Saturday, October 4, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Buying someone’s real-time location is shockingly cheap

You need to stop handing out your cell number. Seriously.

Published 5 July 2025
– By Naomi Brockwell
11 minute read

Most people have no idea how exposed they are.

Your location is one of the most sensitive pieces of personal information, and yet it’s astonishingly easy to access. For just a few dollars, someone can track your real-time location without ever needing to hack your phone.

This isn’t science fiction or a rare edge case. It’s a thriving industry.

Telecom providers themselves have a long and disturbing history of selling customer location data to data brokers, who then resell it with little oversight.

In 2018, The New York Times exposed how major U.S. carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, were selling access to phone location data. This data was ultimately accessed by bounty hunters and law enforcement, without user consent or a warrant.

A 2019 investigation by Vice showed that you could buy the real-time location of nearly any phone in the U.S. for about $300.

Other vendors advertise this service for as little as $5 on underground forums and encrypted messaging channels. No need to compromise someone’s device, just give them a phone number.

The big takeaway from this article is that if someone has your number, they can get your location. We’re going to go over how to shut this tracking method down.

Whether you’re an activist, journalist, or just someone who values your right to privacy, this newsletter series is designed to give you the tools to disappear from unwanted tracking, one layer at a time.

How cell numbers leak location

Your cell number is a real-time tracking beacon. Every time your phone is powered on, it talks to nearby cell towers. This happens even if you’re not making a call.

Your phone’s location is continuously updated in a database called the Home Location Register (HLR), which lets your carrier know which tower to route calls and texts through. If someone has access to your number, they can locate you, sometimes within meters, in real time. Here are some ways they can do it:

1. Access to telecom infrastructure

Selling data / corrupting employees:

Telecom providers are notorious for selling customers’ location data directly from their HLR. Alternatively, unauthorized individuals or entities can illegally access this data by bribing or corrupting telecom employees who have direct access to the HLR.

The data retrieved from the HLR database reveals only which specific cell tower your phone is currently registered to, and typically identifies your approximate location within tens or hundreds of meters, depending on tower density in the area.

To pinpoint your exact location with greater precision, down to just a few meters, requires additional specialized methods, such as carrier-based triangulation. Triangulation involves actively measuring your phone’s signal strength or timing from multiple cell towers simultaneously. Such detailed, real-time triangulation is typically restricted to telecom companies and authorized law enforcement agencies. However, these advanced methods can also be misused if telecom personnel or authorized entities are compromised through bribery or corruption.

Exploiting the SS7 protocol (telecom network vulnerabilities):

Attackers can also exploit vulnerabilities such as those in SS7, a global telecom signaling protocol, to illicitly request your current cell tower location from the HLR database. SS7 itself doesn’t store any location data — it provides the means to query your carrier’s HLR and retrieve your current tower association.

2. IMSI catchers (“Stingrays”): Your phone directly reveals its location

IMSI catchers (often called “Stingrays”) are specialized surveillance devices acting as fake cell towers. Your phone constantly searches for the strongest available cell signal, automatically connecting to these fake towers if their signals appear stronger than legitimate ones.

In this method, instead of querying telecom databases, your phone directly reveals its own location to whoever is operating the fake cell tower, as soon as the phone connects. Operators of IMSI catchers measure signal strength between your phone and their device, enabling precise location tracking, often accurate within a few meters.

While IMSI catchers were initially developed and primarily used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the legality of their use (even by authorities) is subject to ongoing debate. Unauthorized versions of IMSI catchers have also become increasingly available on black and gray markets.

The solution? Move to VoIP

Cell numbers use your phone’s baseband processor to communicate directly with cell towers over the cellular network, continuously updating your physical location in telecom databases.

VoIP numbers (Voice over Internet Protocol), on the other hand, transmit calls and texts through the internet using data connections. They don’t keep HLR records, and so they’re immune to tower-based location tracking.

Instead, the call or message is routed through internet infrastructure and only connects to the cellular network at carrier-level switching stations, removing the direct tower-based tracking of your physical location.

So the takeaway is that you want to stop using cell numbers, and start using VoIP number instead, so that anyone who knows your number isn’t able to use it to track your location.

But there’s a catch: VoIP is heavily regulated. In most countries, quality VoIP options are scarce, and short code SMS support is unreliable. In the US, though, there are good tools.

