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> What people really want, is a phone that is on their side. This will never happen. Personal radio communication is innocuous compared to what a modern cell p

> What people really want, is a phone that is on their side. This will never happen. Personal radio communication is innocuous compared to what a modern cell phone is, yet personal radio communication is heavily restricted since decades. Maybe we will eventually see an open source radio stack and truly open source apps. This will only happen once surveillance and kill switches have been moved to another layer. A cell phone will never be on our side, it is far to dangerous.

pbronez 6y ago
I’m not sure how you’re measuring the differences between cell phones and “personal radio communication” here. Cell phones are personal devices built around 3-5 different kinds of radios. If you’re contrasting it with the HAM/Shortwave community, there’s an obvious difference in transmission power. The Electromagnetic Spectrum is a public resource we have to share intelligently. All the core tech in a cell phone is about how to use spectrum efficiently, delivering high speeds with minimal interference. Shortwave is much less sophisticated and operates at much higher power. There are real costs to amateur radio enthusiasts blasting transmissions with incorrectly configured equipment.
someguyorother 6y ago
There exist cellular and wireless cards for PCs too, and still a Linux PC is on our side. But if that's somehow not enough: You could use proof-carrying code or reproducible artifacts to keep the radio stack out of the users' control while still making it obvious what it is that radio stack does. The BIOS analog would then only accept radio code that behaves in a particular way, but it would be clear from the (open) source that the radio code is not spying on you.
bbarnett 6y ago
Frequency locking, max transmit power, and other typically mandated things, are doable in hardware. Radio firmwares can be open source. It's a red herring.

pbronez 6y ago

I’m not sure how you’re measuring the differences between cell phones and “personal radio communication” here. Cell phones are personal devices built around 3-5 different kinds of radios. If you’re contrasting it with the HAM/Shortwave community, there’s an obvious difference in transmission power. The Electromagnetic Spectrum is a public resource we have to share intelligently. All the core tech in a cell phone is about how to use spectrum efficiently, delivering high speeds with minimal interference. Shortwave is much less sophisticated and operates at much higher power. There are real costs to amateur radio enthusiasts blasting transmissions with incorrectly configured equipment.

someguyorother 6y ago

There exist cellular and wireless cards for PCs too, and still a Linux PC is on our side. But if that's somehow not enough: You could use proof-carrying code or reproducible artifacts to keep the radio stack out of the users' control while still making it obvious what it is that radio stack does. The BIOS analog would then only accept radio code that behaves in a particular way, but it would be clear from the (open) source that the radio code is not spying on you.

bbarnett 6y ago

Frequency locking, max transmit power, and other typically mandated things, are doable in hardware. Radio firmwares can be open source. It's a red herring.