SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Phones can only last so long and my admittedly ancient BlackBerry Curve took one-too-many tumbles and now needs to be replaced. Thanks to recent changes in the cell-phone market, I'm looking to purchase a phone, outright, and get a month-to-month plan for it.
I am very privacy conscious and have, so far, avoided Apple (walled garden - blegh) or Android (tell Google everything). I suspect there are fellow Soylentils who hold a similar perspective. (My current cell provider is US Cellular. I'm open to change, but would like to avoid AT&T and Verizon --- have heard too many horror stories.)
Background: I've been programming computers since the 1970s. I've tried using Apple products, but it seems they are user-friendly to the extent that you want to do what they have already decided is okay. They seem to expose a bare minimum of controls to allow customization. That would frustrate me to no end.
So, that leaves me with Android as the other major alternative. I am leery about giving any more info to Google than necessary -- given a choice, I regularly choose an alternative over a Google product (i.e. DuckDuckGo for search, openstreetmap, etc.)
My thoughts, at the moment, are to get a phone and load cyanogenmod on it. I've read good things about the privacy capabilities it provides; especially fine-grained allow/deny access permissions. Added bonus is ability to apply updates more frequently than a telco-branded phone would provide. I have no experience with rooting/flashing a phone, so I need this process to be as idiot-proof as possible. Also, I'm leery of getting a phone only to see support for it dropped shortly thereafter.
[Continues...]
Must-have: SOLID cellular reception (my apartment seems to have plaster walls - the BB still got great reception), removable battery, removable storage (micro-SD card), WiFi, LTE (USA), good camera, and fine-grained permissions control.
Nice-to-have: hardware keyboard, tethering (i.e. use my phone to get an internet connection that I'd share with my laptop), FM Radio.
REALLY nice to have: Ability to bring up a terminal window and have full CLI ability (e.g. bash) where I could edit/run custom scripts/programs.
Size/specs: I do not want or need a phablet or the latest/greatest processors. I'm reminded of the adage to buy last-year's top-of-the-line model. For some degree of future-proofing, would like to be able to view 1080p content on it.
Other: What did I forget? What things do you wish you knew that you only found out after you got your phone?
My main system runs Win 7 Pro but I could also run a live CD with some Linux distro.
What have your experiences been? Both positive and negative? Please save me from making a mistake that you have already learned from!
I'm looking to replace my phone within the next day or so. I've been impressed with the shared knowledge of this community -- please help!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2016, @11:27PM
Are you sure you would want to tie a homeless person to your personal behavioural profile? Are you really sure about that? Yes, I know that using proxies will keep all but the most determined of law enforcement agencies at bay, but it is never going to be 100%. It seems to me that giving the phone to a homeless person in order to cover your tracks is just asking for trouble. For example, if the homeless guy is a recently released sex offender, I could easily see you having to face some pretty nasty and thorough investigation by law enforcement if that guy decided to have some rather unsavoury internet browsing habits. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday April 21 2016, @06:34AM
No, that would be stupid. Which is why you keep your personal behavioral profile on your tablet, and you use a fake behavioral profile on the burner phone. Nothing you do on the burner phone should be tied to your identity in any way, shape, or form unless its via a secure tunnel originating from the tablet to an endpoint on the Internet. All of it needs to be fake, or as general as humanly possible.
If it's imperfect then law enforcement understands what the burner phone is, and what my tablet is, and the difference between them operationally. They're not confused about identities, and therefore I can call them out on that.
If it's perfect than law enforcement can only have access to the fake behavioral profile and we have nothing to worry about.
That would be really interesting since many of my burner phones are purchased with cash by a homeless person in the first place. I wait out in the parking lot for it.
Completely unconcerned though. I'm already working with the homeless and materially deprived people in my community. If law enforcement started giving me crap, I would shut those fuckers down in a split second with, "So... I can't give my phone to a person in need? I believe I can. I believe I did. I also believe you need to go deal with that person and not the one giving care packages to the homeless. If you have a problem with that... [hold my hands out to be arrested]". I'm not intimidated about dealing with cops, or that I may have to go to jail. Doing so only provides the community litigation vehicles to accomplish changes in incorrect and harmful policy. It wouldn't be the first time that cops were getting in the way of community organized efforts to help people. Sometimes they need to be reminded that just because a person is homeless the rules don't actually change on how they need to treat them.
Me giving homeless people phones serves two purposes at the same time, one of them being to provide them with some of the things they need. 30 days worth of phone service is something homeless people need, and it helps.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.