Things I have learned about cell phone ownership over the past 10 months. Everyone should do these things even if they’re not a TI. I am learning the hard way.
Assume your cell will eventually be stolen. Get it insured by your wireless carrier. Its only 5 dollars a month. If it’s not insured, you won’t be able to make a police report when it gets stolen.
Record the serial number of the phone. You can find this information inside the phone by removing the battery. You will also need this information when reporting a stolen phone.
Do not leave your cell in your car even with the doors locked. Yesterday, I had my cell phone stolen for the second time this year after leaving it in a locked car.
Back up your data/contacts now before it’s too late. Otherwise your carrier will not be able to transfer your contacts to your new phone. Your carrier does not automatically back up your data, you have to do this yourself, through the carrier.
Save any important pics/vids in the phone to your computer somehow. By emailing them to yourself, downloading, or saving to a disc.
Find a way to attach the phone to yourself before you leave the house. You want it to be accessible for pics/vids but you do not want to put it down anywhere and forget it, including your car. Perps have unfettered access to your car. Before they started stealing my phones, they would just pick it up and leave it on the driver’s seat every time I left it in the car.
Don’t buy an expensive phone. All you need is a basic phone that takes decent pics and vids. Buy a cheaper basic phone and you won’t be as disappointed when it eventually gets stolen by perps.
Buy low GB memory cards. Use them up and take them out. If you have a card with huge GB, it’s going to be in the phone for a long time. When the phone gets stolen, there goes hundreds to thousands of pics and vids.
Don’t rely solely on your cellphone for taking vids/pics of perp harassment. I think we should have other types of cameras that are better suited for this such as a blogger cam, “go pro” cams that can be used as a dash cam, and/or motion sensor cam for the home. Google glasses would be ideal, esp. if you could broadcast the recording in real-time on the net. I recently read on FB Google Earth has live satellite coverage of people’s homes now, I’m working on how to access this.
Any other suggestions?
stoporgangstalking 
Thanks for the great tips!
These suggestions are more related to cell phone hacking and tracking. But maybe they will help some TIs out there.
* Be aware of the symptoms of a hacked cell phone: suddenly lighting up on its own, battery running down faster than usual, not ringing when calls come in, voice mails delayed in reaching you, flashing of odd messages such as “divert.”
* Assume your cell phone is hacked and never use it for confidential calls or texts. There once was a day when they needed physical access to install the software. Not any more. All it takes now is a call to your number and staying connected for about 20 seconds. Then there are things like cell signal catchers and so on. (You have to think like the high-tech criminals they are.)
* Choose a phone from which you can remove the battery. Note that the iPhone does not allow this (interesting, huh?).
* Assume they are using your phone to track you. Stopping that requires turning the phone off and taking out the battery. Just turning off the GPS locate function won’t do it (see below).
* Assume that your phone is being used as a microphone, recording conversations as it sits there, even if you have turned it off. Many phones can now be turned on remotely (see above regarding removing battery).
* Consider buying a pay-as-you-go/throw-away phone. Get a new number every few months.
Hope this helps someone. It’s been quite an eye-opening education for me. By the way, you can test some of the above. Send your phone on a bus ride (without you) or have a phone conversation about a trip you are (not) taking, and see what happens… : )
Mine they just hack as soon as i get it and send death threats…insults…make it cut off …bs stuff for years…local cops…bastards…everyone of u is heading to hellfire…sick