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Comment by wildchild | Hacker News Reader

BlackPhone is scam and snake-oil. Cloud "privacy" with remote control. Need privacy? Use burners.

I don't think it's fair to call Blackphone "Scam and snake-oil" just because it uses cloud features and has remote control.

What's fair to say is that you're implicitly trusting Silent Circle to be both competent and benign. But then running pretty much any modern computing device requires you to trust various groups of people in that regard, so this isn't that different really.

Trusting third parties is, in general, not a great approach to privacy.

Trust is the only way security works in practice. Have you personally audited all the software and silicon in your secure device?

That's an entirely different type of trust than trusting someone who says "I swear that I won't look at your data".

It's a bit easier for a cloud provider to look at your data surreptitiously, but you apply that very same "I swear that I won't look at your data" trust upon every software and hardware vendor from your USB keyboard to your internet router.

While that is a good point, it's easier to break open your keyboard and ensure it's not emitting RF than it is to audit a site that may be under an entirely different state.

You innately trust a host of third parties every single time you use a computer.

The only alternative would be coding the thing 100% yourself.

The only question is of who you choose to trust and how informed your decision is.

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