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Your phone is about to stop being yours

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Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#711

Post by effdee »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #583

Someone here on HN used the term "cloud terminal" for modern electronic devices, and I think that is a very fitting name for phones and tablets. They are definitely not computers because they do not actually give the user access to general purpose computing in the sense that the users can control exactly what computations the device is going to execute. They are just terminals whose production costs we cover but whic…

> they do not actually give the user access to general purpose computing in the sense that the users can control exactly what computations the device is going to execute

What prevents the creation of an App that allows one to do exactly that?

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#712

Post by criddell »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #609
criddell wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the feeling that clamping down on useful functionality is often an unfortunate side-effect of closing down paths that are being exploited by criminals to harm users. What should Google do when a change they are making to protect regular less-technical users breaks functionality needed by more advanced users?

I reject your premise. I do not believe that the primary motivation here is to protect less technical users. However even were I to accept that, I would say the change is an unacceptable one thus they should either figure something else out or do nothing.

I think they know that they are going to lose some users.

If you are a fan of open source, maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe this will drive more people and money to open source projects directed at making a better mobile OS.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#713

Post by TommyTran732 »

fsflover wrote: post #628
kuhsaft wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A GrapheneOS phone is just as open as the Librem 5. They both use proprietary blobs and hardware. Librem just tries to hide that fact. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935853#47943179 GrapheneOS is probably more secure also.

> A GrapheneOS phone is just as open as the Librem 5. No, it's not. Try to run a completely free OS on you hardware (like Replicant) and watch the lack of camera, GPS and more. Related discussion for other: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47942070

Quite frankly, the whole Librem ecosystem is significantly less "open" than GrapheneOS or any desktop Linux variant to anyone who look at things objectively instead of using weird FSF semantics.

Instead of loading firmware in sensible manner like GrapheneOS or desktop Linux distros with the linux-firmware package, they keep PureOS "free of blobs" by having the bootloader inject all of the blobs into memory in an extremely shady manner. Since when was having the bootloader tamper with system memory about freedom and openness?

Oh, and they even have the audacity to market this as the "firmware jail" as if it is any more contained than the linux-firmware package too. Truly impressive stuff.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#714

Post by alecsm »

effdee wrote: post #711
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #583

Someone here on HN used the term "cloud terminal" for modern electronic devices, and I think that is a very fitting name for phones and tablets. They are definitely not computers because they do not actually give the user access to general purpose computing in the sense that the users can control exactly what computations the device is going to execute. They are just terminals whose production costs we cover but whic…

> they do not actually give the user access to general purpose computing in the sense that the users can control exactly what computations the device is going to execute What prevents the creation of an App that allows one to do exactly that?

The official store won't accept it and you can't sideload it.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#715

Post by [deleted] »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #583

Someone here on HN used the term "cloud terminal" for modern electronic devices, and I think that is a very fitting name for phones and tablets. They are definitely not computers because they do not actually give the user access to general purpose computing in the sense that the users can control exactly what computations the device is going to execute. They are just terminals whose production costs we cover but whic…

[deleted]

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#716

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

array_key_first wrote: post #398
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security is essential for an appliance like a smart phone. I fight the general purpose computing battle on my desktop with Linux, but on my phone I just need something that won’t be hacked.

I really don't understand this mentality at all. Freedom is about the ability to do more stuff, not the requirement to do more stuff. Meaning, everything you want to do with a locked down phone, you can do with an open one. There's no, like, gun to your head saying you HAVE to side load apps. You can just... not... do that. If you think side loading is insecure. You can download 100% of your apps from the play store.…

Hey, I’ve side loaded and F-Droided and all that. But here’s the thing: I just need the phone to work, minimally spy on me, and not turn into some horrible malware sinkhole. Google and their OEM ecosystem lost my confidence on all three counts.

One thing I used to side load or F-Droid was a keyboard, to circumvent what I perceived as privacy violations. But my selection Year 0 got forked or disappeared by Year 2, idk when or why, and thats a glaring security or privacy risk that I don’t have time to monitor and figure.

I actually thought Google’s solution in the article was charming— toggle developer mode. If you’re in developer mode you know you’ve got something to monitor and mitigate. Smartphones just aren’t powerful enough to use for their own defense at a consumer level against professionalized hackers, and from a product positioning perspective Google’s move is completely defensible.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#717

Post by fsflover »

555244466 wrote: post #692
fsflover wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A GrapheneOS phone is just as open as the Librem 5. No, it's not. Try to run a completely free OS on you hardware (like Replicant) and watch the lack of camera, GPS and more. Related discussion for other: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47942070

The Librem 5 uses a bottom of the barrel, standard industrial CPU from 2017 with no updates. It is no more open than a Google Pixel or any other mobile device. it lacks proper updates, isolated radios, and any form of hardening. The kill switches are also useless if your device is fully compromised and turned into a spying device, all of your data is already gone. The only thing the switches do as a last resort is bl…

> CPU from 2017 with no updates

This is false. Please stop writing false statements without any links. NXP promises to produce the i.MX 8M Quad until Jan. 2033. The support will be even longer.

> it lacks proper updates

This is FUD.

> isolated radios

They are isolated with USB. This might be slightly weaker than IOMMU, but for me the benefit of freedom is worth it. There is no shared memory.

> it lacks proper updates, isolated radios, and any form of hardening

FUD and false information. Please stop this.

> The kill switches are also useless if your device is fully compromised

This is false again. It doesn't matter how much my device might be compromised. The attacker will not get any access to the shut down sensors, radios or voice/video, if I use the three kill switches.

> since speakers are essentially just microphones in reverse

Librem 5 speakers do not support this.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#719

Post by Humorist2290 »

It's incredible that on the same device we can write pithy little comments, we can also play games, listen to music, read countless books, basically access the whole of the internet, and also empty out bank accounts. I'd wager most of those can be done on many people's devices in under a minute, with little more safeguard than a fingerprint.

To me this isn't some security flaw in android that allows users to do something. It's a fundamental flaw in having most of the world's population forced into using a device whose software, firmware, and hardware are gate kept by a handful of monopolistic companies. They want all your eggs in one basket, and they'll hold the basket for you.

For many people these things mediate a person's interaction with the world. That's not some super fantastic responsibility on Google's shoulders, but a humanist catastrophe caused in part by (and of course handsomely profitable for) Google.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#720

Post by fsflover »

TommyTran732 wrote: post #713
fsflover wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A GrapheneOS phone is just as open as the Librem 5. No, it's not. Try to run a completely free OS on you hardware (like Replicant) and watch the lack of camera, GPS and more. Related discussion for other: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47942070

Quite frankly, the whole Librem ecosystem is significantly less "open" than GrapheneOS or any desktop Linux variant to anyone who look at things objectively instead of using weird FSF semantics. Instead of loading firmware in sensible manner like GrapheneOS or desktop Linux distros with the linux-firmware package, they keep PureOS "free of blobs" by having the bootloader inject all of the blobs into memory in an extr…

> Quite frankly, the whole Librem ecosystem is significantly less "open" than GrapheneOS or any desktop Linux variant to anyone who look at things objectively instead of using weird FSF semantics.

You will have a point when your Google phone runs Replicant. Now this is just empty words, i.e., FUD. Which blobs are running on the Librem 5 CPU? Which blobs are running on GrapheneOS CPU?

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