I hate having to install VM-specific guest utils all the time when I just want to paste some text into the VM. Here's a script that emulates keyboard input and just works. ASCII-only, sadly.
Also, in VirtualBox, when you turn host-guest clipboard sync on in the VM settings (or set it to "Bidirectional"), it automatically syncs host clipboard contents to the VM clipboard, even if you never actually paste the clipboard contents into that VM. If you're running untrusted software in a VM and have guest utils installed, this might be a data leak vector you're not even aware of. So, install this script and only use guest-host clipboard sync if you really need it.
That's why I won't be doing it myself - I'm just going to provide the platform, there are already people working on an open-source baseband, and they're much smarter than me =)
There's a GSM hardware switch - https://hackaday.io/project/19035/log/60071 - so this is the way to go then, simple as that =) So far, the software is going to assume that the modem is on at all times - however, I'll solve that in the next PCB revision.
Each time ZeroPhone comes up on HackerNews, I learn something new that helps me go on =) Thank you, will be researching it when I'll be working "alternatives to Pi" topic =)
Oh, I do agree. The problem is - who's going to write it? I'm an one-man army so far, this is going to change once people get their hardware from the first batch I'm finishing now, but for now the project still needs contributors.
Answering to your "GSM not open" comment - yes, the GSM baseband itself is not open-source, and I won't be able to change that alone - I have neither skills nor time. My plan is to make all the other parts of the phone open-source, so that when an open-source baseband appears, there's a platform to attach it to.
The baseband OS is separate from the Linux running on the Raspberry Pi, the modem can be put in hardware RESET state - so, there's unlikely to be a way to execute malicious code on the Linux side by using a modem exploit, if that's what you're interested in =) And yes, the OS has access to GPIOs that control the GSM modem, so that's entirely possible.
The display is an OLED, and its power draw is kinda negligible - so the worst offenders are still CPU, WiFi and GSM. I'm going to add an E-Ink display someday - mostly for experimentation, as hardware upgrades like this will require somebody developing and maintaining the softwaree, but it could very well be a really good addon.
As for "your ideal phone" - something similar might just be my next year's project, though sourcing the parts will be hard, for sure =)
You're mostly right on your assessment - I don't intend it to be a good burner phone. There's the possibility to swap in GSM modems (thus changing IMEI) - except that the "manufacturer" part in IMEI is going to stay the same, or very similar, so it'd be like that story about a guy who sent in a bomb threat on his college campus through Tor, and it turned out he was the only one using Tor on the campus. IMO characteristics for a good burner phone are just like you're describing, and best practice is to throw those out or destroy them, after all.
And keep in mind that there's also the fact that you have to buy the phones somewhere - that can be tracked, whether it's a package from eBay with 10 similar phones or just a guy buying the cheapest prepaid phones in a supermarket.
My estimates show about 5 hours for the assembly time, so unless you get paid $1000/hour, this is not going to cost that much =) As for the time invested in software and hardware development - yep, it takes time, like any project is going to.
You can use a spare Bluetooth keyboard (or even a USB one), and I hope to produce a QWERTY keyboard attachment for ZeroPhone this year. In general, this is going to be one of the most important addons I'll be working on this year - both in hardware and in software.
I don't think that any commercially available GSM modems actually have open-source GSM implementations - SIM5320 isn't an exception, sadly =( So, compared to AOSP, the main difference is that this project is open hardware (excluding the Pi Zero, mainly).
I generally post all things ZeroPhone on Hackaday.io - https://hackaday.io/project/19035 - the blog is just for short random notes that might be useful to someone.
Yep, that's one of the side effects - you can plug some 2.4G transceivers (like NRF24L01, using an adapter) in the expansion port to talk to 2.4GHz stuff, or use some TI sub-GHz chips for 433/900/868. Also, I'm wondering about POGSAC (the networking standard that pagers use) - somebody on Hackaday suggested it to me, and soon, when I'll have some free time, I'll get some POGSAC receivers and will make a test environment (as in, imitate a POGSAC basestation for testing).
I'm working on a 3G modem board this week, based on SIM5320 (as suggested in a HackerNews comment, IIRC) - the way I'm designing it, it's pin-compatible with 2G modem I have now, so should be a drop-in replacement. Hope to have the PCBs in a month, and I'm also planning to release a timelapse of me drawing this board (with comments) - for educational value.
The battery life is still unoptimized - I haven't even played with CPU clock scaling, WiFi is always on and its power management is at default settings, and there are a couple more things I can do that'll improve battery life (like, putting GSM modem in low power mode and adapting my GSM code to work with it). Right now, it lives for about 20 hours from a 4000mAh battery - playing music all the time, WiFi connected to something, with SSH open on my laptop. I just put it on a charger overnight, and like that, its uptime is 6 days now - if I ever forget to charge the batteries, I can just use spares to get through another day =)