8 ms·

yawnn.. ubuntu touch had convergence 5 yeas ago, nobody cared

em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
and Motorola Atrix 4G sortof had that 10 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Webtop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Webtop
- fsflover 5y ago
  This is not the same at all. Librem 5 runs desktop apps on a phone, not making mobile apps run on a big screen.
  - chriswarbo 5y ago
    I've been doing that for about 12 years using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko I still use it every day, since it has my two-factor auth credentials (in GPG); although I transferred my SIM to a PinePhone last Christmas :)
    - seba_dos1 5y ago
      GTA01 and GTA02 had no way to connect external screen though, and even if they had it it wouldn't be pleasant at all - Glamo was even too weak to drive the internal VGA screen :) But yeah - I'm working on the Librem 5 now, but I remember making my first steps in Python on the Openmoko Neo Freerunner back in 2008 while starting to contribute to SHR and it still has a special place in my heart!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
atat7024 5y ago
Bullshit, respectfully. Convergence has been held back by UX and UX alone. It's the single most-requested feature at my bespoke secure technology firm.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > It's the single most-requested feature at my bespoke secure technology firm. I'm curious now, is your firm going to order a bunch of Librem 5 phones?
  - atat7024 5y ago
    No. Their security model does not meet the baseline security needs of our clients.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      Actually you can customize the OS as you wish on this phone. Perhaps it's a big task though.
    - qchris 5y ago
      Would you mind elaborating on that? My understanding is from a verification point of view, the Librem 5 is functionally at the absolute top-tier in terms of OpSec concerns, with everything from the bootloader up being open and customized, full disk encryption available, and the only binary blobs (I think on the modem?) being completely sandboxed. Are there additional concerns, and what kind of solutions do they currently use that do meet those needs?
      - seba_dos1 5y ago
        You can even set up a secure boot chain with your own encryption keys, see: https://boundarydevices.com/high-assurance-boot-hab-i-mx8m-edition/ https://boundarydevices.com/high-assurance-boot-hab-i-mx8m-e... (it's a tutorial for a board that uses SoC from the same family as the Librem 5)
      - atat7024 5y ago
        The Librem 5 is not as open or libre as its marketing has tried to insinuate, simply having its binary blob signed and validated firmware saved in write-protected read-only memory and loaded by a secondary coprocessor to exploit a loophole in the definiton of "libre" hardware to allow it to qualify for the FSF's definiton of "Free" hardware. This renders the firmware unupdateable without shorting a connection. In the event a vulnerability is discovered in the modems or radios, the firmware cannot be updated without physically dismantling the phone. Firmware initialization is also no longer under the control of the host operating system because the initialization is carried out from outside the OS: changing or updating software on the host will not address these design defects. Although the modems and radios are not attached to the host via DMA, they rely on USB for isolation, which simply shifts the trust from the kernel driver to the kernel USB stack, and USB was never designed with distrusting the device plugged into it in mind unlike SMMU/IOMMU, which is specifically designed to mitigate unconstrained DMA. Current releases of the Librem 5 have been plagued by thermal throttling issues and poor battery life which in some cases has clocked in at less than 1 hour at idle. The Librem 5 does not even support software encryption and no progress has been made toward adding even LUKS encryption. The Librem 5 lacks a secure element for any hardware binding on the encryption and so would be entirely dependent on software-only encryption. The rebranded version of Debian that the Librem 5 uses as an operating system uses the same security model as the desktop stack, which is a perimeter or "all or nothing" security model. In the future, applications may be installed utilizing FlatPak. The threat model and measures FlatPak takes to meet it are as of yet unclear and uncertain. From https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/master/GrapheneOS-vs-Others.md https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/ma... which may be mildly out of date — but I doubt it. tl;dr Wake me up when you have an IOMMU!
swiley 5y ago
Respectfully, ubuntu touch is a terrible OS. When people ask for convergence on a phone they want a normal desktop Linux OS not an Android knockoff that can run some X11 apps.