Action items:

1. Get a VoIP provider

Two good apps that you can download where you can generate VoIP numbers in the U.S. are:

  • MySudo: Great for compartmentalizing identity. Up to 9 identities/numbers per account.
  • Cloaked.com: Great for burner/throwaway numbers.

We are not sponsored by or affiliated with any of the companies mentioned here, they’re just tools I use and like. If you have services that you like and recommend, please let others know in the comments!

Setting up MySudo

Step 1: Install the app

  • You will need a phone with the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
  • Search for MySudo, download and install it, or visit the store directly via their webpage.

Step 2: Purchase a plan

  • $15/month gets you up to 9 Sudo profiles, each with its own number. Or you can start with just 1 number for $2/month. You will purchase this plan inside the app store on your phone.

Step 3: Set up your first Sudo profile

When prompted, create your first Sudo profile. Think of this as a separate, compartmentalized identity within MySudo, distinct from your main user account.

Each Sudo profile can include:

  • A dedicated phone number
  • Optional extras like an email alias, username handle, virtual credit card, etc.

For now, we’re focusing only on phone numbers:

  • Choose a purpose for this profile (such as Shopping, Medical, Work). This purpose will appear as a heading in your list of Sudos.
  • Create a name for your Sudo profile (I usually match this to the chosen purpose).

Step 4: Add a phone number to your Sudo

  • Tap the Sudo icon in the top-left corner.
  • Select the Sudo profile you just created.
  • Tap “Add a Phone Number.”
  • Select your preferred country, then enter a city name or area code.
  • Pick a number from the available options, then tap “Choose Number.”

You’re now set up and ready to use your VoIP number!

Step 4: Compartmentalize

You don’t need to assign all 9 numbers right away. But here are helpful categories you might consider:

  • Friends and family
  • Work
  • Government
  • Medical
  • Banking
  • Purchases
  • Anonymous purchases
  • High-risk anonymous use
  • Catch-all / disposable

Incoming calls go through the MySudo app, not your default dialer. Same with SMS. The person on the other end doesn’t know it’s VoIP.

Short codes don’t always work

Short codes (such as verification codes sent by banks or apps) use a special messaging protocol that’s different from regular SMS texts. Many VoIP providers don’t consistently support short codes, because this capability depends entirely on the underlying upstream provider (the entity that originally provisioned these numbers) not on the VoIP reseller you purchased from.

If you encounter problems receiving short codes, here are ways around the issue:

  • Use the “Call Me” option:
    Many services offer an alternative verification method: a phone call delivering the verification code verbally. VoIP numbers handle these incoming verification calls without any issue.
  • Try another VoIP provider (temporary):
    If a service blocks your primary VoIP number and insists on a real cellular number, you can borrow a non‑VoIP SIM verification service like SMSPool.net. They provide actual cell‑based phone numbers via the internet, but note: these are intended for temporary or burner use only. Don’t rely on rented numbers from these services for important or long-term accounts, always use stable, long-term numbers for critical purposes.
  • Register using a real cell number and port it to VoIP:
    For critical accounts, another option is to use a prepaid SIM card temporarily to register your account, then immediately port that number to a VoIP provider (such as MySudo or Google Voice). Many services only check whether a number is cellular or VoIP during initial account registration, and don’t recheck later.
  • Maintain a separate SIM just for critical 2FA:
    If you find that after porting, you still can’t reliably receive certain verification codes (particularly short codes), you might need to maintain a separate, dedicated SIM and cellular number exclusively for receiving critical two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. Do not share this dedicated SIM number with everyone, and do not use it for regular communications.

Important caveat for high-risk users:

Any SIM cards placed into the same phone are linked together by the telecom carrie, which is important information for high-risk threat models. When you insert a SIM card into your device, the SIM itself will independently send special messages called “proactive SIM messages” to your carrier. These proactive messages:

  • Completely bypass your phone’s operating system (OS), making them invisible and undetectable from user-level software.
  • Contain device-specific identifiers such as the IMEI or IMEISV of your phone and also usually include the IMEI of previous devices in which the SIM was inserted.

If your threat model is particularly high-risk and requires total compartmentalization between identities or numbers, always use separate physical devices for each compartmentalized identity. Most people don’t need to take such extreme precautions, as this generally falls outside their threat model.

