 million phones this way.   Hakeem Anwar  14:31 And so, what I'm saying is that if I'm trying to navigate to Calgary, I can simply download this map, I can download the entire map of Canada, and I can take a road trip. Now with everything there's always a grain of salt and the grain of salt here is because it is so private, it's not going to keep a running list of all the businesses in Canada, right? So, I won't be able to look up that pizza shop that was really instrumental during the lockdowns in Canada, and I won't be able to go directly to them. But it does require you to use your brain a little bit more and be like, okay, this is the location of the pizza. Let me find it on the map, I'm going to put a point there and I can navigate to it, or you can search by address. So, it actually ends up working out great. I think this is going to be a really useful tool as they actually start to enforce more consequences for breaking lockouts.   Will Dove  15:23 Now the first thing I think is going to jump into people's minds and say, okay, I'm out, I got to find a place, I need to look up the address. What about the browser, but you have a hardened browser called Vanadium?   Hakeem Anwar  15:35 That is correct. Yes. So much like the phone, it says the Google browser, let me navigate there. And you can see I was on the Iron Will Report earlier. So, it's your basic browser, right? And it's just not communicating to Google, or Mozilla, when you use normal browsers, even if it's Brave browser, they’re collecting telemetry at what you do. They might have branding that that says, oh, we're private, maybe they are more private than Google. But they're still collecting information about what you do. So, these types of browsers, it's the same concept. They're removing the tracking out of them. And they're also adding in security features at the browser level.   Hakeem Anwar  16:13 So, you can see it's just, it's any normal browser, I can visit different websites, we have our search engine already integrated into this. So that's one piece I want to mention is that Above Phone isn't just a phone, it's also the communications that you get to use on the phone. And so, we have an alternative for all these different services you might use. And our alternative is called Above Suite. So, if I go to shop, and see suite is right here, and we have ways that you can add encrypted chats with people, we have an internet phone number that is actually supported, you can get a Canadian phone number. And this is an internet phone number.   Hakeem Anwar  16:53 So, what it's doing on our system is that you're connecting to the phone network over our encrypted chat platform. And what that means is that you're not using the nearest cell tower for your phone call, you're actually traveling over the Internet to at one point where the phone call starts. So, you kind of separating your location from the phone call. And your internet traffic is encrypted, because you're using our VPN, which is very easy to set up on the phone. So, we offer all these five different services, VPN, internet phone number, encrypted messaging, voice calls, video calls, email, calendar, and a search engine.   Hakeem Anwar  17:36 So, you get all of these for $100 a year. And I think it's that final piece you need to your phone, right? Because if you're using your phone, and you're still using big tech services, you're not making the big of a hit, not making a huge difference. But if you're looking at things with a holistic approach, you can actually make real gains to your privacy and protect yourself.   Will Dove  17:54 Right. Now, let's get into this, I want to get into a couple of other specifics of things that I know people use a lot. I certainly do. Google Play, it can be installed, it can be used, but it can be sandboxed. Please explain what that means.   Hakeem Anwar  18:08 Absolutely. So, to set some context up, why would you want Google on your phone in the first place? Well, Google has built their business around Google and Apple for that matter. They run important software services for even app developers. So, for instance, mapping apps, they need to be able to track your location down really accurately. And so, Google and Apple have invested millions of dollars into collecting the local Wi-Fi access points, in all the cities, in all populated places on earth. And a normal Google location service will use this. It'll actually use the Wi-Fi around you to check where exactly where you are. Apple does the same thing.   Hakeem Anwar  18:47 And there's some crazy things I can tell you about those location systems. But it's location services like these that are required by apps like Uber, apps like Lyft, apps like Airbnb, that have the built in map in there, many of these big tech popular apps are more than happy to use Google's location services. In fact, they enforce it, right? So, when you use an Above Phone, since it doesn't have Google services out of the box, you can't use those apps, but like you're saying, you can install them if you want. Now, even when you, here I'm going to show you kind of what that looks like.   Hakeem Anwar  19:20 So, GrapheneOS has its own way, its own implementation of Google services, where you can install Google services, but it's not at the god mode level of the phone. And it's not seeing everything that's going on in the phone. It's not running, it's logging. But it's lower, like Google services is just another app on the phone. It does its job. You tell it what to do and it does it when you need it to. So, for instance, you needed to navigate somewhere, it looks up your location and sends your location out. You know, there's still some connections happening to Google, but it's a lot safer than using a normal phone.   