For privacy-minded people, hardware switches are a nice thing. I remember when I had a Xiaomi Mi 9T with its popup camera, and it was interesting to see that some websites would trigger said popup camera. While the camera was never actually used, the thing would go up and down. This was even with an ad blocker installed.
I have a Mi 9 t pro. Never experienced anything like that.
While I do have hardened my settings, debloat with adb etc. privacy whise and use the EU MIUI rom.
Do you rememher said websites?
Man, it has been a while, as I don’t use the 9T as the daily phone now. I think I recall The Verge as one of the sites, because I wasn’t expecting it from them. It happened only a few times, and it wasn’t site-wide. Can’t remember which pages triggered it though.
My friend had one, and Instagram would often pop it out and back in quickly. That was way back when though.
I heard speakers could be used as microphones
Speakers are microphones, they are the same thing(basically), one uses current to move a diaphragm to create pressure and the other uses pressure to move the diaphragm to create a current.
Only mic and camera? It should also turn off GPS, accelerometer, etc. Filming the inside of my pocket isn’t the biggest tracking concern. People are just afraid someone’s watching them masturbate all the time.
The article states that there is second switch to diaable wifi, data, gps etc that is essentially an airplane mode.
That’s only a soft switch. A compromised device could turn them back on.
Yeah a hard switch that switches in a dummy load instead of the antennas would be excellent
But it could hit battery life without also turning off the radios
Isn’t GPS just 3 sattelites passively shouting their clock to any who could listen? There’s no GPS kill switch because there’s nothing transmitted. WIFI kill switch is more understandable.
Your point is solid. But GPS position requires a signal from at least 3 satellites to work. There are a whole lot more than 3 in the sky.
Privacy isn’t just about your device not emitting signals… If you don’t want your device and apps to track your location, you also don’t want to receive those GPS signals.
I really like having the mic off so Google doesn’t try to sell me something I mentioned a private conversation
No audio jack –> nope.
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Your mistake is in thinking that representation in the media/web sphere = representation in the population. White I don’t know the numbers, I reckon that the percentage of the population that doesn’t want a headphone is less than half—possibly much less.
It’s now a fashion statement to have cordless white blobs in your ears. So cool.
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You sound like somebody who doesn’t talk to people with green bubbles on iMessage.
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It’s what you sound like
Like other phones, this most likely won’t have open source firmware.
What are you talking about? It’s using e/OS
Firmware, as in the drivers that control the hardware, like the radio, the Bluetooth, the NFC, the SIM decryptor, etc.
Is there any open firmware for those modules?
More or less, no. No hardware driver open source firmware exists for anything you’d want to buy
But if you’re interested in reading is excellent, please see these references
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant_(operating_system)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmocomBB
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_phones
Some architectures like the pine phone, and the librim 5 try to isolate the proprietary blob so they have minimal collateral damage when they’re exploited.
Better off with a used pixel and grapheneos
Poorly yes. Even though
- no headphone jack
- super expensive
- damn huge
- no SD card slot
- no hardware switches
- repairable? Idk
- yeah no headphone jack is a bummer
- a used pixel is cheaper than than
- my pixel 5 seems pretty small, but idk what they are now or what that is so you’re probably right
- even bigger bummer than no headphone jack imo
- I don’t think those are that important, a piece of tape over the camera is fine imo
- you’re probably right there too, I wish fairphone could run grapheneos 😞
Fairphones have no secure element. The devs may be annoying, but what they dont do for a second is waste time.
Hmm, camera maybe but tape? Also microphone is not that easy. GPS, phone antennas and internet antennas are also way shadier
Fairphone uses the latest snapdragon. Unless qualcomm messed up, their processors do support and have supported secure element for a while. What you probably meant was a dedicated secure element chip. That’s present on tensor but not on most other smartphones.
Fairphone uses Qualcomm snapdragon chips but they don’t use chips made for mobile phones, it’s chips for industrial use they buy, so the secure element might be missing. The reason is: they are supported for way longer which allows fairphone such long update periods. The shortlist of other phonemakers who can do the same are the ones who design their own chips: Google, Samsung, Apple.
Really interesting!
