05-30-2021, 09:21 AM
One thing I can't stand about conventional smartphones, from Android to Apple and pretty much all of them these days, is the practice of hiding or forcing certain software in the device either for the sake of a company or that of the government. There's been news in recent years that some devices made it impossible to uninstall Facebook if you don't want to use it: Obviously there's no such issue with the Pinephone thank goodness... I take it there isn't even a Facebook app to begin with, you probably use that from a web browser like on a normal computer the way it's meant to be.
But I was also wondering about things some pesky governments have been pushing smartphone manufacturers to include in their devices. I know encryption backdoors aren't a risk thankfully; They haven't gotten their way with that and never will... especially not on open-source devices where it wouldn't even be possible to maintain them, people would find out and the community wouldn't accept it thus replacing any compromised software packages.
On the other side, there was talk many years ago about the government of South Korea doing the extremely creepy thing of trying to force phone manufacturers to install tracking software on every teenage user in the country, even threatening teens or their parents with arrest if the state's spying software is removed from any device. I take it Koreans can still buy Pinephones despite this, which of course don't come infested with such a disgusting product thank the gods.
Another big example closer to home is an alert system that was discussed a few years ago if I'm not mistaken; Something that allowed authorities to track where your phone is located, and if you're in an area where a calamity is happening they'd have the ability to force a message on your device and you couldn't disable the thing. As an optional service I'm definitely not against it, quite the contrary... but forced and hardcoded into my device, no way I don't want any of that stuff.
So other than compliance with certain radio frequencies and normal technical stuff: Is all top level software in the device free from services or practices that can't be disabled, based on the desire of any authority other that the user of each device? I don't doubt it should be so but asking just to ensure there's no such risk.
But I was also wondering about things some pesky governments have been pushing smartphone manufacturers to include in their devices. I know encryption backdoors aren't a risk thankfully; They haven't gotten their way with that and never will... especially not on open-source devices where it wouldn't even be possible to maintain them, people would find out and the community wouldn't accept it thus replacing any compromised software packages.
On the other side, there was talk many years ago about the government of South Korea doing the extremely creepy thing of trying to force phone manufacturers to install tracking software on every teenage user in the country, even threatening teens or their parents with arrest if the state's spying software is removed from any device. I take it Koreans can still buy Pinephones despite this, which of course don't come infested with such a disgusting product thank the gods.
Another big example closer to home is an alert system that was discussed a few years ago if I'm not mistaken; Something that allowed authorities to track where your phone is located, and if you're in an area where a calamity is happening they'd have the ability to force a message on your device and you couldn't disable the thing. As an optional service I'm definitely not against it, quite the contrary... but forced and hardcoded into my device, no way I don't want any of that stuff.
So other than compliance with certain radio frequencies and normal technical stuff: Is all top level software in the device free from services or practices that can't be disabled, based on the desire of any authority other that the user of each device? I don't doubt it should be so but asking just to ensure there's no such risk.