patrick.net

The attempts keep getting cooped by the very people they are trying to compete against.
I'm sure the NSA has played a large role in that. Hopefully with Trump he wont allow this project to fail.

Tenpoundbass says

Hopefully with Trump he wont allow this project to fail. will allow the marketplace to determine the value and success of a product.

FTFY

Evan F. says

FTFY

This was way different and you know it.
https://www.datamation.com/open-source/why-the-ubuntu-phone-failed.html

Just look at the article on why it failed. An obvious spin of the reality. There was a huge massive audience of eager early adapters that expected to get a phone that was sent back to the Android Froyo or even Donut flavor as far as limited features compared to now. At least for the first few generations of it.

The reality is it never made it to market to be tested. It was neutered and shelved long before any were available. There was some beta preview that was never even fulfilled IRC, there was deep pocket interests that squashed the project.
That whole why the Ubuntu failed surrounding it's lack of full features compared to Android or Apple is laughable as the biggest features it would lack are the very reasons it was so desirable in the first place. Also the Mobil Phone stores are full of phones that are not Android or Apple and out number those models 10 to 1 at least.
There's still a market for Chicklett and Flip Phones though many carriers like MPCS and BOOST have stopped carrying them, I'm sure for many of the same reasons the Ubuntu phone was shelved.
I mean Google can only admit they track you regardless if you turn it on or off, and Facebook can only admit they are politically biased, if they are confident in their efforts to kill off any real competition.

I'm confident Trump is going to put his big ass Orange foot up that Monopoly Ass!

It will be in all the History books when they talk about the greatest American President.

Tenpoundbass says

there was deep pocket interests that squashed the project.

care to elaborate?

Evan F. says

Tenpoundbass says

there was deep pocket interests that squashed the project.

care to elaborate?

Sure, Apple and Google are rumored to cut off contracts with manufacturers who dare to supply competitors as well, and especially for manufacturers who supply such disruptive trends as Open Source phones. I can't prove it, but have run across this a few times.

In addition, there is the natural reluctance of key suppliers to completely document their chips for the public, thus hindering the creation of Open Source drivers. It's natural because a completely documented chip would open them up to competition and cut into profits, and would of course kill sales of drivers for their chips.

Evan F. says

Tenpoundbass says

there was deep pocket interests that squashed the project.

care to elaborate?

You mean you want me to explain the NSA and Google's cozy relationship that spies on the American smart phone users, and Apples willingness to put the Google Trojan on the apple phones. It's apple for fuck sakes they could have made a decent mapping system if they wanted to. They were probably given a few hundred million to forget about apple services which the NSA didn't want to spend money to tap into, to go for all of the Google services that allows the NSA to keep tabs on Apple users as well.

Patrick says

The Librem 5 phone will be the world’s first ever IP-native mobile handset, using end-to-end encrypted decentralized communication.

Is the company called Pied Piper?

I'm flattered by my phone, since nobody else thinks I am interesting enough to spy on.

NuttBoxer says

Patrick says

The Librem 5 phone will be the world’s first ever IP-native mobile handset, using end-to-end encrypted decentralized communication.

Is the company called Pied Piper?

They're just trying to make the world a better place.

In fact, you could build a much better phone by including long lost features from the old PDAs. There is no substitute for the old app NoviiRemote, for example; most phones don't even have the necessary IR emitters and sensors, and the few that do (mainly LG) have secret drivers and terrible apps. The same goes for FM radio: most phones can do it, but carriers insist on disabling the hardware in order to sell unlimited streaming, so they can monitor what you watch and listen to; LG has FM radio on some models, but proprietary drivers and terrible software. Now that most phone cameras filter out infrared, it would make sense to add an infrared camera for FLIR and temperature sensing. The mobile phone platform has enormous potential, but the current paradigm is based on Apple's walled garden, to maximize revenue.

Patrick says

Google...cut off...Open Source phones.

[If I edited too much, please feel free to correct or delete.]

Firefox OS ran into that problem. Prior to Chrome browser, Google had funded Firefox, for several reasons. Google was trying to get more people online, reduce the dominance of MSFT, etc. Firefox tried to make an OS for smartphones. Firefox OS was basically excluded from the USA market, so it could not compete with Apple and Google. By that time, Google had launched Chrome OS and Chrome browser, so Google cut funding to Mozilla.

