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Comment by lvillani | Hacker News Reader

I don't think privacy can be measured by counting the number of lines of code that are open source.

A device can be perfectly respectful of your privacy despite being closed and proprietary.

The only difference (IMO) between open and closed platform is that with the former you can have 3rd parties inspect it.

However, unless you have the resources to fully audit an open platform (either yourself, or by paying someone else) I believe you should assume the worst from both open and proprietary platforms.

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Even if it actually is, there is no way to know if a closed and proprietary is respectful of your privacy. It is a matter of blind trust.

Which does not mean that open source is synonymous of privacy either, only that one can go further than blind trust to the manufacturer.

There's more than the device code. They're not going to open source their entire web infrastructure. They DO store your data, somewhere. Either way, you need trust.

Exactly!

As another example, Telegram claims to be the most secure messaging app out there. They have open-sourced their code, but what really matters is what they do with peoples' data on their servers.

> They're not going to open source their entire web infrastructure.

I think blockchain can actually solve this problem once and for all. When data is stored in decentralized nodes, much of these concerns are gone.

That's going one step further but you're right those computer phone are made so the user will have some of its remotely stored.

Personally I do not trust them and for this reason I have no data plan and no internet on my phone.

You do not neeed blind trust. Download the firmware and reverse engineer any aspect you are concerned about, problem solved.

While it sounds intuitively correct that both open and closed platforms can be malicious, it is justified to a priori distrust a closed system significantly more than then an open one, because opportunity makes the thief.

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