621–630 of 668 posts
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Not exactly same capabilities as Android phones yet, but getting there fast with software updates: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 .
It's not anywhere near flagship speed though (only in boot time!)
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user-controlled / cheap / fast - pick 2. There's no way around economies of scale for consumer products.
Why can't Pine64 make $400 pinebook pros? I'd happily purchase a device that does something in 21st century standards.
Money: Pine64 is a small operation with limited resources, factories have minimum order quantities among other commitments.
Most Pine64 products have pre-alpha software and are aimed at volunteers who can improve it. Lots of people are willing to buy a product for <$150 and "see how it goes". $400 filters out a lot of people who might otherwise chip-away at software bugs on weekends. Additionally, people are less tolerant of dead pixels on a $400 laptop, and Pine64 would rather not deal with returns.
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Letters sent with homing pigeons were mostly private...
But a pidgeon leaves a trail of metadata on the ground as it carries your message, so this communication channel is still vulnerable to bulk network analysis by some Advanced Persistent Threat.
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2FA is about having a factor which changes everytime you use it so if the medium is intercepted somehow the account isn't permanently compromised. It's protection for when using untrusted computing devices, or because most people have their passwords in some way visible or shared. TOTPs can't be reasonably made much longer then they are while still usefully entered, but my password database never leaves my own device…
IMO this reduces the protection of 2FA significantly. For me 2FA is primarily not having a single device that's enough to compromise to get access to your important accounts. This means that I never have both factors (password and TOTP key in our case) on a single device. That's why > they've already got my Google Authenticator or whatever DB as well anyway. is of course good for them, but they still need to get my p…
2FA as the internet uses it has always been about dealing with accidental disclosure and public PCs.
The inflation-adjusted price of an IBM AT when it was introduced in 1984 was about $15k.
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Your average desktop/laptop CPU runs a blackbox like Intel AMT or AMD PSP which is basically an always active mini-CPU that runs in the background and is OS-agnostic. If you consider your OS max privilege level as ring 0, this is ring -1. If/when someone manage to conpromise those, they can basically take over your computer, and Intel/AMD doesn't provide any sort of killswitch or physical way of disabling it.
Turn the power off. Unplug all cables. Problem is (temporarily) solved :D
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You can buy a usb cellphone modem for a PC, the rest of the system still belongs to you.
I agree. That's the best way to go. But it is not mutually exclusive with never being able to own your smartphone.
As another commenter pointed out - the Pinephone is device attempting to do that.
I have a similar feeling, but with modern smartphones. Owning my computer is still relatively possible. I can build a computer from parts which I can choose, and have a choice in which operating system to install on them. Laptops are slightly more closed, but even on those I can choose the OS myself. Modern smartphones however, seem like walled gardens in which I have no control at all. I cannot choose any of the par…
The only thing I will say is that I encourage you to get involved with hardware engineering. You will quickly find that small personal electronics have extreme design constraints that are quite unlike a custom-built PC (it's like complaining that you can't just buy RAM, a CPU, enclosure, etc and build your own ECM for your car). People don't drop their battery-powered custom-built PC into 6ft of water and expect it t…
The real tradeoff is size. The ultra thin electronics are the benefit of not having modules. Related to that is performance - the performance you can get is well correlated to how nicely you can put your traces on the PCB connecting the two. Having to go through a connector adds another competing constraint
Source: have done some modular and non modular designs of the same. Not nearly to the same precision and performance requirements as building a phone, but not that far off
For wasting time reproducing the mistakes of the makers risking noise for signal ?
For fixing rules to be the king of a kingdom of one risking blood for throne ?
For protecting secrets to dangerous to share, having risking life ?
For the gut feeling sake of owning, missing common culture as a much more powerful nudge than Google & Co ?
Or just properly for the need of justice ? Just in math, just in time, just for men !
Don’t want to own, but to get proper : one small step in mind, one giant leap in mind kind ;))
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Yeah, I think the parent started with some good concepts like "a computer I own" and "not being spied on", but then missed the lack of relation between the two. You can have a computer that does not connect to the Internet, or connects to the Internet very little, or only connects to the Internet through specific communication channels you open in a firewall. That's all very attainable. However, as soon as you commun…
I'll go further: when have you ever been able to communicate with guaranteed privacy? Telephone? Nope. Ham radio? Nope. Letters sent through the mail? Nope.