Lots of interesting discussions about cell phone networks lately.

Cache of devices capable of crashing cell network is found in NYC

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45345514

Fake cell phone towers ICE is using to track people

https://www.forbes.com/sites/the-wiretap/2025/09/09/how-ice-...

And, at the same time, interesting conversations about linux phones, like GrapheneOS (de-googled android) and FLX1s (pure Linux phone):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45312326

My question is: are any of these alternatives helpful against these kinds of novel attacks? If you are on a phone using a network vanilla provider like tmobile or otherwise, is there any way to prevent your phone from trying to connect to a fake network?

If I controlled the entire cell phone stack, like I would with FLX1s, then could I have something like the ssh initial connection signature:

  The authenticity of host '100.64.0.46 (100.64.0.46)' can't be established.
  ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:yE4jh7gROroduLqbIFcInlUXrpDy8JIpJPc+XvtIpWs.
  This key is not known by any other names.
  Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])?

Could we do the same thing with a cell tower and not jump to it unless it was approved manually and a signature of that tower was stored for future connections?

It would be a bit of a pain to accept a new cell tower when I'm in a new city, but I could imagine syncing a whitelisted trusted set of cell phone towers (ha, when I think of that the whole idea of "trusted" is laughable). But, at least I would have more insight into when I am getting surveilled. And, I could say "not today ICE!" or "tmobile, idk, please give me my HN fix, I don't even care if you know I'm aware my government is tracking me as I pay the service fee!" I bet a whitelist hosted on github would be faster to update than tmobile installing new cell phone towers so privacy enthusiasts could enable their own safety.