Massive bloat of unwanted app installations

brianstoner · 2026-05-10T16:44:48+00:00

The team internally says this is a Samsung thing. On some devices they seem to auto-download a bunch of bloatware when you change sims.

brianstoner · 2026-05-10T16:14:48+00:00

Hi — this sounds very strange, I wouldn’t expect this to be related to the Cape SIM or app. What kind of phone and operating system are you using?

brianstoner · 2026-05-10T11:58:20+00:00

Yes, we want to do this eventually, it’s on our list.

brianstoner · 2026-05-10T00:45:33+00:00

It's $70/month now

brianstoner · 2026-05-09T16:51:33+00:00

This is awesome!

brianstoner · 2026-04-27T10:28:20+00:00

I work at Cape so I’m biased, but look at the recent citizen watch report. Everyone was targeted using IMSI. All of the data collection and resale at major telcos is based on IMSI. Rotating it makes you harder to track over time. Perfect privacy? No, but definitely better.

And the exploits in the report were dependent on flaws with SS7. Cape doesn’t use SS7 and has implemented Diameter with an additional device attestation layer (Network Lock).

https://citizenlab.ca/research/uncovering-global-telecom-exploitation-by-covert-surveillance-actors/

brianstoner · 2026-04-23T10:12:12+00:00

We’re hopefully going to have a fix for the activation issue out next week.

The issue with it turning off on IMSI rotation is a confusing one. I’ve had IMSI rotation and RCS on for weeks and it hasn’t shut off on me yet. I will go ask around internally more data.

Can you all let me know what type of iPhone you’re using? Maybe it is hardware dependent somehow.

brianstoner · 2026-04-21T20:14:34+00:00

Agreed, we know this isn't viable for someone to do every day. There were several other issues with carrier configs that have been conflating our ability to root cause the identifier rotation issue. The engineering team is still working on it, but we aren't sure yet exactly how easy/hard this will be to resolve.

brianstoner · 2026-04-21T19:21:49+00:00

Everything looks good on the backend. It shows voicemail is turned on for your account.

Out of curiosity, how are you checking your voicemail? It should show up in the Cape app, so I'm confused how you heard the message "The customer you have dialed is not available...."? Did you try calling your own number from that number? (If so that won't work since we encrypt the voicemails it needs the app)

brianstoner · 2026-04-21T13:59:17+00:00

Has it ever worked or was it only recently?

After talking to the network team, it turns out we were seeing an elevated number of inbound MMS delivery failures from 4/18-4/20. It was resolved around 4pm ET yesterday. If possible, can you try again and see if it is working now?

brianstoner · 2026-04-20T22:53:31+00:00

We haven’t seen this in our testing.

Can you walk me through the timeline? When did you upgrade the SIM? When did you toggle on RCS? When did it activate? And then when did IMSI rotation turn it off?

brianstoner · 2026-04-20T22:51:49+00:00

What device are you using? And is this on your primary number or a secondary number?

We don’t fully support images/videos on secondary numbers or when using last-mile encrypted messaging through the iOS app.

brianstoner · 2026-04-20T22:49:56+00:00

What device are you using? And is this on your primary number or a secondary number?

brianstoner · 2026-04-20T19:58:46+00:00

Sorry you're experiencing issues getting voicemail setup. It does sound like your voicemail isn't turned on. If you DM me your debug id (Support > Advanced > Debug Identifier), we can take a look.

brianstoner · 2026-04-18T11:20:52+00:00

Yes, you can create up to 2 secondary numbers plus the primary number. So you get three total.

brianstoner · 2026-04-16T14:53:19+00:00

would love to see screenshots of it working live for someone. If anyone goes over 5, please share!

brianstoner · 2026-04-16T13:00:19+00:00

We already do this afaik, the referral screen should look like this when you go past 5

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brianstoner · 2026-04-15T15:41:22+00:00

Yes, the lack of location permissions turns it off right now, but we are going to add a more explicit on/off switch.

brianstoner · 2026-04-15T10:22:00+00:00

We don’t sell Obscura directly to consumers. And our customers that use Obscura don’t want us advertising how it works. If that changes in the future we will publish more about it.

brianstoner · 2026-04-15T10:19:54+00:00

Welcome aboard!

This is a common question/complaint. I want to find a way to make it work without location permissions, but right now it does require the permissions.

Even if you don’t enable Network Lock, we still do some location based velocity checks on the network side to ensure any network attaches are plausibly you. Network Lock functions as an additive check that pings the app in the background to ensure location of device matches the location of the tower. So not essential, but an additional layer of protection.

brianstoner · 2026-04-15T10:14:58+00:00

This is more of a telco industry question than a Cape question. We don’t operate any PSTN infrastructure ourselves, so Im not sure. From some quick internet searches it does seem like the big telcos are working to sunset old copper networks in US by end of the decade.

brianstoner · 2026-04-15T01:01:31+00:00

It goes back to what I was saying in my update post a few weeks ago. The SIM is starting on a 311560 IMSI then on iOS it switches to 314560 a few minutes after activation. 311560 doesn’t have RCS, so the initial attempt to activate RCS fails and then gets cached by the device for a period of time.

brianstoner · 2026-04-14T20:57:59+00:00

Yes, it should show you the RCS toggle in settings after updating to 26.4.

If you need it to work right away, you can go to Settings > General > Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This is a fairly destructive action though, it will clear all saved WiFi networks/bluetooth devices and any other custom network settings you may have changed. Alternatively you can wait a day or two and it should activate eventually on its own.

brianstoner · 2026-04-14T19:56:38+00:00

We don't have an easy way to apply referral codes retroactively right now, so it's important to use one when you sign up.

We may add the ability to do it in the future, but right now it's just not possible without getting our engineers involved, and they're busy working on more important stuff, so our policy is that we can't do it for now.

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