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The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

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Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#21

Post by heavyset_go »

mikece wrote: post #10
nimbius wrote: post #3

tell ya what i really wanna see from pinephone: AGPS lockdown. Currently ive learned from HN there are numerous 3GPP protocols that provide direct, clandestine monitoring of the GPS location of the phone. the feature lives unchallenged in the firmware, so if you can give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge, id be ever grateful.

Does the carrier sell this information? There are many/most apps that I don't allow to get location data and that's because, in my judgement, they don't need it and I don't trust them not to sell it: I can opt out. But if the carriers are actively gathering my location information and are selling it without giving me a way to opt out then perhaps I need to think about my phone as something I turn off most of the time…

Carriers sell location data, yes.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#22

Post by asojfdowgh »

scarface74 wrote: post #15

So a 2015 iPhone 6S runs the latest version of iOS. A 2013 iPhone 5s is still getting security updates. A 2011 iPhone 4s doesn’t support LTE and soon won’t be able to connect to any network. Verizon is shutting down their CDMA network as is Sprint. So how does open source make my life better? From a hardware side, why wouldn’t I just take my phone to any number of places to get the battery replaced?

my pc is older than all of those numbers and runs fine, and I expect roughly the same from the pinephone

for my pc if I wanna use a sim card after old network shutdown, all it is is swapping a single card on the mobo, perhaps swapping out some antennas too

for the pinephone, just swapping the baseboard without the rest changing, or make/group hire someone to make a case with an updated modem

for battery, because you get a free battery to keep around for emergencies when you buy a new one.

I guess if you want to pay to fix your problems, fine, but not everyone has the luxury to do that!

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#23

Post by nemothekid »

nimbius wrote: post #3

tell ya what i really wanna see from pinephone: AGPS lockdown. Currently ive learned from HN there are numerous 3GPP protocols that provide direct, clandestine monitoring of the GPS location of the phone. the feature lives unchallenged in the firmware, so if you can give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge, id be ever grateful.

>give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge

Does this work by reporting GPS data? I thought this data was acquired with cellular triangulation.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#25

Post by Ardon »

mikece wrote: post #10
nimbius wrote: post #3

tell ya what i really wanna see from pinephone: AGPS lockdown. Currently ive learned from HN there are numerous 3GPP protocols that provide direct, clandestine monitoring of the GPS location of the phone. the feature lives unchallenged in the firmware, so if you can give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge, id be ever grateful.

Does the carrier sell this information? There are many/most apps that I don't allow to get location data and that's because, in my judgement, they don't need it and I don't trust them not to sell it: I can opt out. But if the carriers are actively gathering my location information and are selling it without giving me a way to opt out then perhaps I need to think about my phone as something I turn off most of the time…

Cell carriers would generally be tracking you via cell tower triangulation, which can't be rebuffed with software, but that's why the PinePhone has a switch to physically power off the modem (and thus antenna) which does prevent that tracking.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#26

Post by azalemeth »

mikece wrote: post #2

Why LineageOS and not GrapheneOS? I have a Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS and really like it. The lack of Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google's push notifications service) isn't an issue for personal usage; for work I still use an iPhone because I don't want to put things like MS Teams on Graphene OS. As for PinePhone: it's interesting that this article puts LineageOS and PinePhone together since the latter cannot run the for…

The thing that annoys me about GrapheneOS is that it is not possible to install a sudo binary or to root the phone. I get that this is a Good Thing from a security perspective, but I don't like the fact that I can't install AdAway for resource-less adblocking with an edited hosts file, the ability to SSH into my phone with a certificate, or the ability to make good "nandroid" backups. I also philosophically like the fact that I'm in control, ultimately, of my device and if I want to send an app fake data, I can do so. The GrapheneOS developers have quite sternly said that they won't ever develop a rootable version of the OS, and that makes me sad.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#27

Post by solenoidalslide »

josephcsible wrote: post #24

I'd totally use a more open-source phone OS, if only there weren't communications and banking apps that check to make sure you're running an unmodified major manufacturer's OS, and refuse to run if they find any evidence that you aren't.

Which major banking and communications companies refuse to let you access their services via browser?

This is when we absolutely need to name and shame.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#28

Post by kjellsbells »

nimbius wrote: post #3

tell ya what i really wanna see from pinephone: AGPS lockdown. Currently ive learned from HN there are numerous 3GPP protocols that provide direct, clandestine monitoring of the GPS location of the phone. the feature lives unchallenged in the firmware, so if you can give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge, id be ever grateful.

that feels like a legal hurdle not a technical one. The carrier is obliged by the regulator (eg US FCC) to be able to locate the phone to within a few meters of accuracy without relying on user action in order to meet their commitments around emergency service.

The problem here isnt the collection of data, its the abuse of that data whether its sale to data brokers or over enthusiastic law enforcement using GPS pings on flimsy pretexts to sweep people up.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#29

Post by HidyBush »

The funny thing is that PinePhone's problems almost entirely fall on the software side. I think we can all agree that for basic smartphone usage the base PinePhone is plenty overkill. How much processing power do you need to send messages? Take and look at moderate resolution photos? Render an OpenStreetMap tile?

If somehow web browsers didn't exist the only downsides left for the Pinephone would maybe be regarding high performance video recording, some ML features and 3D games.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#30

Post by zwieback »

I like the idea of a more open phone a lot but dispute the "Smartphones are shit" premise. I think modern smart phones are an unbelievably awesome value. Battery, display, wireless and processing power have advanced at such an unbelievable rate that we have something in our pockets that far exceeds predictions of 20, 30, 100 years ago. The problem is that we don't want to pay what it really costs to have such a great system so we sell our souls and then endlessly gripe about it.

Pinephone et al appeal to nerds and are a good reference case about those tradeoffs but I'm doubtful they'll tip the scale.

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