I am very familiar with the areas discussed and the reply from Unique Carpenter is very spot on.
I might add you could consider using Proxies in your web searches.
Basically, LE is like a business and they use time-management to determine what areas they will spend time on. And going after some individual IP addresses is not time effective for them in most cases.
It sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders and have good instincts.
Define anybody. A badge? Yes. Your ex? Not unless she has a brother that’s a telco tech and actually has access to online equipment and knows how to use it. But that access is restricted and telcos only allow access to badges flash required paper.
So it boils down to someone with a legal piece of paper that wants to track you. You can inactivate the GPS. But that just slows a telco machine down a bit. If someone's actually watching you, a good telco tech can triangulate off the transmitter, unless you pull the battery, or wire sock the handheld. All telcos have emergency procedures to triangulate to look for lost folks, etc, and the badges are well aware of how fast that can be done.
IP Addresses? Same as a phone line. Telco or Cableco can provide a physical address in a couple seconds if a badge flashes a required piece of paper. Back in the days of dial up telco router the ips were at the telco bldg and randomly assigned as folks called in to hook onto the net. Nowadays, dsl/cable whatever, the IP address is the box at your location, next to your computer. So --- unless you know how to bounce your emails/posts/whatever through servers that strip and replace address headers (sorry thought I was writing a movie script) --- your IP address stays on the message.
So what can you do? Just blend in with the masses. Do they need a piece of paper? Yes. But they can get that from a court clerk 24/365. If someone has a legit interest to watch you, smile and wave cause they are. Seriously though, the badges are overworked, underpaid and have other priorities so don’t worry about it, unless you’ve already given them a reason.
But, there’s other aspects of computer security to be considered. I’m simply not touching those as you asked about IP addresses and smart phones. I will mention that anyone that has a smart phone should have a burner ap on the phone to delete everything remotely if you happen to lose the phone.
Originally Posted by Unique_Carpenter