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Yes, the phone is your castle, and the castle is breached. By design. Whether that's by your phone automatically backing up your data to the cloud, or whether

Yes, the phone is your castle, and the castle is breached. By design. Whether that's by your phone automatically backing up your data to the cloud, or whether that's because your OS decides to roll out a 'track and trace' update to be used by governmental agencies, or any number of other possibilities. Privacy cannot be regained by petitioning Google, Apple or the government for the features you think you should have - ie total control, repairability, headphone sockets, etc. You are the product. When it turns out our own phones are snitches, the answer is to get out. Why stay in a breached castle? And these snitches can't get stitches. The only answer I see it to ditch the phone.

senko 6y ago
> The only answer I see it to ditch the phone. Did you?
- feralimal 6y ago
  No! It's so damn convenient. I wish I'd never got one. I'm not walking the walk. I've seriously considered the idea for a long time, and it seems bound to happen. The issue for me is the convenience of having a podcast player + camera. But, sigh, I'm not there yet. I'll tell you what, I'll try to extract myself again over the next week.
  - senko 6y ago
    Yeah. I think sometimes about just getting a dumbphone. But the convenience... I'm doing the next best thing - regularly checking up on permissions (& notifications) used by apps I have installed (on Android) and turning off anything that I don't need.
    - feralimal 6y ago
      Yes, but when the Play store can install whatever it wants without your knowledge....
raxxorrax 6y ago
You still have the ability to not use these services and have a reasonable privacy. Makes GPS and blue tooth superficial and you might need to carefully select the apps you trust, but theoretically it can work. I know that most people don't care and it is imposing that others suffer from their indiscretion, but at least there are solutions aside from tracking ambitions of your ISP.
- feralimal 6y ago
  But you don't know what privacy you have or don't have. And they can install an update to covertly 'track and trace' you. How do you even know that this is what is being done? Frankly, I think this was already possible to do. If anything I'm slightly mystified as to why this was announced as if they didn't already have the capability.
fsflover 6y ago
> The only answer I see it to ditch the phone. Why not use a GNU/Linux smartphone instead, use Nextcloud and not trust Google or Apple?
- feralimal 6y ago
  I would be open to this. Are the phones any good? I did buy the red hat tablet a few years ago, but found I didn't use it. Maybe I didn't like the form (a tablet).
  - fsflover 6y ago
    > Are the phones any good? Very much depends on what you need and how reliably they must be for you. The software is not as reliable as in iPhone, but it is improving every month. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411681 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11205 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11205
    - feralimal 6y ago
      Thanks. But, reading the comments on the pine64 forum you posted, it doesn't sound that functional. Just last month, they are talking about a non-working camera, and that its unreliable at making calls. It still sounds like the best option to me, is to go for a dumb phone, and leave the more complex stuff for a desktop or laptop.

senko 6y ago

> The only answer I see it to ditch the phone. Did you?

feralimal 6y ago
No! It's so damn convenient. I wish I'd never got one. I'm not walking the walk. I've seriously considered the idea for a long time, and it seems bound to happen. The issue for me is the convenience of having a podcast player + camera. But, sigh, I'm not there yet. I'll tell you what, I'll try to extract myself again over the next week.
- senko 6y ago
  Yeah. I think sometimes about just getting a dumbphone. But the convenience... I'm doing the next best thing - regularly checking up on permissions (& notifications) used by apps I have installed (on Android) and turning off anything that I don't need.
  - feralimal 6y ago
    Yes, but when the Play store can install whatever it wants without your knowledge....

raxxorrax 6y ago

You still have the ability to not use these services and have a reasonable privacy. Makes GPS and blue tooth superficial and you might need to carefully select the apps you trust, but theoretically it can work. I know that most people don't care and it is imposing that others suffer from their indiscretion, but at least there are solutions aside from tracking ambitions of your ISP.

feralimal 6y ago
But you don't know what privacy you have or don't have. And they can install an update to covertly 'track and trace' you. How do you even know that this is what is being done? Frankly, I think this was already possible to do. If anything I'm slightly mystified as to why this was announced as if they didn't already have the capability.

fsflover 6y ago

> The only answer I see it to ditch the phone. Why not use a GNU/Linux smartphone instead, use Nextcloud and not trust Google or Apple?

feralimal 6y ago
I would be open to this. Are the phones any good? I did buy the red hat tablet a few years ago, but found I didn't use it. Maybe I didn't like the form (a tablet).
- fsflover 6y ago
  > Are the phones any good? Very much depends on what you need and how reliably they must be for you. The software is not as reliable as in iPhone, but it is improving every month. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411681 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11205 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11205
  - feralimal 6y ago
    Thanks. But, reading the comments on the pine64 forum you posted, it doesn't sound that functional. Just last month, they are talking about a non-working camera, and that its unreliable at making calls. It still sounds like the best option to me, is to go for a dumb phone, and leave the more complex stuff for a desktop or laptop.