Hakeem Anwar  19:59 As we're saying, so we've got Google Play serves the bottom, I can just tap on that to install it. And I can also tap out, I can get Android Auto. But the question you were asking is, can I install it in a safe way? So yes, you can create separate users, you can see here, I have different users on my device. And this is literally like having a phone, within your phone, because all the data for the separate users is encrypted and isolated. So, data on my travel profile can't travel to my older profile and vice versa. That makes it a perfect case. For a lot of our customers, they need to use some of these big tech apps, either for work or for social media. And so, they'll create a separate user. I could switch to it now. It'll disconnect me, maybe I will in a second. And you'll be able to run Google services in that second profile, and have it completely separate from your personal data on the rest.   Will Dove  20:52 So, this is like having multiple phones. And I know that a lot of my viewers are familiar with the concept of having a private profile and a public profile. And you know, some of them even do have two separate phones for that. But what you're saying is with Above Phone, you can do that on one phone.   Hakeem Anwar  21:10 Absolutely, you can do that on one phone. And yeah, I mean, you have a lot of protection in that, right? You've got your private profile, you've got your work profile, maybe your work profile, your personal profile, travel profile, and you can set these up, so each are using a different VPN. You can potentially set them up so they're each using a different internet phone number. But for most people, what they're cool with, is they have their main profile and then they have their big tech junk food profile, which is where they do all their social media.   Will Dove  21:43 So, for myself, if I was to use one of your phones, I'm certainly hoping I'm going to be able to afford one soon, I would have my private profile, which is probably where I'm going to make my phone calls and my text messages, use GPS, and that's going to be about it. And then I would have a public profile, which is where I would be connected to say Instagram, or WhatsApp, or calling for an Uber, all of that stuff, where I'm going to turn it on for a few minutes to do that. And then I'm going to switch back to my private profile again. So, they're not tracking me.   Hakeem Anwar  22:16 100% right. And I also want to point out, it's like, it's even the public profile on this phone is far more private on a normal phone. And I have some of the primary source studies are very interesting. But it's the combination of Google services with the apps you typically use on a phone, where there's all these analytics and advertisers within these apps are hidden within these apps, you can't really see them, I'll show you how you can see them on this phone and really see for yourself. But on average, there's five different companies. And so, when Google services start interacting with these advertisers, they're sharing data between each other, they're getting information about how you use the app, they're getting demographics, information.   Hakeem Anwar  22:59 And then there's a whole billion-dollar data industry, that is collecting this information, aggregating it, and eventually it makes its way up to places like Health Canada, or government organizations that are trying to enforce contact tracing or see how well lockdowns are working. So, with using this phone, you're using different apps to every app on this phone as a free and open-source app. That means there's no hidden trackers, or analyzers or advertisers, and you're disconnecting yourself from that data pipeline.   Will Dove  23:33 There's a couple of other specific things I wanted to touch on. I was checking on your website, a privacy-focused camera app, how does that work?   Hakeem Anwar  23:47 Sure. So let me bring the phone up here. So, the major thing you have to worry about with camera apps, there you go, you can see my desk, is the EXIF data, which the EXIF data is metadata. It's like, you know, what is metadata? It's just more information about that piece of data. So, in this case, it's an image. So, you could see down here, there's this stuff called EXIF data, right? Which will tell you this is the model of the device that took eight years of resolution, use other feature, your settings for the camera. And then there's also geolocation data. And this is actually how, if you're familiar with John McAfee. This is how John McAfee was caught. I think it was in Ecuador, or a country in South America, but he had an interview with VICE News. And he was on the run from the United States. And so, VICE News took a picture of him and they left their EXIF data on which had his location on it. That's how they caught him. So, when you're using this default camera app, on our phones, it is stripping your location out of the photos, it's stripping the EXIF data out and you get a lot more protection.   Will Dove  25:00 Okay, now one other thing, because having this private phone is great, but it's not just privacy that we're all concerned about. It's also security. And I was reading on the site, and it's a little above my head, but I'm going to let you explain it. It has to do with the GrapheneOS, and Project Zero focused on day-zero vulnerabilities. I want you to talk about that, because it sounds to me like that's a very aggressive approach to protecting your phone from being hacked.   Hakeem Anwar  25:32 Yeah, well, the truth of the matter is, is in today's time, there's security vulnerabilities being discovered every day. And it's pretty scary. Some of the things that are going on underneath the surface, right, like, just as an example, all of the phone records for AT&T were hacked, just last week, that's the biggest phone company in the United States. And, of course, these guys are supposed to be at the top of the game. I mean, heck, they're the ones who cooperate most with the NSA, you would have think they learned a thing or two about protecting the security of their data, but hey. So, security vulnerabilities happen and that's why GrapheneOS in this phone is constantly releasing updates that patch security vulnerabilities.   