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Please someone, sell me a feature phone with an open source OS that can run Signal. I don't need a web browser, but at least I want to be able to communicate se
by mikae1 4y ago
Please someone, sell me a feature phone with an open source OS that can run Signal. I don't need a web browser, but at least I want to be able to communicate securely with family and friends. Almost all of them have switched so Signal.
- jmprspret 4y agoBuy a Pixel 5a and install GrapheneOS on it. Install signal and disable the rest of the apps. Done.
- midislack 4y agoDo you still seriously need to give out your phone number to use it? Seems shady.
- BaseballPhysics 4y agoCan you just disagree with the design choice rather than implying, without evidence, nefarious motivations? Ongoing work is being done to enable Signal accounts without requiring a phone number (there's been a number of changes to the protocol to support this in the last 6-12 months), it's just not done yet.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoHow would you identify your phone otherwise?
- chinathrow 4y agoBy a random ID as others [1] do? [1] Threema
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y agoMAC address, randomised by the pocket-sized computer owner as needed. Perhaps laypersons are less able to distinguish computer networks from telephone networks than they were 20-30 years ago. Signal relies on a computer network. Signal runs on "personal computers" that are bundled with "phones", but not on phones that lack personal computers. Perhaps one day we will reach the point where "VoIP" becomes meaningless because all voice will be carried over IP.
- midislack 4y agoWhy do you need to identify your phone to use an online messaging service?
- donkarma 4y agoWith a username and password
- jeroenhd 4y agoThe Signal project doesn't want non-official clients to connect to their network. I doubt you'll get them to release an official client for your bespoke dumbphone OS, so I'm afraid you'll have to accept unstable hackery as a way to run signal. You may be able to create your own dumbphone by flashing something like PostmarketOS to a compatible second hand phone combined with a custom Signal client. Just apk remove the browser and any other utilities you don't need and even the librem phone might be fast enough for your use case.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago> The Signal project doesn't want non-official clients to connect to their network. They don't encourage it but they don't ban it either. Non-official clients absolutely exist for the network, some of which use signald, a backend service and abstraction layer for the signal protocol which is neither unstable nor a hack: https://signald.org/ https://signald.org/
- monocasa 4y agoThey have shut down third party clients, and reserve the right to continue that. Both use f the name signal, and connecting to their backend without it being their official client are the reasons given, and those seem to apply to signald just as much. https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
- BaseballPhysics 4y agoGiven that happened six years ago and multiple unofficial clients continue to exist without threat of ban, I'd suggest this one example cannot be extrapolated. It is true that Whisper Systems runs the network and can gatekeep it as they see fit. But your claim that Signal, as a matter of course, bans unofficial clients is objectively not true.
- monocasa 4y ago
- borgel 4y agoPunkt MP02 might meet your needs. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/ https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
- SoftTalker 4y agoI like the idea but that's a lot of money for very limited features. I understand the lack of features is the point, but a Nokia 6300 4G KaiOS phone is only $70. No Signal, but it has WhatsApp.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zajio1am 4y agoIf it can run Signal, then it is pretty much smartphone not feature phone.
- Sakos 4y agoI'm not sure what you're basing this on. Java runtimes have been on feature phones for far longer than we've had smartphones. The only reason why we didn't get more capable feature phones around the time we got 3G networks is because it's the same time we got smartphones with big screens and simple touch-based UIs.
- usr1106 4y agoThe OP seems to ask for only signal, not the possibility to install any other app. I would call that very much a feature phone.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoDepends on how you use those terms. If we're talking about processing power and how sophisticated the underlying tech has to be, then yes I'd tend to agree that the ability to run modern-ish internet-connected apps is at the equivalent of a smart phone. On the other hand, if "feature phone" is about the way the user interacts - a phone that ships with a give set of features and is not intended to run arbitrary apps - then it doesn't matter how sophisticated it is under the hood, only that it bakes in certain apps/features (phone, SMS, Signal) and that's it.
- mkj 4y agoThe signal protocol itself should run on a microcontroller. Showing images or videos would use more compute power.
- toast0 4y agoThere were a bunch of feature phones around 2014 that had an unauthorized (and poorly working) WhatsApp client. Signal of today is a bit trickier to run than WhatsApp of 2014, but it could be done. WhatsApp also ran officially on Nokia Series 40, which was a feature phone platform with apps. There's also KaiOS which is running on phones marketted as feature phones, although it's a fork of FirefoxOS which is Android base plus an HTML+js app model (or something).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- someoneelse9 4y agoSame but replace Signal with XMPP, which is far more flexible, has been around for a longer time and it's federated. But yeah, I agree. We need a feature phone with IM support. That would be perfect.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- toastal 4y agoMutida is open source but with no build instructions or information on how to hack on the device. Read the source, but don't modify it. Since they don't implement apps, there's no way to get a secure messaging system in there as SMS will be you only option. I suppose you could set up OTR or PGP, but you'd still have no built-in ability to encrypt and decrypt.