> Unless you provide some evidence, I will consider this false accusation.
The line of thinking is, if you're so concerned about your device being compromised that you need to enable the mic kill switch (because of aforementioned lack of trust in the device), then other sensors which have been demonstrated to be able to capture audio can't be trusted, either, and in many demonstrations some of those sensors have been shown to be capable of recording what is effectively audio. That's old news, so you shouldn't have any difficulty finding evidence of your own.
On a device that's that compromised one would have to physically power off every sensor on the device, and even then there would still be some things to consider. Air gaps are a thing for a reason, and yet some incredibly clever exploits have been demonstrated to jump that gap. Many components that aren't microphones, cameras or radios can be turned into cameras, microphones or radios pretty effectively.
Still, I see the appeal of hardware switches as another practical layer against basic human factors, like a webcam lens cover adding another step beyond firing up the camera's permissions/appVM. But if we're being practical, a phone I can get wet is much more practical than a phone with physical hardware switches when I already have a high degree of trust the OS's ability to control sensors, and a low degree of rust in the OS's ability to control liquids and debris.
> Which was freed and can run new Linux kernels now:
Unfortunately that has kernel dependencies that haven't been updated in years. If you think the kernels in well-maintained Debian and Fedora VMs still need to be separated by a hypervisor to be trustworthy, you're in for a bad time trying to run that kernel on a PinePhone.
> Your walls of text are disingenuous.
You've got the attention of one of the sharpest security minds on the planet and that is what you come up with?
"Unless you provide some evidence, I will consider this false accusation." is bizarre, especially given your audience. You're capable of learning all this stuff on your own without asking everyone to do that for you.
Regardless, nine sentences across two paragraphs isn't a wall of text. The guy took time out of his day to respond to banality and that's what he gets.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to see you as anything but someone who deliberately attempts to derail any threads relating to Graphene OS. Help me out: why shouldn't I?