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Whoa whoa whoa, Silent OS is based on Android, incorporating many GPLv2 and other FLOSS software. They may have done some minor hardening & UI changes, but beyo
by trome 10y ago
Whoa whoa whoa, Silent OS is based on Android, incorporating many GPLv2 and other FLOSS software. They may have done some minor hardening & UI changes, but beyond that the value of Silent OS is the apps they have built for calling & texting securely.
I could see stopping service on those apps, but bricking the baseband is a step too far, as you lose 911 access and Silent Circle almost certainly had no part in the baseband firmware development and is not a rightsholder to it.
- sjwright 10y agoLet's suppose one of the proprietary software components is a special secure bootloader. If Silent Circle disabled that one component, as they would be rightfully allowed to do, the phone is a brick. I should also point out the claim that the baseband was intentionally bricked is unsubstantiated. We don't know if that's actually happening. Or if it's happening, we don't know if it's intentional. The percentage of proprietary software on the phone — be it five percent or fifty — is orthogonal to the point.