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Hal Canary

“Rule number one, never carry anything you don’t control.”

How would one follow this advice in this world?

One would need only computers with a 100% open source stack. including hardware.

Imagine starting with a mass-produced phone-sized touchscreen and battery that contained zero processors. you would then build a computer that plugs into that and screws onto the back. that would be your smartphone. You control all processors.

Jan 18, 2023, 15:16 · · · Web · 0 · 2

Imagine a Zero -style RISC-V computer that was 100% open on every integrated circuit. you could use that as the core of your fully-secure smartphone.

You would need to reverse-engineer a bunch of currently-opaque hardware that's hidden in special-purpose chips. E.g. cell network antenna drivers.

I would also build the hardware such that a led lights up whenever a camera or microphone is enabled, without the ability to change that in software.

And the software stack would need to be controlled by a non-profit with a long history of respecting users. Mabe ? I'd love just to have a phone that runs Debian!

It looks like there are several raspberryPi-based phone designs out there. My main problem with that is that it uses processors made by Broadcom Inc. These system-on-a-chip processors are wonderful technology, but the hardware is closed-source, and has closed-source firmware and graphics drivers.