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It's time to upgrade my phone. I'm paying $80 a year on Page Plus (Verizon) with a Window 6.x phone (before tiles, has a start menu). I'm trying to find a phone which will keep my data safe and that seems far more difficult and expensive than it should, so I'm asking you, my fellow purple people eaters Soylentils, to aid me in my mundane quest. My primary use will be GPS/navigation, listening to podcasts, and making phone calls. A secondary use is managing email from multiple accounts. I do require the Google Voice app as I have a couple phone numbers from two side businesses. I'd like to be able to toggle between a VPN connection and a normal connection, but that's not a requirement. I prefer longer battery life. My Win phone can go over a week without charging if I all I do on it is make phone calls. I'm going to be living on a college campus so WiFi will normally be available. I don't want to be buying a new phone every couple years. I've had the Win phone for perhaps 6 years.
IPhones have been in the news for being difficult for state-actors to hack into, but app permissions and data can't be faked nor do I know of any OSS movement on the iOS platform. I assume Androids can be instantly cracked by state-actors, but they have some end-user programs to help prevent apps from spying on you. I'd like it if my address book, location, and media was secure from data mining apps. Do I really need to make the choice between data privacy and state privacy? Though since companies have no issue selling data to the state, is my only choice data privacy?
My ideal choice would be a pocket sized piece of hardware that runs Debian, makes phone calls, lets me install standard Linux programs, and doesn't cost more than a laptop. Though if I can connect a screen and keyboard to it and do Python/Java/C++ development then perhaps I'll pay high-end laptop prices. I've seen failed attempts at creating such a device but no successful ones.
Help me dear readers, you're not my only hope.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:16PM (6 children)
One the one hand, you say things like this:
And on the other, you list the following requirements:
Those two sets are not compatible. Google Voice listens to you ALL the time and will harvest every single piece of info it gets its hands on and the GMail app will do the same.
As sad as it is, right now, iPhones are the safest devices (and I seriously dislike those).
I've been keeping an eye out for the purism phone they've bee promising and going as far as giving them money. We'll see if my excitement about it is misplaced...
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Monday November 13 2017, @04:28PM (1 child)
Well those appear to be the OP's requirements, not the person you were replying to.
Although I do agree about iphone currently being the most safest. I begrudgingly switched from android to iphone for this reason after apple held their ground after the San Bernardino attack.
For all I know, Apple did privately cave to the US gov. But even that is a major step up from every other company that rolls over for Uncle Sam at the slightest sign of trouble.
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:37PM
As usual, I'm going to throw a mention of LineageOS in here.
Particularly with the multiple recent cases of phones coming with spyware pre-installed, I'd say it's not a bad idea to dump the stock firmware no matter what you buy. And you've got no alternatives on an iPhone, so those are out of the question unless you have a lot of trust in Apple, which I personally do not. You've also gotta consider updates...you won't get six years of support from any stock Android; and while Apple might *technically* support their old hardware, the new OSes usually just get slower and slower. But LineageOS is open source so it'll support old hardware indefinitely. If anything happens to the project it'll get forked and keep going (already happened once -- it used to be Cyanogenmod) and it's very customizable with no bloatware included which keeps it responsive even on slow or old devices.
So grab a compatible Android phone (which is pretty much anything that's reasonably popular) and install an open-source rom like LineageOS. If you don't trust Google you can skip ALL the Goog components (although OP probably would want at least the play store since he's already got GVoice.) You can get full Debian in an app already, the only thing Samsung's new app is bringing is "official support." If you search the app store for "Debian" there's several options available, and I've used those successfully in the past. You'd probably want a keyboard and mouse though at least, it's not a *great* experience but it works.
I've currently done all of that with a Galaxy S5 which I'm quite happy with, although my next one will probably be a Oneplus. Wouldn't trust the stock Samsung rom very much (and certainly not a stock oneplus rom!), but it's great hardware once you put LineageOS on it. Battery life is a bit lacking, particularly now that it's over 3 years old, but the battery is accessible and replaceable at least. That's going to be the biggest issue with the OP's requirements I think...but you can always get a good battery bank; I've got an Anker one for around $30 with a 10 amp capacity that easily fits in my pocket with my phone (it's about the same size as the phone) so if you get used to carrying that you could run for a week even with pretty heavy usage. You could also look into getting a battery case perhaps but I prefer a nice big Otterbox...any time someone asks about the case I pick up my phone and whip it across the room...that thing is excellent :)
So yeah, OP is going to need to buy components rather than a single device...look into the last generation flagship phones and see if the savings are worthwhile (Galaxys usually drop fast; the Oneplus looks like they might not); put LineageOS on it and get a Debian app; add a nice case (if you want to keep it six years, get something sturdy!) and a battery bank; and probably add a bluetooth keyboard and mouse too. And maybe an HDMI cable if you want to connect the thing to a screen to get the best use from having Debian there. You can probably put that together for $500-$700, more if you get the latest and greatest phone, possibly less if you find a cheap phone...but if you're intending to make it last six years I'd stick with something fairly high end.
(Score: 2) by Fishscene on Monday November 13 2017, @10:29PM (1 child)
That might be the behavior on Android, but I use iPhone with the Google Voice app and the default mail app and this is not the behavior at all. I wasn't aware this was occurring on Android. Sorry about that. Thanks for posting!
I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:46AM
It doesn't occur on Android either as far as I can tell and I've been running google voice for years. Unless he has some concrete evidence to back that up I think its bullshit. Personally I think he's conflating Google Voice with Android's "Ok Google" features which DOES listen all the time but can be easily disabled.
Also for the OP, I would question the idea that android's encryption can be cracked "instantly" but its moot anyway. Android has a plethora of apps which can encrypt individual files or provide encrypted "containers" that can be reencrypted at will and which are device agnostic. The app EDS specifically supports TrueCrypt, VeraCrypt, LUKS, and EncFs container formats (I'm not affiliated with EDS in any way, just using it as an example).
I think as far as the OP is concerned, both Android and iOS will provide most of what he is looking for. Newer Samsung phones can even run linux distros with a full display and keyboard using their Dex dock attachment and the Linux on Galaxy app. A caveat here is that the kernel underlying any Linux os you run will be the same kernel the Android OS is running on.
In general however you can install linux on an Android phone as long as you have an unlocked bootloader. People have been doing this for years, its nothing new. Unfortunately an unlocked bootloader is becoming something of a rarity in the US market.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @11:31PM (1 child)
iPhones are the safest in what sense? They are completely proprietary walled gardens, which means you can't verify how "safe" they really are. However, Android is only marginally better, since it includes many proprietary blobs.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:40AM
You know by now this is false. Get thee to thy leaky bridge.