Instead, Firefox OS ran only on cheap phones, mostly in India. Worse, Brendan Eich made Firefox OS into a JavaScript delivery vehicle. At the time, the #1 add-on for Firefox browser was NoScript, which exists solely to block JavaScript. Ars Technica wrote that JavaScript made cheap phones unusable (and cross-scripting raises inherent security issues), but Firefox OS had no way to disable JavaScript. As Ars Technica noted, you don't really need JavaScript all the time, nor even at all, so the inability to disable it was needlessly crippling the phones.

Here is where we have disagreed in the past. People from Mozilla (including board members) said there was a difference of opinion about the technology and thus the future direction of the company. Mobile was already becoming huge, as people switched from desktop to mobile. If Firefox OS had allowed disabling JavaScript, those cheap phones could have worked well enough to compete. You have insisted the "only" reason Brendan Eich got fired was because he supported Prop H8, and I can acknowledge that is one reason and it motivated many Mozilla volunteers and partners to complain and some sites asked people to stop using Firefox. You have not yet acknowledged there was also a technical reason, specifically the decision to reduce Firefox OS to a JavaScript delivery vehicle that would not work on the mobile phones that Mozilla was limited to using. The board members who resigned when Eich became CEO, and those who accepted Eich's resignation, cited those reasons. I do also think Eich was wrong about Prop H8 and mishandled the issue as a CEO, but that is beside the point: his insistence on JavaScript messed up Firefox OS so badly that it wouldn't run.

As Ars Technica reported, you can build/buy/sell a phone better than the original iPhone for a really low cost if you can put a viable OS on it. There is a big market for that, since most people don't need nor even necessarily want most of the stuff going into phones now.

My cell phone definitely doesn't spy on me.



But, I do have some issues trying to post to Patnet on it.

Devkits ship.

https://www.slashgear.com/purism-librem-5-dev-kits-ship-bodes-well-for-linux-phone-20558700/

https://puri.sm/posts/the-simplicity-of-making-librem-5-apps/

Getting started with developing applications for a mobile platform can be a challenging task, especially when it comes to building and testing the application on the mobile device itself.

The Librem 5 makes its application development workflow extremely simple.

You don’t need to worry about registering a developer account with some parent company.
You don’t need to register your testing devices and ask the permission to a parent company just to be able to build and run your applications on those devices.
You don’t need to “Jailbreak” your devices in order to access some restricted software or hardware features.
And the best part is that you don’t need to worry about cross platform compiling because you can use the development tools directly on the phone.
The “quick start” video below that I made for the Librem 5 developers documentation demonstrates how quickly you can get up and running with making your own GTK applications on a Librem 5.

In this video, I have attached a Librem 5 to an external keyboard, mouse and monitor through a USB-C hub, and I use GNOME Builder to quickly create a new GTK application project, build it and run it on both the big desktop monitor and the small mobile screen with just a drag and drop across the screens.

Yes, I do all that with the computing power of the Librem 5 only! There are no special effects nor a hidden desktop computer. I even did the screencast recording with an external device so it shows the real speed of the Librem 5 when driving a 32″ Full HD monitor.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/gopublic/tattleware-privacy-employment-1.5978337

School custodian refuses to download phone app that monitors location, says it got her fired

Increase in 'tattleware' a slippery slope for loss of workers’ privacy, employment lawyer warns ...

When her boss told her to download the app, Dionne says she was concerned about her privacy. The app would go on her personal phone and, she says, her boss didn't clearly explain how it worked or what would happen to any data it collected.

"It was just a blanket statement — 'Everybody install this app on their phone. This is how we're doing things from now on,'" said Dionne. ...

"We are giving away a lot of our privacy rights without even realizing what we're giving up," she said. "Before it's too late and we go down some slippery slope, it's time that we looked at this."

Dionne says it was a blow to be fired, but the experience has a silver lining.

She now wants to learn how to help other employees who feel they weren't treated right, either.

"I'm going back to school," said Dionne. "I'm thinking of going into law."

Patrick says

'Everybody install this app on their phone. This is how we're doing things from now on,'

I have some old phones lying in the garage. That app would go on one of these. The phone would stay where it is now.

Patrick says

'Everybody install this app on their phone.

If it is a company supplied phone, fine. If it is the employee's personally owned phone, no way. Just like a company can put trackers on company owned vehicles, but not on employee's private cars.

https://reclaimthenet.org/court-renews-nsa-warrantless-surveillance/

Court scolds FBI for partnering with Google and others on warrantless surveillance but then renews it ...