Cloaked.com for burner numbers

  • Offers unlimited, disposable phone numbers.
  • Great for one-off verifications, restaurants, or merchants.
  • Doesn’t require installing an app, you can just use it in the browser and never link any forwarding number.
  • Be aware that if any of the VoIP numbers you generated inside Cloaked hasn’t received any calls or messages for 60 days, it enters a watch period. After an additional 60 days without receiving calls or messages (120 days total of inactivity), you lose the number, and it returns to the available pool for someone else to use. Only use Cloaked for numbers you expect to actively receive calls or messages on, or for temporary use where losing the number isn’t an issue.

What to do with your current cell number

Your cell number is already everywhere: breached databases, government forms, medical records, and countless other places. You can’t “un-breach” it, and you don’t want to lose that number because it’s probably an important number that people know they can contact you on. But you can stop it from being used to track you.

Solution: Port your existing cell number to a VoIP Provider

Best choice: Google Voice (recommended due to strong security protections)

  • You can choose to just pay a one-time $20 fee, which turns the number into a receiving-only number. You’ll get to receive calls and texts forever on this number with no ongoing fees.
  • Or you can choose to pay an ongoing monthly fee, which will allow you to continue to make outgoing calls and send outgoing messages from the number.

The one-time fee option will be sufficient for most people, because the aim is to gradually make this existing number obsolete and move people over to your new VoIP numbers.

Google Voice is considered a strong option because the threat of SIM swapping (where an attacker fraudulently takes control of your phone number) is very real and dangerous. Unlike basically every other telecom provider, Google lets you secure your account with a hardware security key, making it significantly harder for attackers to port your number away from your control.

Google obviously is not a privacy-respecting company, but remember, your existing cell number isn’t at all private anyway. The idea is to eventually stop using this number completely, while still retaining control of it.

How to port your existing cell number to Google Voice

  1. Check porting eligibility
    Visit the Google Voice porting tool and enter your number to verify it’s eligible.
  2. Start the port-in process
    • Navigate to Settings → Phones tab → Change / Port.
    • Select “I want to use my mobile number” and follow the on-screen prompts
  3. Pay the one-time fee
    A $20 fee is required to port your number into Google Voice
  4. Complete the porting process
    • Enter your carrier account details and submit the request. Porting generally completes within 24–48 hours, though it can take longer in some cases.
  5. Post-port setup
    • Porting your number to Google Voice cancels your old cellular service. You’ll need a new SIM or plan for regular mobile connectivity, but you’ll ideally only use this new SIM for data, and use your VoIP numbers for communication not the associated cell number.
    • Configure call forwarding, voicemail transcription, and text forwarding to email from the Google Voice Settings page.

Now, even if someone tries to look you up via your old number, they can’t get your real-time location. It’s no longer tied to a SIM that is logging your location in HLRs.

Summary: Take it one step at a time

Switching to VoIP numbers is a big change, so take it step by step:

  1. Download your VoIP apps of choice (like MySudo) and set up your new numbers.
  2. Gradually migrate your contacts to your new VoIP numbers.
  3. Use burner numbers (via Cloaked or similar services) for reservations, merchants, or anyone who doesn’t genuinely need your permanent number.

Keep your existing SIM active for now, until you’re comfortable and confident using the new VoIP system.

When ready, finalize your migration:

  1. Port your original cell number to Google Voice.
  2. Get a new SIM card with a fresh number, but don’t use this new number for calls, texts, or identification.
  3. Use the new SIM solely for data connectivity.

This completes your migration, significantly enhancing your privacy and reducing your exposure to location tracking.

GrapheneOS users

You can’t currently purchase your MySudo subscription directly on a GrapheneOS device. Instead, you’ll first need to buy your MySudo plan through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store using another device.

Once you’ve purchased your plan, you can migrate your account to your GrapheneOS phone:

  1. On your GrapheneOS device, download and install MySudo from your preferred app store (I personally like the Aurora store as a front-end for the Google Play Store).
  2. Open MySudo on your GrapheneOS device and navigate to:
    Settings → Backup & Import/Export → Import from Another Device
  3. Follow the on-screen prompts to securely migrate your entire account over to your GrapheneOS phone.

You can retain your original device as a secure backup for messages and account data.

To ensure reliable, real-time notifications for calls and messages, make sure sandboxed Google Play is enabled on the GrapheneOS profile where you’re using MySudo.

What you’ve achieved

You now have:

  • Up to 9 persistent, compartmentalized VoIP numbers via MySudo.
  • Disposable, on-demand burner numbers via Cloaked.
  • Your original cell number safely ported to Google Voice and secured with a hardware security key.
  • A clear plan for transitioning away from your original cell number.