Hakeem Anwar  26:12 In fact, this phone gets them more often than you know, take your run of the mill Android phone or even iPhone at times, sometimes they can beat them to the punch, because they are security obsessed. Now I think it's important to find a good balance between being security obsessed, which, you know, you've got an excellent baseline with these phones, and also being privacy obsessed. So yeah, with this phone, when you get it, you'll notice you'll get updates all the time. These are due to things like new vulnerabilities for the cellular modem, which is someone like, if there was a malicious actor pretending that there was cellphone power, they could potentially try and attack your phone when it connects thinking that it's receiving data or cellular connection.   Hakeem Anwar  26:55 So, when you say a zero-day, it means that a vulnerability that has never been seen before. And people have to rush to fix it on the zero day, right? So, GrapheneOS is on top of that. And that's why we appreciate them. That's why we support them. And that's why we don't support any other operating systems because we want to provide a device that is secure and takes care of all your needs that way.   Will Dove  27:16 Okay, now I want to get beyond just phones. But before we do, is there anything else about the phone itself that you would really like to show the viewers?   Hakeem Anwar  27:26 Absolutely, so, I will do a little spin of it. Let me bring the phone back on screen. And I'm just going to do tech demo. So, this is the phone, this is what you get out of the box. And it's going to show you a few different features. At the bottom here, you'll notice this purple icon. Now this is our internet phone number app, this app allows you to send end-to-end encrypted messages. So that's the most private way to communicate. It also lets you connect to the phone network.   Hakeem Anwar  27:58 You'll notice here, I'm talking to Eve, and she has what looks like a phone number here. That's because I'm literally communicating with her phone number, but I'm doing it over the internet, at least on my side. And so, with this, I don't even need a SIM card in my phone, I don't even need to be connected to the cell towers that we were talking about, or sharing data with Health Canada, I can literally use my phone over Wi-Fi. I can go into a local coffee shop connect to their Wi Fi and be using this phone. So, I can call her, she can text me, I can text her, I can send her picture messages, and she can also leave me voicemails that I can play back on my phone.   Hakeem Anwar  28:36 So, this is something that is better than, it's already better than, you know, major cellular service because I don't need a SIM card and get this, it's only $5 a month, and you can pay in crypto. So, you've got all these improvements to your privacy because when I call Eve, and because I am using Above Phone, I'm using a VPN, my network traffic is encrypted, that nearest cell phone tower doesn't know I'm calling Eve. It has to go all the way to the point where the call originates. And that's where it goes on to telecom network. But from my side, it's not obvious that this call is coming from me.   Hakeem Anwar  29:16 So, this is a great way to improve your privacy. It's also amazing because now you can have two numbers on your device. You could have your SIM card which is plugged in which you would be using something like this, you have used the data dialer, which you can also use for the internet phone number, but just as an example, this could be your first phone number, and then this could be your second phone on your device. So, you're literally are having multiple phones, which is excellent. People really like that. And then what else can I show you?   Hakeem Anwar  29:44 I can show you the video conferencing. So, this is our video conferencing server. It’s named as Jitsi and we run a private video conferencing service. Think of it as Zoom, but private. So you can do all the things you would normally do in a Zoom meeting and this is a really great way, because the other person does not need to have the Jitsi app, they can just visit this link.   Hakeem Anwar  30:08 So, let's see, if I want to create a room meeting here, what it's going to do once I sign in, is, it's going to give me a link. And I can send that link out to anyone and they could join the meeting. So that's another way. We can stop depending on these telecommunications’ provider. They don't care about our privacy. So, we're offering solutions.   Hakeem Anwar  30:29 Another thing I want to show you because it's important, I talked about earlier how all the apps are open source that happens to this app store called F-Droid. So, all of the apps are coming from this app store, which the requirements are all the software has to be free and open source, that means every line of code has to be inspectable by the public. For many of you, this doesn't mean anything because it's code, right? Maybe it goes over some of our heads. But there are eyes that are looking at these apps, and also calling out bad behavior and making changes. So, there isn't any hidden or proprietary code. There isn't any tracking or advertising in these apps. And that's why all of the apps on the Above Phone, with the exception of one are free and open source.   Will Dove  31:14 I'd like to just jump and explain that a little bit further for our viewers who are not all that tech savvy. When we talk about open-source software, and Hakeem was making reference to this. Because it is open source, if some malicious actor got in there and tried to put in code that was say, going to track something other developers’, programmers, would notice that and take it out.   