In a ruling, the surveillance court reprimanded the FBI for multiple episodes of analysts improperly searching for data involving Americans through the warrantless surveillance program. Despite the violations, and general controversy surrounding the program, the court still re-approved it for another year. ...

The law allows the NSA, with the help of tech companies such as AT&T and Google, to harvest online messages and phone calls of non-citizens who are abroad without the need for a warrant. However, often these communications are between foreigners and Americans, which raises the question whether there should be different rules for US citizens’ messages that get intercepted.

The NSA provides relevant data from the program to the FBI, CIA, and the National Counterterrorism Center. The FBI receives data that the NSA deems relevant for investigation for national security reasons. ...

The court also recounted such episodes in its ruling the previous year. Despite the violations, the judge still approved the program for another year.

“While the court is concerned about the apparent widespread violations of the querying standard,” Judge Boasberg wrote, “it lacks sufficient information at this time to assess the adequacy of the F.B.I. system changes and training, post implementation.” Therefore, the court concluded that “the FBI’s querying and minimization procedures meet statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements.”

So the attacks on our basic rights continue with flagrant violation of the 4th Amendment here, in addition to the violations of the 1st and 2nd.

https://lineageos.org/

A free and open-source operating system for various devices, based on the Android mobile platform.

It looks like they gave up on Samsung devices as of 2017. Nothing newer than that.

https://seaglass.cs.washington.edu/

Modern cellphones are vulnerable to attacks by governments and hackers using rogue cellular transmitters called IMSI-catchers. These surveillance devices can precisely locate phones, and sometimes eavesdrop on communications, send spam, or inject malware into phones.

Recent leaks and public records requests have revealed that U.S. law enforcement in Baltimore, Milwaukee, New York, Tacoma, Anaheim, Tucson, and others have used IMSI-catchers extensively in vehicles or aircraft to identify and locate suspects.

These powerful surveillance devices have often been used with little to no judicial oversight. To provide transparency and accountability, we need independent information on who uses them, how often, and when.

SeaGlass sensors collect and upload cell tower signal data to our server where algorithms look for IMSI-catcher signatures.

Main Sensor Parts
Raspberry Pi computer
Cellular modem to scan the cell spectrum
GPS
Bait cellphone
Mobile hotspot to upload data...

To covertly transmit on the same frequencies as the normal cellular network, IMSI-catchers may mimic the identifying properties (mcc, mnc, cell id, etc.) of legitimate cell towers. We expect IMSI-catchers to prefer transmitting strong signals to capture phones and to be some distance away from the towers they may mimic to avoid interference with the real cell tower.

By building a model for each cell tower of how its signals should appear from different positions, we can flag cell tower transmissions that do not match those expected from a legitimate cell tower. This image shows all the measurements of cell ID 7843, where darker colors are stronger signal strengths and larger sizes represent how statistically unlikely the measurement is.

Lol, spying on the people who are spying on us.

Cool, someone else plotted which cell towers he was using on a drive:



I guess it's not that hard because there are databases of cell tower locations and your phone knows your current cell tower ID.

https://fabiensanglard.net/lte/index.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/unredacted-google-lawsuit-docs-detail-efforts-to-collect-user-location-2021-5

Google employees admit in lawsuit that the company made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private, according to newly unredacted court documents.
Even Google execs and employees in charge of location data were confused about how privacy settings worked.
Google was sued by Arizona's attorney general over its data collection practices last year.

So what is the best phone for privacy you can get now? I'm surprised there isn't a company stepping in to fill this void.

Patrick says

Modern cellphones are vulnerable to attacks by governments and hackers using rogue cellular transmitters called IMSI-catchers. These surveillance devices can precisely locate phones, and sometimes eavesdrop on communications, send spam, or inject malware into phones.

I was thinking it might not be too difficult to defend against this, if you can modify the modem to limit which "towers" it will connect to. Mainstream android / ios users would clearly be out of luck here, but maybe an OS phone could be modified this way, and so benefit from this.

Sites like cellmapper.net and others have large crowd sourced databases of towers, with ids for each sector / band on the tower, and such a database could maybe be used to create a whitelist of towers. Maybe only connect to towers that have been there for years or something like that.