You’ve replaced a vulnerable, easily trackable cell identifier. Your real-time location is no longer constantly broadcast through cell towers via a number that is identified as belonging to you, your digital identities are better compartmentalized, and you’re significantly harder to track or exploit.

This marks the beginning of a safer digital future. What’s next? More layers, better privacy tools, and greater freedom. Remember, privacy isn’t a destination, it’s a lifestyle. You’re now firmly on that path.

 

Yours in Privacy,
Naomi

Naomi Brockwell is a privacy advocacy and professional speaker, MC, interviewer, producer, podcaster, specialising in blockchain, cryptocurrency and economics. She runs the NBTV channel on Rumble.

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Your battery life reveals more than you think

Published today 8:21
– By Naomi Brockwell
5 minute read

I’ve been running a little experiment the past 10 days.
I carried two phones everywhere: my Google Fi device and my GrapheneOS device.

Every night, here’s how the batteries compared:
• Google Fi: about 5% left
• GrapheneOS: about 50–75% left

What’s going on here? Am I really using the Google Fi phone 2–4x more?

Actually it’s the opposite.
My GrapheneOS phone is my daily driver. That’s where I use Signal, Brave, podcasts, audiobooks, email, camera, notes, calendar, my language app, and other things.

Meanwhile, on my Google Fi phone, I’ve installed exactly two apps: Signal and Google Maps, and I also use it as an internet hotspot. I deleted as many preinstalled apps as I could without breaking the phone, but there are countless ones I can’t remove.

At first glance you might think the hotspot is what’s draining the battery. That’s certainly a factor, but for context I turn the device to airplane mode (and shutting off the hotspot) whenever I’m not using it.

Even with “aggressive battery saver” enabled and hours in airplane mode, the Google phone churned through its battery like crazy.

The fact that the Google phone’s battery still dies so quickly is revealing. Battery drain can actually be a useful indicator of how private your device is. Some of this comes down to deliberate privacy choices, and some of it comes from the inherent design of each operating system.

Why battery drain is a privacy clue

Battery life is a rough but useful proxy for what’s happening under the hood.
If your phone is dead by dinnertime even when you barely use it, something else is doing the work. And “something else” usually means:
• Background services constantly phoning home
• Analytics trackers collecting usage data
• System-level apps pinging servers even when you think they’re off
• Push notification frameworks that keep connections alive 24/7

That invisible activity not only kills your battery, it shows how much your phone is reporting back without your consent.

Your privacy choices also matter

The way I use my devices also makes a huge impact on how much background activity is happening.

On Graphene, I silo apps across six profiles. My main profile has all the functionality I mentioned before. And I’m constantly using the device, but a lot of what I do doesn’t require connectivity. I can take pictures, listen to music, write notes, and listen to audiobooks all without needing to be online.

When I want to check messages, email, or browse the internet, I simply turn WiFi on, and when I’m done I turn it off again (like turning off a light switch when I leave a room).

I also have other apps I rarely use, some of which are more privacy-invasive, like Uber or others that require sandboxed Google Play Services. These are kept in secondary profiles, and when those profiles are inactive, they’re effectively powered off. This means there’s no chance of these apps running in the background.

Meanwhile, on the Google Fi phone, even though I tried to delete as much bloatware as possible, there are countless apps I can’t uninstall and processes I can’t turn off.

Google Play Services is the biggest offender: It’s a hugely invasive process with elevated system permissions that is always on. You can think of it as a hidden operating system layered on top of Android, handling push notifications, location data, updates, and telemetry. It’s not optional.

In some cases it can actually make your battery more efficient by centralizing notifications instead of having each app run its own system. But that depends entirely on how you use your device.

For example, I don’t have a ton of apps on that device that need all their processes to be centralized in a single, more efficient system. I just have 2 apps.

And I don’t use notifications at all, which means that the centralization of push notification services isn’t helpful to me. And even if I did use notifications, Signal is capable of handling its own push notifications without Google Play Services. So for my setup, having Play Services constantly pinging servers and running countless background processes is overkill. It makes a data-minimalist setup impossible.

Why GrapheneOS performs differently

Unlike most Android phones, and especially Google Fi, GrapheneOS doesn’t come with bloatware. It doesn’t have the same preinstalled junk running in the background — it’s an incredibly stripped down OS. If you want Google play services you can install it, but it’s sandboxed just like any other app, without elevated permissions. That means it doesn’t get special system access to spy on everything you do like it does on Android.

