PinePhones on assembly line

[Potts]

made in China?

Yes

Then let's hope they use standard technology "clean room" processes, including manual handling with rubber gloves.
When I got my BH phone, I did wipe it down with an alcohol-soaked tissue (good thing there was a screen protector on it with the next-to-last film on top of that - nice "touch", Luke ;-}  ).

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

This in theory could be a concern but nothing is 100% secure. We have to pick and choose the risks we are willing to take, Pine64 is such a small company that I'm reasonably certain the Chinese Government has not installed a backdoor- far more useful and likely is something more mainstream, like an Iphone or Android device.

[dallytaur]

made in China?

Yes

Then let's hope they use standard technology "clean room" processes, including manual handling with rubber gloves.
When I got my BH phone, I did wipe it down with an alcohol-soaked tissue (good thing there was a screen protector on it with the next-to-last film on top of that - nice "touch", Luke ;-}  ).

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

Pine phone is way too small for putting a back door in it we are not worth the target but if pinephone gets to raspberry pi foundation status then it would have to be worried

[misha64]

supply chain is a reasonable point. taking into account scandal with chips on chinese sever motherboards homecalling chines ips from amazon servers. lets hope it is too small company, at least for now

[bcnaz]

Perhaps consider Amazon itself.. ?

Remember the 1990's when almost every browser "search" led to Amazon.?

[mandavel]

Yes

Then let's hope they use standard technology "clean room" processes, including manual handling with rubber gloves.
When I got my BH phone, I did wipe it down with an alcohol-soaked tissue (good thing there was a screen protector on it with the next-to-last film on top of that - nice "touch", Luke ;-}  ).

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

Pine phone is way too small for putting a back door in it we are not worth the target but if pinephone gets to raspberry pi foundation status then it would have to be worried

What do you mean by this? Do I need to throw out my pis?

[wibble]

Then let's hope they use standard technology "clean room" processes, including manual handling with rubber gloves.
When I got my BH phone, I did wipe it down with an alcohol-soaked tissue (good thing there was a screen protector on it with the next-to-last film on top of that - nice "touch", Luke ;-}  ).

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

Pine phone is way too small for putting a back door in it we are not worth the target but if pinephone gets to raspberry pi foundation status then it would have to be worried

What do you mean by this? Do I need to throw out my pis?

It depends on your threat model and level of paranoia ;-)

[mandavel]

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

Pine phone is way too small for putting a back door in it we are not worth the target but if pinephone gets to raspberry pi foundation status then it would have to be worried

What do you mean by this? Do I need to throw out my pis?

It depends on your threat model and level of paranoia ;-)

I mean, if there's a backdoor/chinaman living in my pi, that constitutes a valid enough threat for me I think.


...Is there really?

[wibble]

Not that I'm aware of. I'm keeping my Pis.

[theD0ctor]

made in China?

Yes

Then let's hope they use standard technology "clean room" processes, including manual handling with rubber gloves.
When I got my BH phone, I did wipe it down with an alcohol-soaked tissue (good thing there was a screen protector on it with the next-to-last film on top of that - nice "touch", Luke ;-}  ).

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

lol this concern is always interesting. People need to realize that hardware backdoor is in no realm detectable by ANY company on the planet. A hardware backdoor in practice can exist on the transistor level.. Do you know how many transistors are produced globally? Its more than allll the grains of rice... It is physically unrealistic to be able to determine if on a transistor level , if the device will behave malicious - since it isn't even possible to inspect every transistor on every chip, on every device.. And since this is on the transistor level, almost any device that has any chip at all made in China (even just transistors) - would be suspectible to hardware backdoors. I would bet basically every phone had, or currently has a chip manufactured in china. So in summary, if you're worried about a hardware backdoor in the pinephone, I think you should also apply that to almost any electronic device (especially ones that are in more hands of the general population - there is some truth to security through obscurity, not enough pinephones to make this worth it).

[WarpLover]

Yes

Then let's hope they use standard technology "clean room" processes, including manual handling with rubber gloves.
When I got my BH phone, I did wipe it down with an alcohol-soaked tissue (good thing there was a screen protector on it with the next-to-last film on top of that - nice "touch", Luke ;-}  ).

You shouldn't worry about the virus surviving the long trip to your country. Shipping is taking longer than expected and the phones are being sealed in their boxes probably many days before your unpacking. No virus will be on your phone. You should be more worried about your delivery man coming to your door, and coughing on your parcel

Or HW backdoors.

lol this concern is always interesting. People need to realize that hardware backdoor is in no realm detectable by ANY company on the planet. A hardware backdoor in practice can exist on the transistor level.. Do you know how many transistors are produced globally? Its more than allll the grains of rice... It is physically unrealistic to be able to determine if on a transistor level , if the device will behave malicious - since it isn't even possible to inspect every transistor on every chip, on every device.. And since this is on the transistor level, almost any device that has any chip at all made in China (even just transistors) - would be suspectible to hardware backdoors. I would bet basically every phone had, or currently has a chip manufactured in china. So in summary, if you're worried about a hardware backdoor in the pinephone, I think you should also apply that to almost any electronic device (especially ones that are in more hands of the general population - there is some truth to security through obscurity, not enough pinephones to make this worth it).

 A small group of transistors will never be able to phone home. Functional blocks can.