Of course, having your name on a software project like this would probably get fbi on you.

RC2006 says

So what is the best phone for privacy you can get now? I'm surprised there isn't a company stepping in to fill this void.

There are two at least:

1. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ (cheap, but some people kinda clunky and slow)
2. https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ (not cheap, and also not available for at least 6 months)

https://thatgeoguy.ca/blog/2021/06/22/Librem-5-Evergreen-vs-Pinephone/

Ok, just came across this today

https://freedomphone.com/

Will Verizon, et al, give you a SIM card for that Freedom phone?

HeadSet says

Will Verizon, et al, give you a SIM card for that Freedom phone?

Yeah, no. Even if some off brand provider does, your data is all pinging a cell tower anyway controlled by one of the major providers. If you connect to the internet or cell signal assume nothing is safe. There's exactly zero providers that can secure your cell signal data.

Not sure why this continues to be a topic. There are so many avenues that you gave up all your data before you even had known about it. Registering for Kindergarten. The list is endless. No one is anonymous.

HeadSet says

Will Verizon, et al, give you a SIM card for that Freedom phone?

No it only runs on Honey Pot Wireless.

Why am I always that guy that saw too much when so little information is provided?

What strikes me curios about this offering is many things.

1) They have been trying to create and release a Google Free phone for well over 10 years now. The powers that be, have hamstrung and prevented it at every turn. Even after years and years in development.

2) Chris Wray announces they are going after Trump supporters and has vowed to chase us down to the ends of the Earth.

3) A few weeks later this phone just magically pops up and appears out of nowhere. Not even a hint that anything like this was ever even in development. Because it wasn't, it's something the CIA just threw together, with a Google debranded OS to make us feel warm, safe and cozy.

4)The preinstalled apps, aren't apps at all, they are according to the Stasi Media, "Fake News" for White Supremacists. From what I can tell, the spalsh page didn't list one single app that we don't get from a regular old computer browser.

5) Parler is featured, but Gab is not. Parler was exposed as a CIA operation to takedown the Proudboys, and the Oath Keepers and help subdue the Right, while the Left stole the election. After the mission was accomplished, Parler quietly was taken down.

6) The biggest thing that gets my Red Flag flying high and waving. Is the intentional lack of any information on the Freedom OS, on the splash page. If this were an honest legit operation, then they would have several pages dedicated on the OS, how it's safer, and how it's different and can't be snooped on by prying eyes. They would be showcasing all of the features, and features to come in future releases. There's none of that!


Suckers Beware, you'll be talking on the phone one minute, then locked up in BIden's London Tower without bail, in solitary confinement with no court date in sight.

And THIS is not This...

https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedomos/

It could well be a trap, like the FBI "secure messaging service" which exposed everything to the FBI.

It should definitely be advertising all its tech specs, but does not seem to.

It should have hardware kill switches for mic, camera, gps, etc. It should have a removable battery.

Patrick says

It should have hardware kill switches for mic, camera, gps, etc.

Until someone breaks the phone apart, no one would know if the hardware switch has a digital bypass as a "feature" if something failed on the switch. This most likely is the case though I don't wire small electronics nor program. It likely wouldn't be hard.

This assumption you can stay private is almost more conspiracy theory than acting like the government is spying on you or I. Do they, yes. Any phone that connects with cellular data is traceable though, likely can get all the info off the phone remotely. Don't buy the BS from the one CA Muslim mass shooting where the FBI couldn't unlock the phone and then did. If you have a phone turned on, anyone can find it within a certain range without GPS. The game is over, boomers (sorry to boomers but true) gave away your (and their) privacy a long time ago.

You can and will be found and/or dragged through mud if someone wants to. Especially the likes of NSA, FBI and CIA. The day you were born the government had data on you unless your mom birthed you in a ditch and dropped you at the fire station. They then likely did a DNA sample on the baby and could likely track it back to you anyway even though you're legally allowed to dump and run.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epnmvz/industry-unmasks-at-scale-maid-to-pii

Unique IDs linked to phones are supposed to be anonymous. But there’s an entire industry that links them to real people and their address.

Tech companies have repeatedly reassured the public that trackers used to follow smartphone users through apps are anonymous or at least pseudonymous, not directly identifying the person using the phone. But what they don't mention is that an entire overlooked industry exists to purposefully and explicitly shatter that anonymity.