Hakeem Anwar  31:38 That's right, at least it gives them like, so yes, malicious actors are one thing. We can catch if anything malicious is happening. The other thing is even if the developer is just like, I need to get paid for this, and they start putting advertising into it, people can take the last version of their code and fork it and create a new version of the app. And that happens from time to time when developers get burnt out or they can't even update their projects. And they don't want to hand over the reins to someone else. People take their work and they make different versions of the apps.   Hakeem Anwar  32:10 So, I will share the other app store here as well. That's a very good point. The other app store, so you might be asking yourself, okay, but there's this apps on my phone that I'm used to using maybe for work, and maybe for my local neighborhood. Can I still use those? Yes, the answer is yes. So, you do that through this app called the Aurora store, which is a private way to access the Google Play Store. If the app you like is on the Google Play Store, it will be here. Now you will notice a bunch of different apps here, I'm going to use one as an example. And I'm going to show you how you can get informed consent.   Hakeem Anwar  32:48 So, a PDF reader is always very important. We're going to look at Adobe Acrobat, you know, we're just reading PDFs, this is something common you do for work. What you don't know is if you scroll to the bottom here, you can actually see how many different companies are tracking your activity in this app. So, you can see a privacy, eight known trackers and I can actually get the names of those companies. So, we see Google, Facebook, something called a Branch, OpenTelemetry, Adobe themselves, of course. So, all of these, when you use a normal app, remember, the average is five different trackers per app, when use a normal app on the Google Play Store, the industry is incentivized to add these third-party companies which are collecting information about you. And like I said, they they're selling it to data aggregators. And eventually, they make their way to law enforcement, they make their way to government, they make their money to public health organizations, which is just ridiculous.   Hakeem Anwar  33:43 So, when you use free and open-source apps, you're protecting yourself. But at least, with Above Phone, and Aurora Store, which is the name of this store, you can start to get more information and make an informed choice. So, you might say, alright, eight trackers. That's too much. Maybe I can find another app. Let me see if I can find another app out here. So let me just use all of these - so VLC. I'm hoping there's not going to be so many trackers, this as a video player. Okay, so yes, VLC does not have any trackers. So right, this is no different than going to the store, picking two cans up off the shelf, you both see organic, and then you look at one, and it's got, you know, RED 50 and some form of aluminum inside of it. And you're like, no, no, thanks. I don't want that in my body. I'm going to have this can, which is just raw ingredients that I can understand.   Will Dove  34:35 Now, I saw on your website that you have your own SIM cards coming, is that correct?   Hakeem Anwar  34:42 Yes, it is. We are in the process of building out our own cell service, which will be an eSIM service, and we're really excited for that. I think we're going to need at least another month to get this rolling. But we're excited for our eSIM service because you won't need a miss. Card mailed to you. An eSIM is just a sim, you can activate on your phone. And we're going to have different data options. So, it's going to be high speed data from 10 gigabytes all the way up to 50 gigabytes, you're going to be able to choose your plan. And then ideally, we're also trying to have international plans. So, if you're leaving the country, you can buy a package. Let's say you want to go to Mexico for a week or two, you can buy the package, and then add that active while you're out there.   Will Dove  35:26 And all of that while it's private and secure.   Hakeem Anwar  35:31 With cell service, with telecommunications, there's only so much you can do. Because you have to remember these, at least in the United States. And it seems like in Canada from my little research, these telecom providers are obligated to hand over their data to the government when they ask, you know, to support the investigation of a crime. What you have to do on your own, you have to protect your own internet traffic. That responsibility falls on us.   Hakeem Anwar  35:57 So, what we do is we have the VPN, which is enabled on this phone. Let me see. So, this is our VPN app, you can see that we have several locations in the United States. Soon, we will have locations in Canada. But when you purchase Above Suite, and you turn on this VPN, which what this is doing is it's encrypting the network traffic on your phone. So, let's say I'm visiting ironwiredaily.com. Normally, my internet service provider sees that, my telecom provider sees that, even if you're connected to local Wi-Fi, they see that because I have a VPN, it encrypts it, and you have no idea. It's just encrypted gibberish being pushed between your phone and us.   Hakeem Anwar  36:39 And then we're just sending you back the, whatever the results of whatever you're viewing on the internet. So that's actually how you protect yourself on the telecom network, you can't expect them to do it for you. If people tell you, hey, this is a private cell service, it doesn't exist because it's a monopoly, right? There’re three main companies in the United States, there's three main companies in Canada, and they all seem to be obligated to hand data over. So, I always like to be transparent and honest with our customers. It's not the cell service that's going to be private, it's going to be convenient. And maybe it's going to be more private, because we're not asking for your personal information. But the way you protect yourself is by using a VPN.   