Privacy concerns with proprietary baseband (was: Privacy Concerns with UbuntuPhone)

Kia ora koutou

Thanks Thomi for your thorough reply.

On 1 May 2014 12:45, Thomi Richards <[email protected]> wrote:

>> So, first of all, I'm explicitly *not* "pushing the freedom boat out as far as I can". I don't believe that open source software is the panacea to cure all ailments. <<

This seems like a bit of a strawman. Free software is a necessary, but
not sufficient, component of curing *some* ailments (including but not
limited to the denial of one or more of the 4 freedoms). I don't
remember claiming otherwise.

>> I obviously think it's pretty damn hot, since I'm as involved as I am, but I'm not as extreme in my advocacy. <<

Implying that my position is "extreme" is ad hominem. I'm "extreme in
my advocacy" against child rape as well. Is this unwise? Should I take
a more pragmatic position on sex with children?

>> Part of the disagreement here is probably due to the fact that I don't think having an open baseband OS is anywhere near the top of the list of problems we need to spend energy addressing. <<

This is false binary. You imply that because open baseband is not the
highest priority I shouldn't be worrying about it.

Quite frankly, nothing to do with free software or any digital
technology is "anywhere near the top of the list of problems we need
to spend energy addressing", which begins with climate change, peak
oil, human population growth, and growth-obsessed economics. I choose
to spend time addressing some of the less urgent problems anyway, like
proprietary software and built-in spy units. As any real-time strategy
gamer knows, you don't win by focusing all your forces on one enemy
unit at a time, and neglecting your flanks, your rearguard, and
opportunities to build mutually-beneficial alliances.

>> Second, my "flurry of fallacies". You mention three, and I'd like to address them in order: <<

I've given some examples above. The ad hominem I was referring to was
the inference that being concerned about the software and hardware in
my devices, with regard to surveillance, is "tinfoil hat". This was
probably intended as humorous, and I tried to take it that way (thus
the reference to my hat's vibrations in the last email), but
considering that the "tinfoil hat" meme implies irrational speculation
and unjustified paranoia, I think I could have been forgiven for
taking offence.

>> We have to, since we're talking about the potential impact of a future OS against an unknown adversary of unknown strength. Inn these situations, all you can do is to say "this is what my model of the future looks like, and against that model, these points are valid". Without either a time travel device, or more evidence, there's not much else we can do here. <<

I agree, but that's precisely why I think it's wise to eliminate any
vector of attack we can, even those unlikely to be used, or considered
lower priority.

Anyway this doesn't justify using strawmen in your rhetoric. For
example, the same email with the tinfoil hat image implied a claim
that "open source" is perfectly secure, and bug free. You repeated
this strawman above, and I identified it as such. I never made this
claim, and the imperfectness of free code software is not a
substantial argument against software freedom.

Another example, in that same email you reduced my argument to one
about protecting myself from "the NSA (or whoever)", while my first
couple of emails were talking about privacy/ security in general (the
full spectrum from casual, opportunistic snooping to profit-motivated
malware, and right up to professional global spy networks),. Having
done that, you can proceed to slaughter this strawman by arguing that
an open baseband is not sufficient to protect our privacy from the
NSA. You're right of course, but I never claimed that it was.

>> I suppose I took that as a given. *of course* I'd like an open baseband. <<

Good to know.

>> TBH though, there are a ton of things I'd like more. <<

You've said this repeatedly. Perhaps you could supply us with a list
of these other issues, and explained why they are all more important
than pushing for an open baseband (or an alternative to the cell
network)? Some of us may be able to help with some of them, in fact we
may already be working on them. We'll have to carry on this
conversation in the flesh at CodeCrafters or Filadelfios or some such
though, because tonight is my last night on the internet for a year
-I've already delayed another day, I'm determined to start the fast
tonight!.

>> Well, that's fine, except that's not what I said at all.. Again, read my last reply, where I agree that privacy isn't a binary state. I feel like you're putting words in my mouth. <<

Ok, you said:

"As I mentioned above, I think your premise is faulty. You can't have
total security & privacy with any device once you start broadcasting
over the Internet, no matter what the form factor is."

In the context of the comments in same email about having to go live
in a cabin in the woods to achieve privacy (not your exact words
but...), I understood this to be an argument that because perfect
security/privacy is not possible while using the internet, issues like
proprietary baseband don't matter. This is the false binary I was
referring to. It's good that you take a more nuanced view, and I
apologise if I'm guilty of a strawman myself on that one.