Here is the product page of the chip in Fairphone’s 5th phone:
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/internet-of-things/industrial/building-enterprise/qcm6490#Overview
Qualcomm does list this chip for enterprise grade use and updates for multiple years to come on android. The block diagram has a box labelled security. If the chip was as insecure as people claim, it couldn’t be used for biometrics much, if at all.
I wasn’t meaning to fault the grapheneos devs, like you said it’s fairphones fault for not making it possible 😞
How is a security element wasting time?
Huh? GrapheneOS is not wasting time with features or supporting phones that are not secure to their standards (meaning basically impossible to hardware-crack, which is NOT everyones requirement)
I wish fairphone could run grapheneos
They get this request a lot, see this: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/1961
and this.
Yep, my point was shaking my fist at fairphone, not the grapheneos devs
Add very shitty on-screen-fingerprint reader to that list…
Yeah I really dont want to upgrade my pixel 5 for a 6 for many reasons but that is a big one
Pixels are some of the cheapest phones
Not in my experience? A new Pixel 8 costs like 800€, thats like 600€ more than I would consider appropriate for a phone. All these prices are made up
Pretty sure he meant cheapest used
A p7p used goes for around US$400 here
Pixel 8 has full support from google until 2030. Know of any current phones going for under 800 bucks with anywhere near that support lifetime?
Also, the pixel 7a is supported until 2026 and is $500. Both prices are quite reasonable for a computing device you’re going to carry around for at least the next three years.
In this case a Pixel 8 is the only real option poorly. How can a phone just last 3 years from now on? Thats crazy…
i really don’t care about degoogling trusting some random ass company and their VPN.
It’s an e/ OS spin-off. Quite a trustable project.
E/os is not that trustable, they have no verified boot or relockable bootloader, and integrated signature spoofing
There’s no better kill switch than the ability to remove battery
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Exactly.
That kind of defeats the purpose, though.
Having your mic and camera disabled, but being connected to the internet kind of defeats the purpose aswell. It’s better than nothing, but even with a device like that, powering it off doesn’t gurantee that no one is tracking it. Taking off the battery does.
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I don’t believe you. Tim Cook told me so.
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Fairphone 5. Just got mine. Love it. I’m now waiting for the /e/ or, at least Lineage image to be released for it.
I went with the Galaxy XCover 6 Pro instead because it comes with a headphone jack. It also has a software switch to disable microphones, but I wouldn’t put too much faith on that.
I’d still prefer a Pixel running GrapheneOS with aggressively-restrictive permissions.
I’d also like the ability to use sandboxed Google services.
Interested in the built in VPN. Is that going to a monthly cost? If not, how are they funding it?
By stealing and selling your private data, the cycle continues!
Worked well the first time, why not try again :D
Yea that’s the first thing that came to mind when I read that headline
They can take my nunchucks and they can take my Adderall… But they’ll never take my
$27!!!
For anyone wondering how to get the same feature on your device (not only mic-camera)
- Go to developer settings (after
)
- Quick settings developer tiles
- (enable) sensors off
- Open your quick settings
- (for Samsung) you will find the tile in the 1st row 1st position
- (for aosp) you may need to add the sensors tile
- now turn this tile on
- now your camera, mic, gyroscope, etc… are off and apps will think that there’s an error with the camera or some privacy policy rule being applied
⚪ Note: this does not turn off GPS, Bluetooth, wifi, or mobile networks
EDIT: forgot to mention (as comments said)
🔴 Warning: core system services can override this setting…
a phone call will have the mic working while app calls (Whatsapp…etc) will be muted
Core system services will still override that setting, just something to keep in mind
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To further expand at least for samsung:
- the mic will be re-enabled for regular phone calls
- the mic won’t be re-enabled for other calls, e.g. WhatsApp, Telegram, Whatsoever
- Go to developer settings (after
No 5G is a deal breaker for me.
You just get two COVID vaccinations instead, should kind of work the same
Does it have a hardware switch to prevent apps from taking screenshots? I hate so much that they can do it at any time without you ever knowing.
That’s a software problem
I was being snarky
Where can I get more information? Is the software open sourced? Has it been independently audited?
Its /e/OS, a softfork of LineageOS, mostly superficial. Only GrapheneOS is extremely secure, although to be fair really degoogled LineageOS will probably be very nice too
really degoogled LineageOS
Also called DivestOS
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