Will Dove  37:18 Right. Now, Hakeem, early in the interview, you made reference to the fact that your company is more than just phones. You talk about the other services you provide.   Hakeem Anwar  37:29 Absolutely. So, we talked about Above Suite a little bit. And I think that is important because I want to talk about this concept of universal internet utilities, which is the app opposite what Google and Apple do. And I wish I had more time to talk about kind of the stories, right? The real-life impacts. And maybe we can get into that if we have time. But at a moment's notice, if you break the Google's Terms of Service, or Apple's Terms of Service, they can shut off the lights on you, right? Maybe this is the movies and the music that you've downloaded. But it can also go as far as getting into your computer.   Hakeem Anwar  38:05 If you get your Apple account deleted, you can't even log into your computer, you can't log in your phone, you can't access your photos and your data. So universal internet utilities is about breaking this walled garden. There's a jail that they put you in. And if you break their rules, they take everything away from you. And everything that we're doing on the phone with Above Suite is transferable. That means that you can run the software yourself, the email service we use, the XMPP, the video conferencing, these are all things that anyone can run, we just decided to run them professionally on our own data center. But that's the beauty of it is that you can take these services anywhere.   Hakeem Anwar  38:42 So, if even if something happens to us, you have places you can go with your data. That was really important to us when we created this company. Now, the Above Suite is one part. And another way reason it's universal is it can work on any device. Now, Gmail does not like you to use third party email clients. Even though there are a ton of third-party email clients. I'm actually bringing it on screen because I think it's more expressive that way. But I'll share with you what the email looks like.   Hakeem Anwar  39:09 So, this is our third-party email client called K-9 Mail. And this is the email address you get from Above Suite. And you’ll notice the ending to the address above that. And this is an email, right? You can send emails, you can receive emails, but the most important thing is you can use it on any device. You can even use it in your web browser. We're not limiting you. And in the case of Apple Mail or Gmail, you have to use their proprietary apps, you'd have to use Gmail or you'd have to use Yahoo or whatever it is and they make it very hard for you to use third party services. So, I just want you to understand the concept of these universal internet utilities.   Hakeem Anwar  39:50 And so, we went through a number of different services for Above Suite. The last thing I want to show while I just have the phone up is our search engine because I think this is really cool. So, if I go to search, this is our search engine that if you have access to Above Suite, this is available to you. And this is a search engine that searches another search. So well, I know you do a lot of reporting, you know, I'm sure you've encountered times where, hey, this this information is completely censored, they took it off of the first page of Google, while on our search engine, you don't want to have access to one search engine, you have access to all of it.   Hakeem Anwar  40:31 Here, you can see that I can turn on Bing, I can turn on Brave, I can turn on Mojeek. And I can also turn off the ones I don't want. If I don't want Google, I can turn that off. And that is because we are running a meta search engine. It's a search engine that is the middleman for your searchers. And it will send your searches off to the other search engine. So that way, the search engines don't know what you searched. How many times can I say search. And also, you don't get advertisements, it's really the best of both worlds. It's better living, we can do better with our technology. And so, we're trying to prove that with Above Suite and Above Phone. Now, we also have our laptops, if you want to hear about that.   Will Dove  41:12 Yeah, I do. But just before we get to that, I personally am very interested in that search engine. Yes, as a reporter, I have to search for information all the time. And it's very, very frustrating trying to say, something like Brave, and their browser, because it really does not have nearly as much information as say Google does. But there's a lot of things that I'm searching for that I really don't want Google tracking. Now, of course, I do use a VPN, but just the same. And I don't sign into my Google account when I'm doing it. So probably they don't know it's me, or they don't know what I'm doing. But what you're showing me here is I could use your search engine; I could have all of those search engines activated to find as much information as possible, and all of its being done anonymously.   Hakeem Anwar  41:59 That's right, yes, your searches are anonymous, because they're not sent off to the actual search providers. And of course, there's over a thousand people using our services at this point, we're growing. So, it's shuffled in with a lot of other people. And, of course, on all of our services, we don't do any logging from our side. So, there's nothing for us to hand away if someone asks us for data. And that's an ethos we like to keep with all of our services, it makes things safe for us to make things the next thing safe for you. So, you're spot on with the search engine, there’s a hundred different sources of information that you could search from even maybe some sources that might be new places that publish academic journals for free and stuff like that.   