>>, if you're trying to protect yourself from the state (or anyone with significantly more resources than you have), your privacy has to be pretty damn good in order to be even a little bit effective. <<

...and again with the strawman. I don't close my curtains at night
because I think it will stop the state from spying on me. Mainly I do
it to prevent peeping toms (ie casual snooping). But if anyone is
trying to spy on me - and activists networks I've been part of have
publicly exposed private detectives, police informants, and state
agents monitoring our groups - closing the curtains is one of many
things which make it less trivial to do so. Making sure any devices in
my room which have cameras and microphones are fully under my control
is about as paranoid and extreme as having curtains on my windows.

>> I agree 100%. However, you're now talking about two different things. Malware != privacy. <<

Another strawman. Compromising privacy is only one of the many things
malware can do, and I wasn't suggesting that preventing malware is
sufficient to protect privacy (although I hope you'll agree it's a
necessary step), nor even that free code is 100% effective at
preventing malware. Good to know we agree that free code generally
does prevent malware though.

>> Yes, I agree with most of this, except that you have the idea that cracking my cell phone is the best way of finding out who I've been talking to. If you want to take a pragmatic view of the problem, I suspect you'd do better to target the upstream components in the cell network, rather than my personal devices. <<

Again with the false binary. It seems like a no-brainer to me that we
need both. There's no point having a perfectly anonymized and
uncrackable, end-to-end network if the device I'm using on that
network is sending a live feed from the camera and microphone through
a separate connection straight to whoever has the keys to the
backdoor.

>>  Ubuntu Touch may be shipping on devices with a closed baseband, but we're shipping with almost everything else open. Compare that with whatever the latest device from Apple or Microsft is, and I think we've improved things significantly. Even devices running android are shipping with more and more proprietary code. "Somewhat open" seems to be a better deal than "not open at all". <<

Perhaps I overstated my case on that point. I was glad when Android
broke the iThing monopoly on handhelds with an OS which used a lot of
free code (and allowed cheap smart tv boxes and so many other great
devices). As I said, I welcome all the work being done by the various
free code mobile OS teams to move us further in the right direction. I
acknowledge the real world problems involved in getting free code into
the hardware business. Keep up the good work with that, and let me
know if I can help.

>> If your interests were representative of everyone else's, I fear that we won't get an open source phone achieving significant market share any time soon. <<

I feel like I'm being painted as a bit of a purist zealot here. I've
used proprietary drivers with GNU/Linux and stilll use MP3/ Flash
support at times, and made plenty of other compromises (my fiance has
a MacBook - we put blue-tack over the camera when we're not using it
;)

However, as I've said, we're not just talking about a phone or a
sometimes-on PC. Handhelds are always-on, always-present, with a
camera and a microphone, and with both cell and wifi connectivity. I
will not carry one that is not fully user-respecting, by design. I'm
totally aware that I'm out on the tail of the bell curve here - most
people even in the open source world are more concerned about
convenience than privacy -  but I'm saving my $ for that brave and
forward-looking hardware company that will allow you to ship Ubuntu
Touch 100% freedom-respecting, and allow me to install whichever
mobile OS I want on the phone they sell me once I've bought it.

>> Maybe in a few years you'll be able to buy a phone that's both usable and has open drivers, but I'm not aware of one today. <<

Neither am I, but that's why I wanted to check that the authors of the
article which started this thread had their facts right. I've learned
a lot more about the issues involved as a result of this thread. Yay
:) Perhaps I'll try building an ArduPhone?

>> I can see that you care about this particular piece of the technology stack a great deal. I'm always happy to answer questions about what I'm up to at work, and I've stayed on this list, despite frequent unpleasant threads, for exactly that reason. I'm a little surprised that you seem to have read malice in my earlier replies. I'd like to assure you that none was intended. <<

I wouldn't say malice so much as a tendency to read anti-Ubuntu or
anti-Canonical barbs into what I wrote, and respond somewhat
defensively. In hindsight I needn't have brought this up. But then I
think it's sometimes worth reminding ourselves that we are human, and
the way we read, react, and respond to other people's emails is always
coloured by our previous experiences with that person, and their ideas
and positions. This is as it should be, this is how we put things in
context. But I know that when I get email from people I've had strong
disagreements with, and particularly if I've felt personally attacked
in the previous exchanges, I have to make a conscious effort to
correct against the bias this creates, and really look at what they
are saying. My overall impression is that you are doing this. Thanks
:)

Ka kite,
S

-- 
Daniel Strypey Bruce
Community Developer
Disintermedia.net.nz/strype

"Geeks are those who partake in our culture."
- .ISOcrates

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last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will
get a version of it through a dessicated question, and then will
submerge it in a Niagra of similar opinions, and convert them into -
what else? - another piece of news. Thus, we have here a great loop of
impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which
you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you
can do nothing."
- Neil Postman, 'Amusing Ourselves To Death'

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