On top of that, GrapheneOS lets you isolate apps into separate profiles, each with its own encryption key and background permissions. Apps in one profile can’t see or interact with apps in another.

This not only improves security, it massively reduces unnecessary background chatter. Most of the Graphene phone spends its day idle, instead of phoning home.

Background activity = surveillance

This comparison proved to me that even on a pared-down Google phone with limited use, there are countless processes running behind the scenes that I don’t control and don’t need.

And those processes make a huge difference in how fast the battery disappears.

Other phones show the same pattern

I compared my results with others in my travel group. Their iPhones drained quickly too, even with moderate use. Apple is better than Android on privacy, but iPhones are still packed with system services constantly talking to Apple and 3rd party servers. Background iCloud sync, location lookups, telemetry reporting, Siri analytics etc all adds up.

In short: if your phone battery is always gasping for air, it’s because it’s working for someone else.

Battery life is a window into privacy. If your phone is constantly trying to talk to servers you didn’t ask it to, it’s both:

  1. Bad for your battery
  2. Bad for your privacy

Why this matters

When I travel, I want peace of mind that my phone won’t die halfway through the day. But even more than that, I want confidence that it isn’t secretly working for someone else.

I don’t pretend to know every technical reason that Google Fi and Apple drain so fast, but I do know that I have far less control over their processes than I do on Graphene. On Graphene, I can granularly control which apps access the internet, I can eliminate Google Play Services entirely, I can block apps from accessing sensors they don’t need. I can essentially be a data minimalist, while still having all the connectivity I want on the go.

And the difference in performance is stark. My Graphene phone lasts all day, even with heavy use. It’s calm, efficient, and private. The others are invasive, have hidden connections, and more background processes.

Battery life and privacy are more connected that we might realize, and GrapheneOS is winning on both. It’s another reason why switching to Graphene was one of my favorite privacy choices I’ve ever made.

Check out our video here if you’d like to learn how to install it:

 

Yours in privacy,
Naomi

Naomi Brockwell is a privacy advocacy and professional speaker, MC, interviewer, producer, podcaster, specialising in blockchain, cryptocurrency and economics. She runs the NBTV channel on Rumble.

Elon Musk plans Wikipedia rival – building encyclopedia with AI

Published yesterday 11:08
– By Editorial Staff
Musk has long criticized Wikipedia for being extremely politically correct and urged people to stop donating to the encyclopedia.
2 minute read

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has announced plans to launch Grokipedia, an AI-based encyclopedia that will compete with and according to Musk be a “massive improvement” over Wikipedia. The project builds on his xAI chatbot Grok.

Musk announced the plans on X on Tuesday. Grokipedia will be built using his AI chatbot Grok, which was developed as an alternative to ChatGPT and trained on web data, including public tweets.

In a podcast earlier this month, Musk described how the technology will work.

— Grok is using heavy amounts of inference compute to look at, as an example, a Wikipedia page, what is true, partially true, or false, or missing in this page.

— Now rewrite the page to correct, remove the falsehoods, correct the half-truths, and add the missing context.

Musk has long criticized Wikipedia for being extremely politically correct and urged people to stop donating to the encyclopedia.

Critics often accuse the site of having transformed into a political weapon with a strong left-liberal bias. Conservative and nationalist perspectives are deliberately portrayed as extreme and dangerous, while left-wing and liberal positions are presented as positive or objective facts.

Grokipedia is expected to attract an audience among Musk’s followers and others who agree that Wikipedia has transformed into a politically biased propaganda tool rather than a neutral reference source.

Wikipedia – a propaganda weapon?

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger recently launched a harsh attack on what his creation has become.

— Wikipedia became a weapon of ideological theological war, used to destroy its enemies, Sanger stated in the interview published on X.

He described how the encyclopedia he founded in 2001 together with Jimmy Wales to bring together people with different perspectives has now become a propaganda tool.

— The left has its march through the institutions. And when Wikipedia appeared, it was one of the institutions that they marched through, Sanger explained.

Controlled by anonymous editors

He also criticized the fact that the most powerful editors are anonymous, that conservative sources are blacklisted and that intelligence services have been involved in editing content on Wikipedia.

— We don’t know who they are. They can libel people with impunity, because they’re anonymous, Sanger said about the anonymous editors.

