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Zero privacy on mobile devices. News at 11. Mind you, this is not news and anyone should have seen this coming: user profiling, which requires spying, is a bus

Zero privacy on mobile devices. News at 11. Mind you, this is not news and anyone should have seen this coming: user profiling, which requires spying, is a business, and Google is certainly not alone. In a capitalistic world as soon as one player explores successfully a new business, it is immediately followed by others, so don't expect Apple or anyone else to play nicely with users data. The only way to have privacy on devices is to use only fully open ones: hardware, firmware, drivers, OS, apps, protocols; all of them. As of today the number of such devices is sadly zero.

em-bee 3y ago
Zero privacy on mobile devices. News at 11. The only way to have privacy on devices is to use only fully open ones: hardware, firmware, drivers, OS, apps, protocols; all of them. As of today the number of such devices is sadly zero. you can buy phones with an OS that is not under the control of google or apple. that is good enough for now. fully open hardware phones are coming too. and it's also the wrong reaction. because as much as you are right. the general population did not see this coming, and they need to be told to wake up. we need to make as much fuss about this as possible if we want to change it. dismissing that as not news is not helping
- squarefoot 3y ago
  > fully open hardware phones are coming too. Do you have any reference? Not that I don't trust you, I'm actually curious because that would be the #2 conquest of the century, right behind AI.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    well, i am referring to the efforts of the fairphone and the pinephone as well as purism. they are not complete, but to the extend that these projects are successful (and they are doing much better than the openmoko before it), eventually a fully open hardware phone will emerge. basically my confidence is based on these trends. it is likely that an open hardware phone will always be a niche device, but for the past two decades attempts have been made to build such a phone, and i do not believe that these attempts will just stop. on the contrary, as hardware production gets cheaper and cheaper, as the performance of these phones improves and will eventually reach a peak like it has with laptop and desktop devices, it will be easier and easier to actually produce a fully open hardware based phone. at that point the only thing getting in the way would be lobbying and aggressive acquisition by competitors that do not want to see an open phone. a good example on the laptop side are framework laptops. similar attempts were made before but only now i find these models actually competitive in terms of features and price. (i am only waiting for them to offer a keyboard with a trackpoint like thinkpads, for them to be an alternative i can use) open hardware devices will probably always be behind the most cutting edge features by a few years, but these features matter less and less, and to the extent that a 5 year old device is still perfectly usable today, so will an open hardware device with specs that are a few years behind the latest and greatest
luluganeta 3y ago
Genuine question: why the need to make this point? The "no one should be surprised" take baffles me: you clearly care about the progressive loss of privacy, and news like this are the only way to spread awareness of this problem. I cannot imagine someone running into this "news at 11" condemnation of laypeople's supposed lack of understanding, and actually becoming more interested in the issue. This kind of comment is defeatist and demotivating, so I'm curious as to why you, as a proponent of fully open software, would be so intent in making this point.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  > This kind of comment is defeatist and demotivating I apologize if that was the impression, I didn't want to offend anyone nor discourage anyone from hoping to see one day more people becoming aware of the lack of privacy in closed devices; actually if there's someone who is becoming discouraged it's me. I often see people complaining on the lines of "hey, I was chatting about this the other day and now I receive advertising for the same thing", and every single time either they don't care or they're convinced that the next OS/app/contract/whatever version will magically solve every privacy/security problem. How can one hope to raise awareness about the benefits in adopting open platforms if so many users either don't give a damn or can be convinced that security and privacy are a product and not a process? That doesn't mean I'm giving up, but I'm fully aware that today and in this world nobody would be insane enough to design, manufacture and distribute a fully open platform; there's just not enough incentive to do that.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    How can one hope to raise awareness about the benefits in adopting open platforms if so many users either don't give a damn or can be convinced that security and privacy are a product and not a process? this question can be read in two ways: raising awareness is hopeless because no one cares anyways, and: our attempts to raise awareness so far have not worked, so we need to ask how can we raise awareness in ways that people actually notice? we need to focus on the latter and explore more effective methods to raise awareness. today and in this world nobody would be insane enough to design, manufacture and distribute a fully open platform; there's just not enough incentive to do that. this is simply not true. there is plenty of incentive, and the means to do so are becoming more and more approachable. see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39165700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39165700
mu53 3y ago
There are lots of business ventures that are illegal or heavily regulated. I think this is a new business that was made possible by technology, but in its current state, it undermines the social fabric of society
- jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
  >There are lots of business ventures that are illegal or heavily regulated. So????
  - mu53 3y ago
    > I think this is a new business that was made possible by technology, but in its current state, it undermines the social fabric of society