Will Dove  42:43 Yeah. And that's a really important concept, folks, this is something I know a little bit about - the logging and the non-logging. You can have, say, a social media messaging system, and some of them will say, well, you know, we're private, and we don't hand over it, but they're actually still logging your data, which means that they could be forced to hand it over, it could be hacked. What Hakeem is saying here is, their whole system is non logging, it doesn't record the data in the first place. So, there's nothing to access. So, Hakeem, at this point in time, I'd like to get into the laptops, please.   Hakeem Anwar  43:16 Sure. So, we also have a laptop called Above Book. And it's taking a lot of these concepts and philosophies and just applying it to laptops. So maybe some of your viewers heard of Linux, which is the third operating system that was kind of born out of a collaborative group and not one single company. And Linux has come a long way in the past decade. Before it used to be known as kind of like a tinker's operating system. Things were buggy. But it's made such tremendous strides in the past five to six years, because, frankly, people are getting fed up. And now we're starting to see the market share transformed dramatically.   Hakeem Anwar  43:58 I think, just a few weeks ago, we saw, it was a country, I want to say it was Saudi Arabia. But this country in the Middle East, you saw the market share of Linux, jump up to 40%. That is crazy. You saw Microsoft Windows dropped by 40%, Linux go up by 40%. So, there is a shift happening. Right now it's in third world countries. It's coming here soon. Because people are sick of the AI, people are sick of the advertising that are putting their computers, people are sick of Microsoft trying to dictate and tell us how we should live our lives. So, the Above Book is trying to take all the important pieces a computer should be able to do for you and give it to you on one device.   Hakeem Anwar  44:38 The Above Book uses Arch Linux, which is a very customizable and advanced version of Linux. It could be, we really like it because it's adaptable. And we decided to build their operating system on top of that. And so, I wish I had one, to ready to show you right now, but we started sending out our first batch of Above Books. They are available for purchase, if you go on our website, you can go to the shop and the navbar, and then go to laptops. And then you'll see our landing page, which has a bunch of info.   Hakeem Anwar  45:09 But the important part is, is you're going to have replacements that are better than what you usually use. You're going to be able to browse the web, you're going to be able to connect to Wi-Fi, you're going to be able to use Bluetooth, hotspot, all of these things, they just work, partially because we're using Lenovo ThinkPads, which are a few years older than the normal laptop. But the reason is, is because they've had time to be fully supported and matured by Linux.   Hakeem Anwar  45:37 And that ends up in being a really usable user experience. And so, we have alternatives to pretty much everything, anything from video editing, to even your office suite, a lot of people are dependent on Microsoft Office to do their work. Our office suite on the Above Book uses the native Microsoft format, but it's using only office, which uses exact same format, looks exactly like Microsoft Word, but isn't spying on you. So, you can have your cake and eat it too with Above Book.   Will Dove  46:10 Right. Now, I think it's an important point. You mentioned that these laptops, Acer, Lenovo laptops where you guys have scrubbed them completely. You've installed Linux, you've installed all of your software on them, all this privacy stuff. I was curious about the phones? Where are those coming from? I'm assuming you're not building them yourself. But once again, you're scrubbing them completely and reinstalling everything.   Hakeem Anwar  46:33 Good question. Yeah, these phones are Google Pixel phones. And so, your first reaction might be Google phones, that seems a little bit against the purpose. The reason that Google phones are chosen by the developers of these alternate operating systems is because they have the best support. So, for instance, if you can take an Above Phone, or this Google phone, and you can plug in a SIM card, anywhere you're at in the world, and it will work. Not all phones can do that.   Hakeem Anwar  47:02 The other things are the constant security updates, which the developers or these deGoogle operating systems are looking at, and adapting to their own operating systems, the constant security updates, and security aspects of the phone itself. There are things like, isolated, an isolated modem, which will prevent any modem attacks, which is like any cellular attacks from actually accessing the memory of the phone to call it isolated, baseband or isolated modem. So, there are some of these features in Google phones that are actually desirable. And the way you can verify that this works is before we started selling phones, we wanted to make sure is this actually protecting us.   Hakeem Anwar  47:43 So, you can analyze network traffic of these phones, and make sure they're making zero connections to Google, making zero connections to big tech. And we've seen that. You can kind of trick the phone into thinking, hey, here's your network connection. Or here's a laptop you connect to, it's going to be your Wi-Fi source. And we can see everything that is sent through using that laptop. And we found that it's not connecting to Google. So even though it is Google hardware, all the software is DeGoogled. And that's the main point of benefit here. This is protecting you from all of the mass surveillance happening on normal phones.   