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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

#771

Post by pcwalton »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #613
janalsncm wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has built local-only apps (partially because I don’t want the hassle of maintaining a server): There are plenty of useful apps that run locally on a phone. You can even run a whole LLM on your phone. The shiniest and most popular apps are cloud terminals but the iPhone is actually a pretty darn powerful device.

Plenty of useful apps != general purpose computing capabilities. You are not allowed to run computations that have not been approved by Apple if you are using an iPhone. Yes, the hardware is powerful, but it is cryptographically locked down. It is physically local, but the control of the hardware is entirely non-local and 100% owned by Apple.

You can run arbitrary computations on iOS devices if they're written in JavaScript, WebAssembly, or Swift (via Playgrounds). All of these are Turing complete, and all three compile into machine code. What you don't have without an Apple developer account is direct machine code access.

Also note that apps like Pythonista allow you to write programs that call arbitrary Objective-C APIs without permission from Apple. This means that you have a Turing-complete language running unsigned code that can do anything a signed app can do. Your programs do, however, execute slowly.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#772

Post by parineum »

estebank wrote: post #23
drnick1 wrote: post #8

I don't care, I run Graphene, and my phone is definitely mine. Most Android apps just work, and the ones that don't are the kind of malware I am happy to do without.

I use GrapheneOS too. Most of the time it works great, with some weird bugs around group messages and needing to restart every now and then to get to a fully functional state between the browser and keyboard properly working with each other and the network connectivity going away. I do enjoy full control on network connectivity and notifications. But beyond whether the OS is good or not, "fuck you, I've got mine" is…

> But beyond whether the OS is good or not, "fuck you, I've got mine"...

What about, "I got mine and you can have it to." Nobody is preventing access to graphene.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#773

Post by gib444 »

dvh wrote: post #658
gib444 wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us more about your 11 apps!

- calendar - spending tracking app - notepad - RSS reader just for my YouTube subscriptions - dumbed down browser that can only show YouTube video and nothing else (no suggestions, no comments) - space sim game - RC boat remote control - micro photo led ring Bluetooth control app - magnetometer control app - RSS reader for news - browser

That's cool. What made you develop a custom browser, notepad, calendar etc?

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#774

Post by kuhsaft »

fsflover wrote: post #720
TommyTran732 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Which blobs are running on the Librem 5 CPU?

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/fw

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/fw/firmware-librem5-nonfree

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/librem5-fw-jail/-/tree/pureos...

> Which blobs are running on GrapheneOS CPU?

Depends on the phone. Arguably though, GrapheneOS has the legacy of years of thousands of security researchers working to secure Android from third-party network and GNSS modules.

---

Just so you know, I'm not using Librem or GrapheneOS. I'm looking at this objectively and have no skin in the game.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#776

Post by kuhsaft »

fsflover wrote: post #717
555244466 wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not OP, but

> 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.

I think they meant that the processor itself is old. It supports ARMv8 and is lacking the enhanced memory protection and execution features of the ARMv9-A processors on newer phones.

> 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.

The problem is that your device can be compromised quite easily and without you knowing. The kill switches are moot at that point.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#777

Post by fsflover »

kuhsaft wrote: post #776
fsflover wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Not OP, but > 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. I think they meant that the processor itself is old. It supports ARMv8 and is lacking the enhanced memory protection and execution features of the ARMv9-A processors on newer phones. > This is false again. It doesn't matter how much my device m…

The kill switches will work independently on a compromise. Why are they moot? Also, it's possible to completely reflash the device in case of doubt.

"quite easily" strongly depends on what exactly you are doing. For example, if I use Firefox with NoScript, then it is not very easy.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#778

Post by adornKey »

gonzalohm wrote: post #671
Anonyneko wrote: post #133

I've resigned to the fact that I'll need to use two phones, one with locked down Android/iOS for banking applications and government services (those require strong bank ID around these parts), another with some kind of a Linux or unlocked Android for literally everything else. Oh well, such is life, most people don't care enough about this to pressure Google/Apple/banks/governments into yielding. A big reason why a n…

Is Linux for phones a thing? Or are you referring to GrapheneOS or LineageOS?

Real Linux on phones is a thing. They're usable, but most hardware is getting old. E.g. PinePhone still works fine, but they recently announced that it's unlikely that we see a new version. They mention that it's hard to be competitive with hardware when people can install PostmarketOS and SailfishOS on cheap old Android Devices for a similar experience.

https://pine64.org/2026/03/24/march_2026_fosdem/#where-is-th...

In the long run - without PinePhone - people will lose more and more control over hardware and drivers.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#779

Post by fsflover »

kuhsaft wrote: post #774
fsflover wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> Which blobs are running on the Librem 5 CPU? https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/fw https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/fw/firmware-librem5-nonfree https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/librem5-fw-jail/-/tree/pureos... > Which blobs are running on GrapheneOS CPU? Depends on the phone. Arguably though, GrapheneOS has the legacy of years of thousands of security researchers working to secure Android from third-party network and GNSS…

In this case I do not understand why you are ignoring the words of a Librem 5 developer saying that no blobs are running on the main CPU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47943487

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#780

Post by Hugsun »

newsy-combi wrote: post #758
simpaticoder wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that makes the least sense. It shows a profound lack of empathy. For many devs this is equivalent to saying "Give up your livelihood to show you support this principle, that will likely have little to no effect". This is advice aimed at wealthy hobbyists. What's worse is that it's not even a principled view. If you really don't trust Google, then you shouldn't rely on Google's software no matter what…

Lack of empathy better describes Google's psychopathic pursuit of ever more control over its users, while the products get ever more enshittified of course.

Two things can be true at once.
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