Hacker News Reader

Comment by px43 | Hacker News Reader

A Pixel phone probably gives you the best chance of resisting this sort of attack. The most vulnerable phones are the older, cheaper phones that run outdated versions of Android. Pixel phones are generally the first to get security updates, and so the quickest to get patches when spyware companies start using new bugs.

View on HN

Wouldn't a Pixel phone be vulnerable to USA giving Google a 'national security letter' saying to make your phone remotely accessible with a personalised update, say? Google seem like they could - and if paid, would - readily do that whilst other companies could hide behind lack of resources or whatever.

I just assumed that USA three letter agencies paid larger companies upfront to implement back doors; seems to fit with past form. Why would they not do that. Indeed it always struck me the debacle with Huawei where USA government smeared then to prevent their equipment being used in UK was so that USA-manufactured equipment with USA-controlled backdoors would be implemented instead ... it might only have been financial protectionism but it just seemed too big a protest.

/tinfoilwrappedforfreshness

Google could likely refuse this on the basis that rolling a personalized update for a single user would be an undue burden on them.

The particulars and thus validity would be for a court to hash out.

According to Snowden't documents, Google is collaborating with NSA, so I think your point is moot.

No, according to the Snowden documents, the NSA spun up the MUSCULAR program specifically because Google was refusing to play nice. This was where they dug up dark fiber between Google data centers to tap into the information being sent between them. Within a month after the MUSCULAR leak, Google was encrypting all comms between data centers, which in theory, killed all the MUSCULAR taps.

Only if you trust Google that it was the only attack vector. I wouldn't.

Nexus/Pixel devices literally come out of the box with Verizon background crapware installed that you cannot disable or remove even if you're not a Verizon customer.

Google long sold out, friend.

That hasn't been the case for any of the Nexus or Pixel devices I bought straight from Google.

Nexus devices did have such “feature”. IIRC it was activated by a carrier SIM upon first boot and some people were quite sad after inserting say AT&T SIM into their supposedly “unlocked” phone.

I use T-Mobile and I bought my Pixel 5a directly through Google at an official in-person Google store. Does my phone have this Verizon bloatware? What apps should I be looking for?

I googled it and I'm only seeing people complain about this Verizon bloatware from people who bought it through Verizon.

> I googled it

Google don’t index sites which contain that kind of information. :)

More seriously, I too would have bought a Fairphone (for ethical reasons) to replace the crap second-hand Android phone that I’d been using for the past 8 years. However, I recently received a gift of a new iPhone so I probably won’t be getting a new phone for another 8 years or so. The iPhone doesn’t have any bloatware and it does have lots of options for security and privacy so I’m happy to use it from that point of view. Aside from not being able to remove the battery, I don’t think the average user can do much better than that, given that they have no insight into or control over the baseband layer.

I’ve never owned a Pixel but I’d expect (hope) that one purchased directly from Google would be similar to in iPhone bought from Apple.

Lol no! I bought mine from Fi.

Sure , if you buy a pixel from Verizon or any of the other major providers directly . I didn’t have that problem when I bought a pixel couple years ago directly from Google’s online store to use on T-Mobile’s network.

Weird I have a Pixel 6 Pro and a 4a right in front of me that don't have the Verizon background crapware, nor have any of my devices came with that.

Weird, I have never seen carrier bloat on any Google phone (Nexus5...Pixel6A). Is this because of EU legislation?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com