Will Dove  48:17 Now, Hakeem at this point in time, I'm curious about yourself, I believe you are the founder or co-founder of Above Phone. What inspired you to do this?   Hakeem Anwar  48:28 Absolutely, yeah, I am the founder and CEO. And this is my first business that really took off. And I think it really took off because it meant a lot to me. And before I was doing this, I was a software engineer, I was working in New York City. And I've worked with many different things and technology, cloud computing, robotic process automation, mobile and web application development. And so, I was a generalist that could kind of just work on anything. And throughout my career, I just left feeling unfulfilled. I've been awake for a long time since college. And of course, I was kind of the black sheep in any working environment, because, you know, they're focused on the mainstream, and all these things that don't matter, and all these illusions and all these things that are really removing the essence from what's really important, really removing the values from our society.   Hakeem Anwar  49:26 And so, I always felt on the outside of that. Now, it took until the plandemic happening, it took until COVID-19 happening where I was working in New York City, for me to realize, wow, I need to make a major life shift. And, I was a software engineer at the time, I decided I'm not going to sit here and actually help build this prison around me, as a lot of my friends and friends were doing at the time. They were making half a million dollars working for big tech companies like Google, Amazon, you name it, and I decided to quit my job, move away from New York City, and actually started helping decentralized movements like the Freedom Cell Network, which is a mutual aid group that where we have representation in 40 different countries, and it's made up of people, like you, Will, people like you, who was watching.   Hakeem Anwar  50:18 They made up of people organizing in their hometowns, and deciding to do something about this tyranny that is infecting the world. And through helping out, I was building the tech infrastructure for them, I saw how the freedom group, they're the ones really who are marginalized, they're the ones who are discriminated against. They're the ones who are being attacked. And being the tech guy for the community, I realized, like we really needed solutions. And me being paranoid myself, I wanted a solution, I would feel good about working with my team. And so, six months of research later, the Above Phone was born. And then we just kept going, there's a natural kind of download of the things we needed to make for people.   Will Dove  50:57 Right. I think that's a really important point that you just made Hakeem. And I think that's probably the best endorsement, pure product you could possibly get is that you yourself are very techie, you're a developer, you're a programmer, you know where security vulnerabilities are, and you feel completely secure using your phones.   Hakeem Anwar  51:19 I do, I do 100%. It's the most secure phone that consumers can get. Now there might be secret technology that the military has, I'm not worried about it, because the military gets hacked anyway. I'm worried about personal people's personal privacy and security, I want them to be able to protect their assets. Because the truth is cybersecurity is not going away, it's just going to become more of an issue. And also, these phones are very useful tools. I believe that technology is inherently useful. It could be used for evil, it could be used for good, I want people to use it for good.   Hakeem Anwar  51:52 So, when we have these software services on our phones, and laptops, the hope is that you use it for your own business. You know, I was watching one of your reports talking about health supplements in Canada, potentially being banned in 18 months. Where are you going to go for your shark cartilage? Where are you going to go for your nattokinase? This is going to turn into, people are going to need to think very strategically how to do it. And I think it's going to end up coming down to in person relationships or individual relationships where people can count on communicating privately, to protect themselves from the overreach of government. And so that's what I hope that these phones are used for.   Will Dove  52:34 Alright, okay. Hakeem, you're the expert. I've been through your website; I've done my best to prepare for this interview. But as I say, you're the expert. Is there anything we have not discussed that you really feel the viewer should know?   Hakeem Anwar  52:48 I think all it would be was some of the stories. I think this is worth talking about. This is maybe just for, maybe this could be clipped for the Iron Will Report. But have you heard about N-Stream?   Will Dove  52:59 No, no, we don't know what that is.   Hakeem Anwar  53:03 Okay, N-Stream is this joint venture between Rogers, TELUS, and Bell, the major telecom companies in Canada. And they collect all the telecom data from these three companies, and they actually sell it. They've been operating since 2005. And they've also been selling the data they’ve aggregated to US companies. So that should give you an idea of the collusion that is happening at the highest levels of government and telecom.   Hakeem Anwar  53:34 There's also another aspect, there's the Canada's government working with Google and Apple to develop COVID alert, right? I think Canada had pretty high adoption numbers 22%. And the scary part about these contact tracing apps is one, the software was deployed to all the phones around the world at once. So, seven billion at once. Google and Apple were like, alright, here's this contact tracing software, you go here, you can opt in. They're not necessarily and as we seen in America, in Massachusetts, specifically, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health ask Google to activate this back door on people's phones. It's the back door because a million people in Massachusetts notice that this contact tracing app had been installed in the phone without them ever asking for it.   