261–270 of 474 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people are willing to accept the risk that the NSA is listening in on them. Most people are not willing to accept the risk of an arbitrary person being able to steal their identity.
That already happened as a result of Equifax. Your SSN is no longer secret...so rejoice, you are free to choose whatever phone you like!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Harsh tone but 100% warranted imo. It’s fascinating to see so many otherwise smart people completely fail to understand the changes around them.
Its harsh because there is no way to sugar coat it. This post is full of people bragging about running 9 year old phones with ancient highly vulnerable operating systems. On the same forum that has people bragging about being child geniuses and making posts like “I’m assuming that just by reading HN you have an above average intelligence”. No. You don’t get to claim you are “above average intelligence” when you brag…
Majority of us have better things in life to use our money for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically yes, but that's often not good enough either. Lots of third party code OEMs end up with in their kernels, unmaintainable, and often incompatible with anything.
Now waitasec... I own Crappy unupdated Android one of. And the drivers use the Linux kernel. Last I checked, they need to release source for their drivers. So where is it? And why can't we upstream those patches and "fix" android?
The source helps little since it's just opaque garbage with little to no meaning.
I didn't see it in the article, and so I wonder what the country breakdown for this might be. I get the impression that in the developing world, where android has really taken off, the ability to receive updates is diminished.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Ability to passively decrypt network activity (KRACK). 2. Ability to throw a fully persistent implant onto the device (via Wi-Fi exploit + pivot to AP kernel exploit)
Most phones already come with two persistent implants - the user-antagonistic OS, and the baseband processor! I'm all for trusting computing devices to act as one's agents, but attempting to do so with anything resembling a modern mobile phone is barking up the wrong tree. Even though just having one means taking the location-tracking hit from negligently designed cellular protocols, further exposure can be mitigated…
I don't trust Apple or Google to have my best interests at heart at all, but I am quite confident that neither of them will literally try to extort me with ransomware or kiddie porn. It's weird that you're equating the two.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like my Republic Wireless Moto X running Android 2.3 from 2013. It still works, but usability has degraded significantly.
Did you look into Cyanogenmod/LineageOS?
The case is all scratched up, the protective glass has been replaced two times already (and is up for another replacement soon, touch tends to stop working on cold days in bottom part of the screen), but I am holding on to it, because I haven't seen any newer phone that I wouldn't hate.
They're all either too big (remember when it was cool to have as small phone as possible?), or they lack features like unlocked boot or even a SD card slot.
I'm thinking of going back to some dumb feature phone, if I can find one with good support for importing contacts from outside.
Love the HN crowd here explaining that staying still on old tech full of security holes is a-ok. :) Both Android and iOS have made awesome progress on all fronts, from security to stuff like AR and ML. You can now have a supercomputer in your pocket - just using it for phone/texts is such a waste.
I'd argue the real waste is throwing away a fully-functioning device full of rare-earth metals and other niceties every two years.
I guess paying $150 for a fully up-to-date phone that was worth $700 just two years ago isn't such a bad deal.
Love the HN crowd here explaining that staying still on old tech full of security holes is a-ok. :) Both Android and iOS have made awesome progress on all fronts, from security to stuff like AR and ML. You can now have a supercomputer in your pocket - just using it for phone/texts is such a waste.