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, <[email protected]> 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 > -- > tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] > To unsubscribe or change other settings go to > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk -- http://www.fastmail.com - A fast, anti-spam email service. -- tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