Hakeem Anwar  54:24 And the worst part is that they could not install it. And it also turned-on Bluetooth, it was literally testing to see how far away people were. And so, Google has the power to do this. I don't have any clear pieces of evidence like that for Apple, but they do have the power to push out security updates as well. I know they've done it for Zoom in the past. And at a certain point, you have to presume that they have this ability.   Hakeem Anwar  54:48 So, it goes back to me asking you, is your phone actually your phone? Do you want to use it or is it using you? And that's why we should be looking to technologies like the Above Phone, so I hope you check it out. We're here to help you, our support, we try and go above and beyond with our support. We've got chat and email support. We also have live calls, like I said, you get one free call with every phone or laptop that you purchase. And we really look forward to supporting you and seeing what you think about our products and what you do with them more importantly.   Will Dove  55:20 Right. And I want to add one thing to the story you just told about N-Stream because there is another system that I reported on recently in my new show. I can't remember the name of it, but it's either in development or it's done. And what it does is it uses movements of your phone to do an AI to calculate not just where you are, but what you're doing. So, for example, are you just walking through a park? Or are you walking through a park with 200 other people carrying a sign? Right? And it's that sensitive, they can tell not just where you are, not just your walking, but they can tell from the way the phone moves, and the people around you. Because as you made reference to that it's turning on the Bluetooth, so it's detecting how many people are around you. And they can tell with a high degree of accuracy, not just where you are, but what you're doing. And that, of course, is going to get tied into a social credit score. And use to control you. Unless of course, we’ve got a phone like yours, where they can't do that.   Hakeem Anwar  56:23 Absolutely. It's time to have these smart habits, which if enough individual people do them, it's going to cause a transformation. You know, Ottawa was a province known for having some of the worst lockdowns. I mean, they fine a church like almost $300,000. Like, that's crazy, right? They want to fine you for having people over at your house. And they're so lazy. In the future, how do you think they're going to actually get the information? It's going to be your phones, like you were saying. They're going to have these systems. So, in the future, I see people using their SIM cards less, and actually connecting to local Wi-Fi networks to protect themselves that way. I also see us just getting rid of internet phone numbers and using internet messaging apps, I think that's important. I think that's a scale, you should start investing your time into getting your contacts on. Because I think it's going to be really important to the freedom and sacredness of our conversations. So yeah, I think these are all things we're going to see. And you know, if you're hearing this right now, you're on the leading edge. So, reach out to us, we want to help you and get you set up in these new systems.   Will Dove  57:26 And I agree with you completely Hakeem, virtually everything that they're trying to do to control us is dependent upon being able to collect data. And if we can stop them from collecting the data, we take away their power to control us.   Hakeem Anwar  57:41 Absolutely. Now, I did want to mention, there was a discount code, I believe. There was, I believe it was IronWill25. Yes.   Will Dove  57:49 Yes, and we're going to post that directly beneath the interview. So, folks, if you click through there, you'll get a discount.   Hakeem Anwar  57:57 Excellent. Yeah. And that will apply to any device, whether it's a phone or a laptop. And yeah, I'm super excited. And I hope to hear from you guys. And if there's anything you guys want to reach out to us for, you can go to abovephone.com. There's a button on the bottom right, you can chat with us. And I get those chat messages, so does my team. And we're happy to answer any questions you have. Again, I'm just going to reiterate this because these are the most basic points, works with any cell service. It doesn't matter which one you have; you can still get all the apps that you want, those will still work on the phone, and we will help you every step of the way.   Will Dove  58:35 Hakeem, thank you so much for your time today.   Hakeem Anwar  58:39 You're so welcome. Thank you for having me again.   Above Phone Ad  58:41 Are you using your phone? Or is it using you? Rise above mass surveillance and discover a phone that protects your privacy and communications. Above Phone does everything your old phone does without tracking you while giving you complete control over your phone and apps. We are better than big tech.   Above Phone Ad  59:04 It works with any cell service. No forced logins, no advertising or tracking. Download Apps privately. Control your phone and its apps with secure hardware.   Above Phone Ad  59:20 Introducing, Above Suite. Protects your internet traffic, private email on any device video call with friends privately. Encrypted chat, calls and internet phone, protect your searches and get results.   Above Phone Ad  59:40 Don't worry if you're new. Every phone includes a free 45-minute live call. You also get free email and chat support, free guides and video courses. We can take back our technology. We're here to help with tools and education. You have the power. Rise above with Above Phone.   Above Phone Ad  1:00:05 abovephone.com