Wikipedia has encountered internal conflicts among editors about how certain events should be presented. The site is the seventh most visited website in the world. When Grokipedia will be launched has not yet been announced.

Austrian armed forces switch to open source

Digital freedom

Published 1 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Austrian soldiers during an alpine exercise.
2 minute read

After an extensive planning process that began in 2020, the Austrian armed forces have now transitioned from Microsoft Office to the open source-based LibreOffice across all 16,000 workstations. The decision was not based on economic considerations but on a pursuit of increased digital sovereignty and independence from external cloud services.

The transition to LibreOffice is the result of a long-term strategy that began five years ago, when it became clear that Microsoft would move its office suite to cloud-based solutions. For an organization like the Austrian armed forces, where security around data handling is of the highest priority, this was a decisive turning point, writes Heise Online.

It was very important for us to show that we are doing this primarily to strengthen our digital sovereignty, to maintain our independence in terms of ICT infrastructure and to ensure that data is only processed in-house, explains Michael Hillebrand from the armed forces’ Directive 6 for ICT and cybersecurity in an interview with Austrian radio station Ö1.

Long-term planning and in-house development

The decision process began in 2020 and was completed the following year. During 2022, detailed planning commenced in parallel with training internal developers to be able to implement improvements and complementary software development. Already then, employees were given the opportunity to voluntarily start using LibreOffice.

In 2023, the project gained further momentum when a German company was hired for external support and development. At the same time, internal e-learning in LibreOffice was introduced, and the software became mandatory within the first departments.

Contributing to the global user base

The armed forces’ commitment to open source is not merely consuming. The adaptations and improvements required for military purposes have been programmed and integrated into the LibreOffice project. So far, over five person-years of work have been financed for this effort – contributions that all LibreOffice users worldwide can benefit from.

We are not doing this to save money, Hillebrand emphasizes to ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation). — We are doing this so that the Armed Forces as an organization, which is there to function when everything else is down, can continue to have products that work within our sphere of influence.

In early September, Hillebrand together with his colleague Nikolaus Stocker presented the transition process at LibreOffice Conference 2025.

Extract of the features that the Austrian armed forces programmed for their own use and then contributed to the LibreOffice project. Image: Bundesheer/heise online

From Microsoft dependency to own control

The starting point in 2021 was Microsoft Office 2016 Professional with a large number of VBA and Access solutions deeply embedded in IT workflows. At the same time, the armed forces were already using their own Linux servers with Samba for email and collaboration solutions, rather than Microsoft’s alternatives.

This year, MS Office 2016 has been removed from all military computers. Those who still believe they need Microsoft Office for their duties can, however, apply internally to have the corresponding module from MS Office 2024 LTSC installed.

The transition underscores a growing trend among European government agencies to prioritize digital independence and control over sensitive information over the convenience of commercial cloud services.

Anthropic challenges Google and OpenAI with new AI flagship model

The future of AI

Published 30 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
AI companies' race continues at a rapid pace, now with a new model from Anthropic.
2 minute read

AI company Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 4.5, described as the company’s most advanced AI system to date and market-leading for programming. According to the company, the model performs better than competitors from Google and OpenAI.

Anthropic has released its new flagship model Claude Sonnet 4.5, which the company claims is the best on the market for coding. According to reports, the model outperforms both Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s GPT-5 on several coding benchmarks, writes TechCrunch.

One of the most remarkable features is the model’s ability to work independently for extended periods. During early testing with enterprise customers, Claude Sonnet 4.5 has been observed coding autonomously for up to 30 hours. During these work sessions, the AI model has not only built applications but also set up database services, purchased domain names, and conducted security audits.

Focus on safety and reliability

Anthropic emphasizes that Claude Sonnet 4.5 is also their safest model to date, with enhanced protection against manipulation and barriers against harmful content. The company states that the model can create “production-ready” applications rather than just prototypes, representing a step forward in reliability.

The model is available via the Claude API and in the Claude chatbot. Pricing for developers is set at 3 dollars per million input tokens and 15 dollars per million output tokens.

Fast pace in the AI race

The launch comes less than two months after the company’s previous flagship model, Claude Opus 4.1. This rapid development pace illustrates, according to TechCrunch, how difficult it is for AI companies to maintain an advantage in the intense competition.

Anthropic’s models have become popular among developers, and major tech companies like Apple and Meta are reported to use Claude internally.

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