Librem 5 USA

It's Libre Baskerville: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/libre-baskerville

I find Baskerville pretty readable. Is it the same font you're seeing on the page? I wonder if something caused your browser to show a fallback instead.

I think it reflects that all phones made in China have the potential to be compromised by malicious actors. That risk shouldn't be in most people's threat model, and if you're comparing the Librem to a standard Android phone you're still getting a substantial privacy bump just from hardware kill switches alone.

If you have a very specific threat model, Purism is now one of the few companies that offers made-in-US phones, which (in theory) fills an underserved niche. But most people who want a Librem 5 should get the normal phone.

If you have control over the entire assembly process, that eliminates a class of security risks that otherwise need to be addressed with tamper-evident firmware or by checking for bugs and extra components after the phone is assembled. But that drives costs up substantially, so nobody assembles phones in the US -- not even companies like Apple.

Remember that security isn't binary. Different segments even within the privacy community need different levels of security.

There are many countries where I would expect a conscientious citizen to make the public aware of such a compromise. The United States is among them; Lavabit's actions provide precedent.

why shouldn't, in this case, security be binary? either there is a threat or there isn't. if someone in china is adding additional monitoring malware to librem's phones then isn't the whole privacy/security thing out the window?

either they believe in their chinese supply chain or they don't. and it's not like their usa manufacturing is done in-house by librem so they still don't have 'control over the entire assembly process" because they depend on a 3rd party to make their boards for them.

The problem is no matter what custom flavor of Android you run, you are still running an OS made by an ad company designed from the ground up to spy on you.

And crucially, every time you buy an Android phone and flash another OS on it, you just paid for an Android phone, reinforcing the monopoly and generating profit for companies pushing the Android platform.

The correct solution is to refuse to buy a phone that ships with Android.

A fair warning to anyone looking at placing an order for this.

https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-puri...

https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-puri...

https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-puri...

The company practices a lot of shady business. Their "phone" that they are so proudly claiming to be releasing to backers cannot place phone calls, the camera doesn't work, and there is no power management.

> To turn on your Librem 5 disconnect it from a power source and hold down the power button until it turns on. Currently calling is established (e.g. both sides connect fine) but audio is not routed (no voice heard or sent), this will be a few days until the bug is fixed.

They shipped out a "phone" that can't place phone calls.

edit:

The reason why this is significant is because not being able to make phone calls with a phone is not the type of "bug" that slips through the cracks. The company released the phone despite it not being able to make phone calls, and if this was simply a bug that could be fixed "in a few days", all logic and reasoning suggests that they would have fixed the problem and then shipped the phones to preserve the integrity of their brand and prevent negative brand perception.

The fact that they shipped out a phone that can't place phone calls is highly suggestive that there is a bigger issue with the phone and that they are under a time crunch to show the backers that they have accomplished something with all the funding that they have received.