[tor-talk] Off topic- Android is suspect spyware?

[andre76 at fastmail.fm]

As I said in a previous email, essentially, I've stopped using Android.
I had purchased a cheap tablet but now the wifi is phyically torn out
and I use it for a simple calculator.
I don't own a cell phone and have no need for one. 

Paranoia over digital/online privacy as it's now called is what we
oldsters used to call normal life when the state/corporations/jerks
couldn't spy on us. The object is to return to that.

This topic has ended as far as I'm concerned. Thanks, all, for the help

Roland
-- 
  
  


On Thu, Dec 11, 2014, at 07:54 AM, Jon Tullett wrote:
> On 10 December 2014 at 01:22,  <andre76 at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > Anything that google touches or promotes is very suspicious.
> 
> Anything that any corporation touches is suspicious by the same
> measures, if you want to be sufficiently paranoid about it. You think
> there's no Chinese spyware in Huawei phones, or that Apple is on your
> side?

> 
> 
> > Is there a way to eliminate all of the google bloatware and programs
> > from an Android tablet and have a simple tablet that runs android
> > without having to deal with google?
> 
> Yes. Get a forked device, like an Amazon Kindle Fire - such vendors
> replace much of the Google software, often including the default app
> store, with their own. But if you trust the third party more than
> Google, your paranoia is broken.
> 
> 
> > That google playstore monopoly
> > drives me nuts!
> 
> This I don't understand at all. Of all the mobile ecosystems,
> Android's has the least of an appstore monopoly. If you don't want to
> use the Google Play Store, use another - there are numerous
> third-party app stores. Or download apks directly and sideload them
> (careful...this is where the malware lurks). All these are options
> which don't exist in Apple or Microsoft devices. That's not a
> criticism or endorsement, just a fact.
> 
> BlackBerry, curiously, is even more open - there's the default
> BlackBerry World appstore, and BB10 ships with access to the Amazon
> store for Android apps, and it supports easy sideloading AND provides
> extra layers of app scanning beyond what Google does. But if you don't
> trust Google, you shouldn't trust BlackBerry, for the same reasons.
> 
> 
> > Rooting seems a partial answer to begin the process of modifying stuff
> > on a device.
> 
> Only if that is the limit of your paranoia. You can root an Android
> phone and rip out a bunch of stuff (the "Samsung decrapifier" is a
> pretty good example of a bloatware removal tool), but there's still a
> bunch of stuff that's off-limits, notably the code in, eg, the
> baseband processor on the phone. Even if you could completely wipe a
> phone, you couldn't be certain it was incapable of tracking or
> eavesdropping. So the question is, how paranoid do you personally need
> to be?
> 
> 
> > What do you think?
> 
> I think you need to do some homework.
> 
> You should probably start with a personal risk assessment, then
> research whatever measures are required to mitigate that risk. If you
> are in a position where you need to be extremely paranoid about this
> stuff, don't use a smartphone at all. Get a featurephone with no GPS
> and a removable battery, and use it as a modem if you need to get
> online, and take the battery out when you're in a sensitive situation.
> If you just want to be tracked a bit less, root your Android
> smartphone and use Orweb and orWall and suchlike. Avoid apps which are
> ad-supported. Learn which services are what, and disable as many as
> you comfortably can.
> 
> Or any of a number of options in between. It all comes down to what
> level of risk you personally need to address.
> 
> -J
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