61–70 of 669 posts
This needs to be done before age verification apps become universal..
Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…
Get a big tech second phone. Cheapest available. Just perform the needed tasks and use your Libre phone for everything else. Does anyone remember having a copy of internet explorer that the bank required (or chrome these days) but using firefox for everything else? Apply that concept to a phone.
Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…
Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…
Get a big tech second phone. Cheapest available. Just perform the needed tasks and use your Libre phone for everything else. Does anyone remember having a copy of internet explorer that the bank required (or chrome these days) but using firefox for everything else? Apply that concept to a phone.
Interesting that they chose Android as a base and not one of the desktop-Linux-for-mobile ports like postmarketOS.
Trying to build a non-Android Linux phone that is competitive is just not practical at this point. It would require an enormous amount of funding.
For it to succeed, they must also help put pressure on governments (countries like Brazil or Italy) and banks to stop depending on "Play Integrity" because only Google has the keys (and blocks leaked ones) so we can't count on bypasses being available (it's not just a matter of obfuscation). This needs to be done before age verification apps become universal..
They should probably prepare themselves to make ideological concessions... The situation is very ugly here in mobile land. Treacherous computing, remote attestation, DRM, all ubiquitous and normalized...
Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really NEED to be forced to attest if you can make your phone look like any damn PC using a browser?
These days browsers are becoming increasingly distrusted. My bank logs my browser out after 30 minutes inactivity and then to log back in I have to confirm the login on my phone.