Hacker Phone Manifesto

[MaSk]

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the friction of using a modern phone and I think it comes down to one thing: every device today stands alone, closed and fixed, telling you exactly what it is and how you're allowed to use it. Little to no expandability, in hardware or software.

I think it's time to challenge that. That belief led me to write a hacker phone manifesto — an attempt to revisit the values behind devices like the N900, and sketch what a phone that's open and hardware-expandable could actually look like.

I'd love to hear whether people think this is technically viable today, or whether the market killed that idea for good reasons. And if this is off-topic here, I apologize in advance, you can point me some place better.

https://beyondframe.ink/hacker-phone-the...-hardware/

Unfortunately the amount of useful discourse on the pine forum has dropped off to nearly nothing.  But just so you know both the pinephone and the librem have hacker interfaces, these were the other half to the hardware paranoia switches.  Initially I had wanted a soldered down POCSAG pager unit with a modem paranoia switch on the Neo900, Joerg(at GDC & maemo forums) responded with the hacker interface; so that we could be fully undetectable but still able to be contacted via pager signal.  Now you see that connection enabling pinephone keyboard, satellite messaging, IR cameras, LoRa, etc.  You can get a pogo-pin adapter ribbon form the pine64 store to interface with the i2c and power pins.

That is really unfortunate. I was hoping to open a discussion regarding technical challenges and possible solutions. I know of a few topics I haven't completely thought through. I suppose I will have to look elsewhere - I am open to suggestions, if you have any.

I have seen the PinePhone keyboard and the other modules that can be connected. I had no idea Librem has a hacker interface as well. I would say it is a good starting point and I suppose it could be a way to build a hacker phone prototype. Make a custom back module that would expose the hacker interface to the rail. This could work well for peripherals. For phone to phone connection a faster interface than I2C would be needed, however that is not necessary for step 1. This is a genuinely good idea.

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Hello everyone, I have been having an issue with the PinePhone. It sometimes randomly freezes (the screen is unresponsive, but the phones still works) and then after 10 seconds, it forcibly reboots and makes a clicking/popping sound (same sound when the camera starts up). The phone seems to be still working as I have been in a call when that happened.

However, the logs don't get saved after the force reboot, so I don't know what's causing the issue. Does anyone have any idea what the issue may be?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the friction of using a modern phone and I think it comes down to one thing: every device today stands alone, closed and fixed, telling you exactly what it is and how you're allowed to use it. Little to no expandability, in hardware or software.

I think it's time to challenge that. That belief led me to write a hacker phone manifesto — an attempt to revisit the values behind devices like the N900, and sketch what a phone that's open and hardware-expandable could actually look like.

I'd love to hear whether people think this is technically viable today, or whether the market killed that idea for good reasons. And if this is off-topic here, I apologize in advance, you can point me some place better.

https://beyondframe.ink/hacker-phone-the...-hardware/

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the friction of using a modern phone and I think it comes down to one thing: every device today stands alone, closed and fixed, telling you exactly what it is and how you're allowed to use it. Little to no expandability, in hardware or software.

I think it's time to challenge that. That belief led me to write a hacker phone manifesto — an attempt to revisit the values behind devices like the N900, and sketch what a phone that's open and hardware-expandable could actually look like.

I'd love to hear whether people think this is technically viable today, or whether the market killed that idea for good reasons. And if this is off-topic here, I apologize in advance, you can point me some place better.

https://beyondframe.ink/hacker-phone-the...-hardware/

Unfortunately the amount of useful discourse on the pine forum has dropped off to nearly nothing.  But just so you know both the pinephone and the librem have hacker interfaces, these were the other half to the hardware paranoia switches.  Initially I had wanted a soldered down POCSAG pager unit with a modem paranoia switch on the Neo900, Joerg(at GDC & maemo forums) responded with the hacker interface; so that we could be fully undetectable but still able to be contacted via pager signal.  Now you see that connection enabling pinephone keyboard, satellite messaging, IR cameras, LoRa, etc.  You can get a pogo-pin adapter ribbon form the pine64 store to interface with the i2c and power pins.

I think it's still technically viable, but the biggest challenge is economics rather than engineering. Most consumers prioritize thin designs, battery life, and low cost over modularity, which makes it difficult for truly open hardware phones to gain mass adoption. That said, there's definitely still a niche of developers, makers, and privacy enthusiasts who would appreciate a more expandable platform.

That may be true, but I never said a hacker phone is meant to be a device for everyone. It is meant to be for people who want more freedom and flexibility and are willing to make some trade-offs. Right now we don't even know what those trade-offs will be. It will probably not be as thin and as performant in terms of raw computational power. The cost may be higher, but if the rail connector carries over across models or even brands - in case it gets adopted as a standard - every accessory you buy carries over with it too, reducing cost over time. Which is not the case with mainstream devices. And if you can connect your old phone to your new phone, using them as a cluster, sharing whatever resources the old device can still offer, there can be an added value in that too.

It wasn't that long ago that the Flipper Zero sold in large numbers, despite being a hacking toy with no Wi-Fi or other network connectivity of its own (it does have an add-on Wi-Fi debugger, often used to work around that limitation). I believe a full-fledged phone with hacker capabilities would drive even higher interest than that.