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The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

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Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#31

Post by matthewdgreen »

toolz wrote: post #14

Somehow with multiple comments about how embarrassing the phones association with republican organizations is, no one seems to be talking about how they backup your messaging data in a possibly insecure way and exposing peoples email address if you have an associated phone number. Surely I can't be the only one who finds it incredibly frustrating to see how many people think being republican associated is noteworthy…

>Surely I can't be the only one who finds it incredibly frustrating to see how many people think being republican associated is noteworthy when in the context of scary privacy violations.

I think the point of the conversation is that this is a bad privacy product that is being heavily marketed towards (technically) unsophisticated people who subscribe to a specific brand of politics. Those two facts aren't unrelated. In other words: conservatives are the intended victim here, not the butt of anyone's joke.

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#32

Post by Wistar »

actionablefiber wrote: post #6
Jason_Protell wrote: post #3

Freedom Phone comes with Newsmax and OANN apps pre-installed. This takes red flags to a whole new level. https://www.freedomphone.com/

That marketing video on the homepage is... not particularly convincing, and watching it gives me secondhand embarrassment.

Wow. With "secondhand embarrassment" you have deftly labeled a feeling I have had so many times in my life but have never been able to succinctly name.

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#33

Post by exikyut »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #10
actionablefiber wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That marketing video on the homepage is... not particularly convincing, and watching it gives me secondhand embarrassment.

Does that video... actually have the "Activate Windows" watermark in the thumbnail?

...It does!

I honestly don't know what to do with this information. Is this an intentional message? It's extremely overt.

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#34

Post by testbjjl »

loeg wrote: post #19
toolz wrote: post #14

Somehow with multiple comments about how embarrassing the phones association with republican organizations is, no one seems to be talking about how they backup your messaging data in a possibly insecure way and exposing peoples email address if you have an associated phone number. Surely I can't be the only one who finds it incredibly frustrating to see how many people think being republican associated is noteworthy…

> Somehow with multiple comments about how embarrassing the phones association with republican organizations is As of this writing, no comments exist that match that description. One comment mentions that it's a phone marketed at conservatives, but does not describe that association as embarassing.

Front running victimization.

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#36

Post by Casteil »

This certainly isn't the first example of a sketchy/deceptive product targeted at a conservative audience, and it won't be the last...

Grifters have found an easy target in leveraging outrage & persecution fetish, and for all their bluster - their privacy & security practices are typically laughable at best.

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#37

Post by chipotle_coyote »

toolz wrote: post #14

Somehow with multiple comments about how embarrassing the phones association with republican organizations is, no one seems to be talking about how they backup your messaging data in a possibly insecure way and exposing peoples email address if you have an associated phone number. Surely I can't be the only one who finds it incredibly frustrating to see how many people think being republican associated is noteworthy…

The problem here is that "Freedom" in "FreedomPhone" does not seem to be "freedom" the way free software advocates define it, or privacy advocates define it; it seems to be "freedom" the way far-right activists use it as a dogwhistle. If people are a bit focused on the company's politics, it's because they put those politics front and center.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if there was some company doing the inverse of this -- marketing to the segment of the far left that believes tech companies are, if not explicitly conservative, explicitly uber-capitalist and willing to pander to conservatives at every turn to prove how "centrist" they are[1] -- and was doing the same thing that the FreedomPhone is, then the discussion on HN would be pretty similar: we'd be going, "Hey, this looks like it's basically a rebranded phone with dubious software that's being marketed to people with a political chip on their shoulder." The flavor of the chip isn't irrelevant, but it's not what's specifically curious and scammy about it.[2]

[1]: I am sure there are conservatives who are reading this and scoffing at the idea that leftists think social media companies are biased against them. All I can say is that I probably follow more leftists than you do, then, and you're gonna have to trust me on this one.

[2]: There is an interesting and weird history of marketing scams that specifically target conservatives, and evidence that there's more of that on the right than the left (although by no means is it exclusively right-leaning).

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#38

Post by walterbell »

motohagiography wrote: post #35

Reads a bit like the ANOM phone honeynet playbook being reused but on some oddly specific domestic extremists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM

Upstream Signal was already questionable with mandatory telco identifier and social graph disclosure, yet this manages to make it even worse.

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#39

Post by codethief »

Wistar wrote: post #32
actionablefiber wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That marketing video on the homepage is... not particularly convincing, and watching it gives me secondhand embarrassment.

Wow. With "secondhand embarrassment" you have deftly labeled a feeling I have had so many times in my life but have never been able to succinctly name.

That term even has its own Wikipedia page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_embarrassment

Re: The Freedom Phone is not great at privacy

#40

Post by fmajid »

breakfastduck wrote: post #5

Anything that includes bloatware is untrustable. No question. Why even bother? You can't seriously run a project like this, add a load of bloatware, and expect to be trusted. Even that misjudgment is enough to understand that the people running this have no genuine interest in user privacy. Talk about undercutting your own reason for existing.

Anything referencing blockchain or cryptocurrencies is a scam. That also applies to the original Signal.
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