Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Quoting Rohan McLeod (rhn@jeack.com.au):
Assembled cogniscenti;
I'm interested in opinions and experiences with mobile-phone OS's alternative to Android; Mu. (http://catb.org/jargon/html/M/mu.html)
About smartphone security. Ahem: https://blog.torproject.org/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-an... https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/replicant-developers-find-and-close-sams...
Note that the key and unsolved challenge is the baseband controller, a remotely vulnerable blackbox device that prevents any smartphone OS, no matter how good and 100% ope source, from having reliable security against even a modestly funded opponent (such as, these days, a motivated medium-sized business).
Rich thanks for the reply; the security hole in the actual hardware obviously makes the replacement of of Android with say Lineage problematic eg on my .Galaxy_SII_GT-i9100T How ever the reason I have abandoned that project is more to do with , it's technical contingency ie.the endless hidden gotcha's in the numerous ' recipes' , mentioned ; and my own lack of expertise. Also the original issue was the shear bloody minded proprietary 'shut in'. That is the impeded access to websites, software and email options, relative to the desktop experience, the primary culprits for which seem to be -Google as the 'authors' of the Android distribution -Samsung as the creators of the applications 'stack' Regarding security and the related issues of privacy and identity theft; inevitably following disclosure of exploits by intelligence agencies , but more importantly criminal groups; the younger users of iphones etc who mostly use them for: -sms, playing games, listening to music; will start to demand greater privacy. The issue will then swing from users right to privacy; to the requirement of a justified 'need to know' by any party which seeks ; identifying information. Although OS hardening, VM compartmentalization, VPN, program proving etc will undoubtedly also be apart of the future. Having no locks on our houses might be convenient for police and security agencies but no one considers that will ever happen ! Like wise the security and privacy of our information will also eventually; be taken-for-granted ! regards Rohan McLeod