Let's workshop a scenario a little. Bad things happen. People are afraid. People buy one of the small number of phones that is almost entirely free software, and organise resistance that way. The resistance are now disproportionately using devices that have IMEIs from specific ranges, and which can be geolocated through tower records. What do you think happens next?
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If you're in the US and you want to reduce the risk the vendor will fuck you over on behalf of the government without looking suspicious? Much as it pains me to say it, Apple's track record in refusing to assist the FBI in the San Bernardino case is a strong signal there
@mjg59 This only holds true if you blindly trust #Apple & the security level of their software.
Their policies may change any time as we've seen in many cases of big corps already.
Their ability to provide secure software is mostly a myth from old times. They pushed extremely embarrassing security bugs multiple times which not only means that their testing processes are insufficient.
https://karl-voit.at/cloud/ has a few of their failures with respect to #privacy & #security.
Having absolute trust in a shareholders obliged company, you may face massive backfire some day.
If you are *really* looking for maximum level of protection, there's nothing better as a #Pixel 8 or higher (also from 2nd hand market) with #GrapheneOS flashed (it's very easy via web browser + USB cable and a 2nd #Android device) and a self-chosen level of #Google integration.
You may go without any Google service at all or you can opt in for a sandboxed version of them.
HTH
@mjg59 Note: my threat model in this discussion did not include hardcore APT attacks and advanced government-driven threats beyond IMSI-catcher and such.
My focus here is the privacy/security of the average person in a country where human rights are still in place. For that, I still stand with my arguments/sources mentioned.
Matthew may have information I lack so far.
@mjg59 @publicvoit and as the thread started with the case of "not widely used type of phone that has a limited range of imeis" the argument for pixels with graphene is absolutely fair. if we talked about other aspects the pros and cons would change, but that's not what it was about?
@mjg59 maybe a little unclear how much Apple in 2026 resembles Apple in 2015…
