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Comment by fsflover | Hacker News Reader

Google still decides how Android is developed. Also you will never be able to run mainline Linux kernel on those devices due to the proprietary drivers. If you really want to escape from Google and own your phone, consider GNU/Linux phones instead.

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aka get a flip phone.

Flip phones are not comparable in the features. They have no apps, Internet or sensors. Also, they don't have kill switches.

They have no apps

Every flip phone since 1997 has had apps.

Internet

Sure they do. I used to develop web sites for flip phones.

or sensors

Well, isn't that the point of a flip phone these days? That you don't want to be constantly sensed, tracked, and tabulated? Sounds like a feature, not a bug.

Also, they don't have kill switches

There's no better kill switch than the ability to pop out the battery.

Doesn't sound like a flip phone to me. What's their point then?

Well you could always take the battery out of a flip phone.

But can you be sure there is no second battery?

At that point, you can argue that you can't be sure whether the kill switches would actually turn off the radios.

The schematics of the GNU/Linux phone is available.

That's like trusting a service because they released some source code.

It's not trusting, it's verifying. Just like with a source code.

My point is that you can't verify it, because you don't control manufacturing. Just like you can't verify that the server is running the open source code.

Maybe I can't verify those things, but a lot of people can and if anyone finds anything suspicious, they will make a lot of noise and everyone will know. This is how community verification works. It adds additional verification procedure, thus making everything in general more secure.

If you really need to be sure, you can also hire a professional and they will verify that for you, too. Try to do that with iPhone software and hardware.

I m not willing to spend time to search for a source but I remember reading that some newly produced flip phones have appropriately modified versions of play services.

"flip phones" probably isn't the right word here. The form factor is irrelevant. What matters is that it's a dumb phone. Even if it does have play services installed, the impact is minimal because it can never phone home to google, assuming you don't connect to the internet (it's a dumb phone, why would you?).

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