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underscore_ku

don't buy Chinese phones...

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At this point I’m averse to anything from non free nations. I’ve started to take that into account when shopping.

That’s not a criticism of the individuals there, just a recognition of the conditions.

Admittedly that’s not any easy thing to define all the time.

> I’m averse to anything from non free nations

Which nations are truly free then?

At this point I think non free nations are significantly different from “more free” nations.

I can help you with that

If you can tell the President on Christmas Eve "Let's Go Brandon" which means something vulgar and you don't go to jail then you live in a free country

If you are incarcerated in a re-education camp because of your religion then you live in an unfree country

I can make violent threats against the President at his face and nobody would bat an eye. But my country is at the peak of unfree. So you didn't help :(

Edit: Ah, silly me. That was just a thinly veiled insult against China, the great big devil.

Where do you live?

Pakistan

That makes sense, the military is more powerful there than the prime minister. Both the prime minister and the president are figureheads

I think people forget, "Let's Go Brandon," isn't even always a gripe at the US president.

Everyone, the reporter included, knew fully well what the crowds were chanting. That phrase sums in 3 words how corrupt the media is to whitewash and censor any criticism of the establishment president and the mainstream narrative.

The US is orders of magnitude different to and better than China, but still has room for improvement.

I guess an old Soviet anecdote is very relevant here:

US citizen: I live in a free country! Nobody will prosecute me if I go next to White House and shout out loud "<name of US president>! You are an old stupid son of a bitch!"

USSR citizen: I also live in a free country! Nobody will prosecute me if I go to Red Square and shout out loud "<name of US president>! You are an old stupid son of a bitch!"

Let's go Brandon is not widely known, I am inclined to think, to the typical audience of President's Christmas Eve address. It does not warrant any action because of this.

Apparently the capitalist imperialist ones?

War is productivity. Wage slavery is freedom. Nationalism is strength.

Those that have individual rights, including freedom of speech/thought/religion and property rights. Independent courts. Freedom of movement. The right to your own body.

Probably a nation whose citizens feel comfortable and free in their nation without constantly having to remind themselves or the world that they are a "free-nation".

No nation is truly free, all societies are ruled by a small elite that is only concerned with its own wealth and power. How the elite rules depends on different factors, but their motives are always the same.

I grew up under military dictatorship in Latin America. Back then you could get in serious trouble if you said or did the wrong thing. There is a lot more “freedom” now but the people are still oppressed by their own social condition. Plus ça change…

No people are truly free, and that's ok. No one should be allowed to walk down the street and attack others. It's not "truly free" in the sense of "absolutely free". It's "to have the correct freedoms".

Show me a mid-market up to top end Android phone that isn't made in China...

Yes I know there's a series of specific Samsung models that are approved for US govt use and are likely made in a facility in south Korea.

I think we have two categories of things

A) phones made in China with software/OS load for CCP compliant censorship and data collection

B) phones made in China with software and OS load for the global market (example would be oxygenOS on an English language OnePlus phone. If it turns out there's hidden data collection or censorship frameworks in oxygenOS I would be very disappointed.)

You are wrong at least about Samsung phones: https://www.sammobile.com/where-are-samsung-phones-made

Is it known for certain where the series of devices mentioned here are manufactured?

https://news.samsung.com/us/samsung-devices-achieve-approval...

https://www.samsung.com/us/business/solutions/industries/gov...

All Samsung phones are NOT made in China, or? At least that is what I read here: https://www.makeuseof.com/where-are-samsung-phones-made/

Apple: I trust their US QA to detect planted spyware.

Plenty of Sony's phones are not made in PRC. Sony builds them in Japan, Thailand, and India.

I bought my Pixel 4a specifically because it wasn't made in China (Vietnam). I would have considered upgrading to the 6 if it were made somewhere else. I also was considering a Google Titan security key until I learned they were made in China, too.

Siemens Gigaset smartphones are made in Bocholt, Germany. I think Siemens is the last of the big consumer mobile manufacturers with any manufacturing in Europe to speak of.

Apparently /e/OS, the free Android distribution by Mandrake founder Gaël Duval, is available pre-installed, so there should be solid LineageOS support.

Where something is made doesn't tell us where the components are sourced however. It is MediaTek based, so make of that what you will.

MediaTek is a Taiwanese company, no problem with that.

Just make sure beforehand that they're supported by LineageOS. Then you can wipe the OEM crap and run software you trust instead (assuming you trust the LineageOS developers).

If they're the kind that's sold artificially cheap under the assumption that they can make up the difference by showing you ads for the whole lifetime of the device, running a different OS has the added benefit of eating into their profit margins.

People should also be aware that certain devices will have specific features disabled when flashing to a custom ROM like LineageOS; vendor binary blobs on the OEM side and LineageOS' policy on reverse engineering them.

I believe the only manufacturers that have features disabled for unlocked bootloaders are Sony[1] and Samsung (Galaxy Z Fold 3 only).[2] Many Snapdragon-based Samung devices can't be bootloader-unlocked in the first place, and this includes most U.S. models.

Vendors that are LineageOS-friendly include Google, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Asus.[3] If you already have a Xiaomi phone, replacing the stock operating system with LineageOS could improve your privacy.

[1] https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/get-started/...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639869/samsung-galaxy-z...

[3] https://www.lineageoslog.com

Yes, but there's always the risk that the malware is planted deeper, aka a rootkit

* Chinese branded phones

What is the difference? To not buy branded Chinese phones seems just protectionism and has little to do with security.

I have nothing against wanting to protect and industry, but it should not be done with misconceptions.

I would guess the implication is that almost all phones are built in China. So "Chinese cellphones" is a curious term - "Cellphones designed by Chinese firms" and "Cellphones manufactured in China" are wildly different circles in the venn diagram of mobiles.

Only Chinese cellphone design companies have a meaningful direct responsibily for Chinese government, which makes the difference. Manufacturers have resposibility too, but if they manufacture something else than intended, it will stop quite quickly.

> What is the difference? To not buy branded Chinese phones seems just protectionism and has little to do with security.

How does "protectionism" have anything to do with this? It's weird to inject that economic framing into a question about what kind of policies you want to be subject to, and who you want to be setting those policies.

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