Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

nitrokey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 71 posts

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#41

Post by tristor »

deltaonefour wrote: post #40

Serious question; not trying to be snarky. Other than just personal privacy preferences what would are some practical reasons for why someone would use this phone?

Serious Answer:

1. I think that I have a right to participate in the digital commons without selling my soul to my choice of two possible corporate masters (Apple or Google).

1A. Corollary, the digital commons necessarily includes the ability to interact with the Internet in a mobile way.

2. There are mobile applications that have such a marked and clear positive impact on my life that doing without them is not merely an issue of convenience, but an issue of capability.

2A. These applications, through market forces, are only available on mobile devices running common mobile OSes.

3. My means of income requires me to fit as much as possible a societal mold that includes availability during reasonable hours via a mobile device.

3A. My employer is not one of the corporate masters, and they have no right to interject themselves in my relationship with my employer that I entered into voluntarily.

When put together, these leave you only one viable option which is running secured hardware with a de-Googled version of Android. I don't see why /this/ device is any better than a Pixel + GrapheneOS done yourself, but the above explains why someone would want a Pixel + GrapheneOS.

You are welcome to disagree with my reasoning, but it is sound.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#42

Post by legrande »

> "NitroPhone is a much better product than we did with Blackphone." Phil Zimmermann, inventor of PGP

Hard to believe this is some sort of Anom[0] type scenario when it's endorsed by Phil Zimmermann.

The only potential issue would be if the device entered a clandestine facility to be backdoored as it gets delivered to a customer. Supply chain attacks are real and plausible.

[0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7b4gg/anom-phone-arcaneos-f...

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#43

Post by deltaonefour »

tristor wrote: post #41
deltaonefour wrote: post #40

Serious question; not trying to be snarky. Other than just personal privacy preferences what would are some practical reasons for why someone would use this phone?

Serious Answer: 1. I think that I have a right to participate in the digital commons without selling my soul to my choice of two possible corporate masters (Apple or Google). 1A. Corollary, the digital commons necessarily includes the ability to interact with the Internet in a mobile way. 2. There are mobile applications that have such a marked and clear positive impact on my life that doing without them is not merel…

I agree with this answer, but I'm not sure how to express the question. I mean something different when I say "practical."

It's like a person who buys a gun because he wants to exercise his second amendment rights versus a hunter who buys a gun to hunt or a cop who buys a gun for law enforcement.

I'm looking for more examples of the later type.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#44

Post by tristor »

deltaonefour wrote: post #43
tristor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious Answer: 1. I think that I have a right to participate in the digital commons without selling my soul to my choice of two possible corporate masters (Apple or Google). 1A. Corollary, the digital commons necessarily includes the ability to interact with the Internet in a mobile way. 2. There are mobile applications that have such a marked and clear positive impact on my life that doing without them is not merel…

I agree with this answer, but I'm not sure how to express the question. I mean something different when I say "practical." It's like a person who buys a gun because he wants to exercise his second amendment rights versus a hunter who buys a gun to hunt or a cop who buys a gun for law enforcement. I'm looking for more examples of the later type.

I think I understand your point, but I'm not sure how anyone could formulate an answer to satisfy it. The split is fundamentally philosophical, because there's no new capability gained by regaining your privacy vs simply accepting the status quo of letting Google interject itself into every aspect of your life. The absence of something cannot add any new capabilities.

On the flip side, I think the mere existence of people who are successfully living a 'normal' life in the current era while regaining some reasonable measure of privacy is enough evidence to support the use case, beyond merely theoretical philosophical ideals.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#45

Post by deltaonefour »

tristor wrote: post #44
deltaonefour wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this answer, but I'm not sure how to express the question. I mean something different when I say "practical." It's like a person who buys a gun because he wants to exercise his second amendment rights versus a hunter who buys a gun to hunt or a cop who buys a gun for law enforcement. I'm looking for more examples of the later type.

I think I understand your point, but I'm not sure how anyone could formulate an answer to satisfy it. The split is fundamentally philosophical, because there's no new capability gained by regaining your privacy vs simply accepting the status quo of letting Google interject itself into every aspect of your life. The absence of something cannot add any new capabilities. On the flip side, I think the mere existence of p…

I was thinking there could be use cases like plausible deniability when doing illegal stuff or maybe these phones are useful for the same reason in espionage? Maybe these phones are required in the defense industry for secret or top secret clearance? Stuff like that was what I was guessing maybe these phones are useful for.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#46

Post by tristor »

deltaonefour wrote: post #45
tristor wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand your point, but I'm not sure how anyone could formulate an answer to satisfy it. The split is fundamentally philosophical, because there's no new capability gained by regaining your privacy vs simply accepting the status quo of letting Google interject itself into every aspect of your life. The absence of something cannot add any new capabilities. On the flip side, I think the mere existence of p…

I was thinking there could be use cases like plausible deniability when doing illegal stuff or maybe these phones are useful for the same reason in espionage? Maybe these phones are required in the defense industry for secret or top secret clearance? Stuff like that was what I was guessing maybe these phones are useful for.