em-bee 3y ago

Zero privacy on mobile devices. News at 11. The only way to have privacy on devices is to use only fully open ones: hardware, firmware, drivers, OS, apps, protocols; all of them. As of today the number of such devices is sadly zero. you can buy phones with an OS that is not under the control of google or apple. that is good enough for now. fully open hardware phones are coming too. and it's also the wrong reaction. because as much as you are right. the general population did not see this coming, and they need to be told to wake up. we need to make as much fuss about this as possible if we want to change it. dismissing that as not news is not helping

squarefoot 3y ago
> fully open hardware phones are coming too. Do you have any reference? Not that I don't trust you, I'm actually curious because that would be the #2 conquest of the century, right behind AI.
- em-bee 3y ago
  well, i am referring to the efforts of the fairphone and the pinephone as well as purism. they are not complete, but to the extend that these projects are successful (and they are doing much better than the openmoko before it), eventually a fully open hardware phone will emerge. basically my confidence is based on these trends. it is likely that an open hardware phone will always be a niche device, but for the past two decades attempts have been made to build such a phone, and i do not believe that these attempts will just stop. on the contrary, as hardware production gets cheaper and cheaper, as the performance of these phones improves and will eventually reach a peak like it has with laptop and desktop devices, it will be easier and easier to actually produce a fully open hardware based phone. at that point the only thing getting in the way would be lobbying and aggressive acquisition by competitors that do not want to see an open phone. a good example on the laptop side are framework laptops. similar attempts were made before but only now i find these models actually competitive in terms of features and price. (i am only waiting for them to offer a keyboard with a trackpoint like thinkpads, for them to be an alternative i can use) open hardware devices will probably always be behind the most cutting edge features by a few years, but these features matter less and less, and to the extent that a 5 year old device is still perfectly usable today, so will an open hardware device with specs that are a few years behind the latest and greatest

luluganeta 3y ago

Genuine question: why the need to make this point? The "no one should be surprised" take baffles me: you clearly care about the progressive loss of privacy, and news like this are the only way to spread awareness of this problem. I cannot imagine someone running into this "news at 11" condemnation of laypeople's supposed lack of understanding, and actually becoming more interested in the issue. This kind of comment is defeatist and demotivating, so I'm curious as to why you, as a proponent of fully open software, would be so intent in making this point.

squarefoot 3y ago
> This kind of comment is defeatist and demotivating I apologize if that was the impression, I didn't want to offend anyone nor discourage anyone from hoping to see one day more people becoming aware of the lack of privacy in closed devices; actually if there's someone who is becoming discouraged it's me. I often see people complaining on the lines of "hey, I was chatting about this the other day and now I receive advertising for the same thing", and every single time either they don't care or they're convinced that the next OS/app/contract/whatever version will magically solve every privacy/security problem. How can one hope to raise awareness about the benefits in adopting open platforms if so many users either don't give a damn or can be convinced that security and privacy are a product and not a process? That doesn't mean I'm giving up, but I'm fully aware that today and in this world nobody would be insane enough to design, manufacture and distribute a fully open platform; there's just not enough incentive to do that.
- em-bee 3y ago
  How can one hope to raise awareness about the benefits in adopting open platforms if so many users either don't give a damn or can be convinced that security and privacy are a product and not a process? this question can be read in two ways: raising awareness is hopeless because no one cares anyways, and: our attempts to raise awareness so far have not worked, so we need to ask how can we raise awareness in ways that people actually notice? we need to focus on the latter and explore more effective methods to raise awareness. today and in this world nobody would be insane enough to design, manufacture and distribute a fully open platform; there's just not enough incentive to do that. this is simply not true. there is plenty of incentive, and the means to do so are becoming more and more approachable. see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39165700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39165700

mu53 3y ago

There are lots of business ventures that are illegal or heavily regulated. I think this is a new business that was made possible by technology, but in its current state, it undermines the social fabric of society

jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
>There are lots of business ventures that are illegal or heavily regulated. So????
- mu53 3y ago
  > I think this is a new business that was made possible by technology, but in its current state, it undermines the social fabric of society