They do this by linking mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) collected by apps to a person's full name, physical address, and other personal identifiable information (PII). Motherboard confirmed this by posing as a potential customer to a company that offers linking MAIDs to PII.

"If shady data brokers are selling this information, it makes a mockery of advertisers’ claims that the truckloads of data about Americans that they collect and sell is anonymous," Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard in a statement.

Freedom phone looks promising.

Fortwaynemobile says

Freedom phone looks promising.

As long as it's not just another FBI scam, like their "private" messaging app:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/fbi-operation-trojan-shield-crime-messaging-app-1181168/

How the FBI Tricked Criminals into Using its Messaging App
Hundreds of device users didn’t realize they were carrying the FBI in their back pockets — until they got arrested

Patrick says

Fortwaynemobile says

Freedom phone looks promising.

As long as it's not just another FBI scam, like their "private" messaging app:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/fbi-operation-trojan-shield-crime-messaging-app-1181168/

How the FBI Tricked Criminals into Using its Messaging App
Hundreds of device users didn’t realize they were carrying the FBI in their back pockets — until they got arrested

I can't repeat it enough. You're not private. You never will be if you want to live a functional life with utilities (aka shit, shower, drink water, have lighting, etc.) and the ability to drive (to make income). Every non-municipal (maybe some muni's do) sell your data. Most people don't open many electric or gas accounts in their life. That's all private business. They do a soft pull on your credit and can see almost everything. Many tenants in my past couldn't even get running gas accounts because they didn't pay electric bills. Everything is shared. You're more well known than you think.

Big Brother has been here for a while. You're a little late to the game of privacy if you're trying to do it now or even in the last 20 years. Best way is to fool them. Everyone on this forum is accounted for in some way shape or form. You're better off making them try to prove you are you if that makes sense. Reasonable doubt as they say. If you can line up witnesses that can say with certainty, under perjury, that John Doe (you/me) never talked about fucking squirrels, you have an out. Has to be more than just one thing though, but I think you get the tactic. You make your friends and family become character witnesses. You've then created doubt.

It's backwards, but the LESS data they have on you, it's likely worse if you find yourself in a situation or Big Brother decides to just go after randoms. Now if we turn into a legit kangaroo court system all best (edit: bets) are off. Hence why we have 2A.

Fortwaynemobile says

Freedom phone looks promising.

It's still based on android. And, I'm under the impression that android has a few closed source components. Unless the freedom phone can exclude these parts, google will likely still have their tentacles into your phone. The closed source stuff is likely where the NSA backdoor is.

But, my guess is it will still be somewhat of an improvement on privacy and ability to use apps, at least for now. I would imagine FP can prevent many types of data collection built into the os, but some will be hard to fight. For example, many apps use "push messaging" to save battery and reduce latency on data updates (like, to notify you that you have a new message). Google made it so every android app uses their push messaging server (so the phone only needs to call 1 google server, and that 1 call can get updates for potentially hundreds of apps at the same time - very efficient). But, it means you phone is still talking to google. Apps aren't required to use this service, but many do. I'm also under the impression that many apps depend on "google play services" (a google background app which provides push messaging, gps / location services, and other services). So, either many apps stop working, or you install the google "play" services, which is a spaghetti pile of crap that probably gives them a golden honey pot of personal & tracking info.

I'm skeptical this will be much of an improvement, aside from ability to install certain censured apps.

Hircus says

Fortwaynemobile says

Freedom phone looks promising.

It's still based on android. And, I'm under the impression that android has a few closed source components. Unless the freedom phone can exclude these parts, google will likely still have their tentacles into your phone. The closed source stuff is likely where the NSA backdoor is.

But, my guess is it will still be somewhat of an improvement on privacy and ability to use apps, at least for now. I would imagine FP can prevent many types of data collection built into the os, but some will be hard to fight. For example, many apps use "push messaging" to save battery and reduce latency on data updates (like, to notify you that you have a new message). Google made it so every android app uses their push messaging server (so the phone only needs to call 1 google server, and that 1 call can get updates for potentially hundreds of apps at the same...

It’s mostly the uncensored App Store I think, something like that.

Hircus says

It's still based on android. And

I suspected that and worse. The fact that their splash page is nothing more than a color flyer advert, lacking any details and specs.
What ever your worse fears are about this phone. I would double it to be on the safe side. This phone is scarier than a Boost Mobile bought from a store own John Brennan.