I'm sure those use cases do exist. I know that there are already special secured handsets made by defense contractors like that for use by top officials, generally in partnership with other companies. I believe Halliburton supplied specially modified Blackberries for years to the White House and Department of State, and the last I heard was that a different org was modifying Samsung handsets for similar purposes. Given that shift to Android, it would not surprise me if there was a market here for government officials working on confidential work to need secured handsets running Android where their government could lock the device to only a whitelisted set of apps. The US government for instance already has published STIGs for Android handsets.

The reality is that for me, at least, government use cases don't interest me for a number of reasons, and I don't necessarily think they align with your clarification to the questions either. I think drawing the parallel to firearms is fuzzy, but if we go with that, there are obvious use cases a government has for firearms that don't support an argument in favor of civilian ownership, but there /are/ arguments that support civilian ownership. Perhaps nothing else makes me more anxious than that thought of a world where privacy and crypto are considered to be something only allowed for elites and government officials, where all of us normies have to be surveilled 24/7. This is already a reality in some parts of the world and fast becoming a reality in the West. Hence, I am not really concerned with how useful this may be to government, I am /only/ concerned with how useful this is to normal every-day people who just don't want to be spied on. Most of the modern surveillance isn't even done for a reason, it's just dragnet surveillance on everyone "because they can", which is the worst type.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#47

Post by CountDrewku »

heavyhephaistos wrote: post #29
CountDrewku wrote: post #26

How is this any better than just buying a brand name android phone and putting calyxOS or some custom ROM like lineage on it?

They do the work for you. You could just buy a Pixel 6 and throw GrapheneOS on it, but this is not financially viable if you count the hours needed, especially if you want to recommend a secure phone to non technical friends and not configure it for them.

For 899 Euro? Unless you have money to blow that's financially stupid. Buy a pixel and pay someone with tech experience to configure it for you.

I can't imagine anyone without tech skills wanting a phone like this anyway.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#48

Post by [deleted] »

tristor wrote: post #41
deltaonefour wrote: post #40

Serious question; not trying to be snarky. Other than just personal privacy preferences what would are some practical reasons for why someone would use this phone?

Serious Answer: 1. I think that I have a right to participate in the digital commons without selling my soul to my choice of two possible corporate masters (Apple or Google). 1A. Corollary, the digital commons necessarily includes the ability to interact with the Internet in a mobile way. 2. There are mobile applications that have such a marked and clear positive impact on my life that doing without them is not merel…

[deleted]

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#49

Post by mobiletoss1337 »

deltaonefour wrote: post #40

Serious question; not trying to be snarky. Other than just personal privacy preferences what would are some practical reasons for why someone would use this phone?

In terms of user experience, it's pretty obvious that GrapheneOS suffers by comparison. For example, the camera app isn't as amazing as it is on Pixel with full Google Android, and it probably never will be. You can install apps from the Google pay store with Aurora -- even things like Google maps and Gboard for swipe typing, but you will probably prefer them to be more secure and so you'll lock them down as much as possible, lessening their utility.

So, in "practical", non-privacy/non-security terms, it's crazy to want something like this instead of the "real" Pixel 6 Pro experience (or Samsung S21 Ultra, or iPhone 13 Pro Max, etc), or perhaps until you read e.g. the shockingly bad Samsung privacy policy.

However, there are some other benefits derived from the privacy aspects that aren't strictly privacy benefits themselves:

* Hobby enjoyment

* Trusting (to a degree) your device

But, for me, I love my GrapheneOS phone and it's all of the above. I can live with the limitations, for the most part, and I've also purchased a wonderful Fujifilm camera when I really want to take amazing photos, which of course blows away any phone camera system anyway. The Pixel itself is still a really great smart phone experience, and way beyond my Pine phone (current generation) in terms of both security and usability, even without the few things that are taken out when you switch from Google to open source Android.

Re: NitroPhone 2/Pro with 4.5 years of software updates

#50

Post by mobiletoss1337 »

jabej wrote: post #36
acd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say they have nothing to hide. Yet would you hand your unlocked cell phone over to a stranger? People give away all kind of personal data for free to adtech. If you have serious privacy concerns phones like this makes sense.

A total stranger? Sure, why not. That’s why I don’t care about big tech having my info. Friends or relatives? No way.

What if those strangers were going to attack your friends, neighbors, or elderly parents with every scam and shady advertising/phishing scheme that they could invent?
Post reply on HN