[HN Gopher] Unplugged Phone Mysteries ___________________________________________________________________ Unplugged Phone Mysteries Author : hampelm Score : 45 points Date : 2022-07-28 13:58 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (pxlnv.com) (TXT) w3m dump (pxlnv.com) | md_ wrote: | The Erik Prince? Mercenary and alleged-murderer Erik Prince? | https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/blackwater-founder... | | Now selling a low-end "secure" smartphone? | | Weird change of business, right? | Veserv wrote: | That is a hilarious security report. | | 1. They are selling a "secure" phone, but it only reviews their | mobile apps. | | 2. They are testing their mobile apps according to the Open Web | Application Security Project (OWASP) TOP 10. They are mobile | apps, not web apps. | | 3. OWASP TOP 10 is advertised by OWASP as the "first step towards | changing the software development culture within your | organization into one that produces more secure code". | Conformance does not mean security, it means the first step | toward security. | | It is like applying to a professorship in physics and your entire | resume is that you once got a gold star on a elementary school | arithmetic exam. | RajT88 wrote: | I have met CSO's who are similarly confused about what OWASP | Top 10 actually means. | carvking wrote: | Worth a listen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK_XLFOm_I | | I was captivated - went through it in one setting. The more | recent stuff is nearer the end of the podcast. (2:20 or so) | netsharc wrote: | Is it just me, or has the commercial world gone weirder? Claim a | product that does magic shit ("patriot communication!"), claim | support from some famous person, although they can quickly deny | it, and you'll probably get some suckers to pay you for the | product. Or even better, investors to buy into your company. | | Somehow the words "self-driving cars" popped into my head. Ah, | the wonders of faith-based investing. On the keyword of "faith", | maybe I should start selling investments to help build a palace | for Jesus that he will return to, to rule the Earth ("Endorsed by | 2 Popes, promise!", or I can just pay some evangelical preachers | to get their mouths to actually endorse it), and if you invest, | you can have an audience with Jesus! | RL_Quine wrote: | I think a lot of it stems from the realisation that you don't | ever need to actually make a product, you just need to sell the | feeling of it and that's sufficient. What's being sold here is | almost certainly just shovelware on a cheap chinese phone, but | the presentation of it is designed to make you feel like it is | a whole lot more than that. | pathartl wrote: | While "weird" it's certainly not surprising. Consumer | protections have not kept up with the overall global economy. | Snake oil products have always existed, but it's getting easier | to spin up a new company that targets an uneducated consumer. | carvking wrote: | " Oh, and Erik Prince is just the worst. " - | | Well he did go into Iraq because the government of the USA | decided it. | kop316 wrote: | > One thing this phone has going for it is that it is, at its | core, an Android phone. There is a chance the device itself may | not be unusable after just a few years even if the company | disappears. That is not the case for a comparable product like | the Purism Librem 5. | | PostmarketOS supports the Librem 5: | https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices and other Linux | Distros have support for the Librem 5. Given how often random | Android devices show up and never get supported after they are | first released, I would argue the exact opposite. This phone will | likely be unsupported after a few years even if the company stays | around, whereas the Librem 5 will be supported even if the | company goes under. | nickheer wrote: | Thanks! I will correct this. | LegitShady wrote: | I always assume whoever is selling the super secure phone is | listening in on the super secure communications. | RL_Quine wrote: | The hyped "Unplugged messenger" is just element/matrix with the | branding stripped off it. https://web.unplugged.com/#/login | | What a weird set of stuff, it smells really, really bad. | d4a wrote: | With JS disabled, I get a "Sorry, Element requires JavaScript | to be enabled." | _jal wrote: | The phone itself appears to be a rebrand of the "Liberty Phone" | from the last time around: | | https://www.ghost.libertyblockchain.com | | If you start the pre-order process, you'll start seeing links | to unplugged-systems.com. | | Interestingly, the "Liberty" branded site prominently claims | "not made in China". I don't see a similar claim for the | "Unplugged" branded version. | miloignis wrote: | No kidding, opening the dev console shows this as part of a | funnily mangled (by sed, I imagine) warning message | | > If you know what you're doing, Element is open-source, be | sure to check out our GitHub (https://github.com/vector- | im/Unplugged Messenger-web/) and contribute! | nonrandomstring wrote: | How many of these "private" phones turned out to be a sting | operation by the likes of the FBI? Can I look at the code and | schematic? No? Take it away. Come back when you have a product | based entirely on auditable open source hardware and software, | whose operation satisfies the Kerckhoff-Shannon principle that | the only secret is my private key. | mod wrote: | What are you using instead? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-28 17:00 UTC)