and Motorola Atrix 4G sortof had that 10 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Webtop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Webtop

fsflover 5y ago
This is not the same at all. Librem 5 runs desktop apps on a phone, not making mobile apps run on a big screen.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  I've been doing that for about 12 years using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko I still use it every day, since it has my two-factor auth credentials (in GPG); although I transferred my SIM to a PinePhone last Christmas :)
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    GTA01 and GTA02 had no way to connect external screen though, and even if they had it it wouldn't be pleasant at all - Glamo was even too weak to drive the internal VGA screen :) But yeah - I'm working on the Librem 5 now, but I remember making my first steps in Python on the Openmoko Neo Freerunner back in 2008 while starting to contribute to SHR and it still has a special place in my heart!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

atat7024 5y ago

Bullshit, respectfully. Convergence has been held back by UX and UX alone. It's the single most-requested feature at my bespoke secure technology firm.

fsflover 5y ago
> It's the single most-requested feature at my bespoke secure technology firm. I'm curious now, is your firm going to order a bunch of Librem 5 phones?
- atat7024 5y ago
  No. Their security model does not meet the baseline security needs of our clients.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Actually you can customize the OS as you wish on this phone. Perhaps it's a big task though.
  - qchris 5y ago
    Would you mind elaborating on that? My understanding is from a verification point of view, the Librem 5 is functionally at the absolute top-tier in terms of OpSec concerns, with everything from the bootloader up being open and customized, full disk encryption available, and the only binary blobs (I think on the modem?) being completely sandboxed. Are there additional concerns, and what kind of solutions do they currently use that do meet those needs?
    - seba_dos1 5y ago
      You can even set up a secure boot chain with your own encryption keys, see: https://boundarydevices.com/high-assurance-boot-hab-i-mx8m-edition/ https://boundarydevices.com/high-assurance-boot-hab-i-mx8m-e... (it's a tutorial for a board that uses SoC from the same family as the Librem 5)
    - atat7024 5y ago
      The Librem 5 is not as open or libre as its marketing has tried to insinuate, simply having its binary blob signed and validated firmware saved in write-protected read-only memory and loaded by a secondary coprocessor to exploit a loophole in the definiton of "libre" hardware to allow it to qualify for the FSF's definiton of "Free" hardware. This renders the firmware unupdateable without shorting a connection. In the event a vulnerability is discovered in the modems or radios, the firmware cannot be updated without physically dismantling the phone. Firmware initialization is also no longer under the control of the host operating system because the initialization is carried out from outside the OS: changing or updating software on the host will not address these design defects. Although the modems and radios are not attached to the host via DMA, they rely on USB for isolation, which simply shifts the trust from the kernel driver to the kernel USB stack, and USB was never designed with distrusting the device plugged into it in mind unlike SMMU/IOMMU, which is specifically designed to mitigate unconstrained DMA. Current releases of the Librem 5 have been plagued by thermal throttling issues and poor battery life which in some cases has clocked in at less than 1 hour at idle. The Librem 5 does not even support software encryption and no progress has been made toward adding even LUKS encryption. The Librem 5 lacks a secure element for any hardware binding on the encryption and so would be entirely dependent on software-only encryption. The rebranded version of Debian that the Librem 5 uses as an operating system uses the same security model as the desktop stack, which is a perimeter or "all or nothing" security model. In the future, applications may be installed utilizing FlatPak. The threat model and measures FlatPak takes to meet it are as of yet unclear and uncertain. From https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/master/GrapheneOS-vs-Others.md https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/ma... which may be mildly out of date — but I doubt it. tl;dr Wake me up when you have an IOMMU!

swiley 5y ago

Respectfully, ubuntu touch is a terrible OS. When people ask for convergence on a phone they want a normal desktop Linux OS not an Android knockoff that can run some X11 apps.