Congratulations L5 for Being # 1 Again

Hardware Librem 5
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:partying_face: Great to see. L5 being #1 again at Efani.

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Looks like the decision is made by advertised features. Also all that “military grade” sounds very much like mislabeled advertisement. A chaos communication congress talk showed how easily such devices can be hacked sometimes (no encryption for security related tasks and similar things) and I got remembered by this when reading “phone with military grade standards”. :smile: I did not find the video yet, but if I find, I will link it later. That does not mean it’s also true here, but who knows


At least it’s a good and free advertisement for Purism, whatever is true or not.

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Would have like to see them mention the OpenPGP card, as that is another (optional but inexpensive) feature that can enhance the overall privacy and security of the Librem 5.

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We are working on encrypted communications within chatty using the PGP card. Please stay tuned for an upcoming demo.

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PS The article mentions “biometrics” as a positive feature for security and privacy. To be honest, I personally consider that a negative feature. I mean, if it’s there and you don’t have to use it then fine - but I wouldn’t be using it. It would never sit well with me that if I use biometrics to get into my place of work then my employer can potentially get into any device that uses the same biometrics for unlock. As always, an individual customer should consider his or per specific circumstances (threat model).

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The article also mentions #2 being able to dual boot as an obsfucatory ploy. I did that with my PinePhone until the modem died. I plan to do it with my L5 after Crimson is GA. Pity they didn’t realize the L5 could boot from the uSD.

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Maybe they just carried the discussion forward from last year without much review. You need a somewhat recent version of uboot in order to boot from uSD. In other words, in the period of time that Librem 5 units have been being delivered in bulk to customers, there was a time when booting from uSD wasn’t possible.

In principle, if you only boot from uSD then you can have dual boot, triple boot, quadruple boot, 
 You can have as many boot choices as you want by swapping uSD cards - but that is not as functional as having a choice of boots with the device ‘as is’.

Maybe you should be using the Contact form to point this out to them.

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As I said this looks like ranking devices via advertisement. I don’t think it makes much sense to tell them the real facts behind. There are a lot of marketing terms like “military grade” or L5-related: “promises lifetime software updates”. I’m sure they did not just carry the discussion forward without review, I’m sure they never reviewed and just compared the promises and specifications (you usually can see on those shop pages).

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I agree. Too much marketing speech without any substance.

And no price for the Murena2 :wink: It will outperform all others by looooooong distance in relation of price and safety

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There you go - being sensible again :rofl:

We often store personal data on our devices. Should someone using some forms of bio metrics drop dead, well, you know the rest.

It’s going to be interesting these next couple of years especially with Artificial Idiots (AKA A.I.).
I think govts and Low Tech like Google and ilk (how low can they be) are trying to make privacy a dirty word they can launder. It’s possible that privacy-respecting devices like Puri-wares will be required to leave back-doors and and decryption pass for govt - to protect it’s citizens of course.

Who actually owns their devices? A dog is on a leash. Does the dog own the leash? :thinking:

~s
{edited typo}

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[IMO:]
Well, if that’s how it was done, and done the same for all 10, and since the author did state:

then L5 is still #1 out of the 10.

The saying goes
 ‘there is no such thing as bad advertising.’

If Puri haven’t already done so, UPDATED they already did it and a whole page dedicated to it. maybe Puri should add the rating to the blinding neon sign that advertises the L5 at Puri’s landing page - before the 9 decide to make use of their rating.
[/IMO]
~s
{edited to show update}

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:+1:

That’s apt on two levels, actually:

  1. wanting to wash away all expectation of privacy on the internet and on devices

  2. renaming their surveillance as some sort of privacy control that benefits users, e.g. Google’s Privacy Sandbox, just as organized crime networks launder money

(P.S. I think cats have the right idea where sandboxes are concerned. :cat2: :cat2: :cat2: )

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That is a good point to raise - but some would consider that a positive feature and sometimes it would be a severe inconvenience. I guess if someone intends to use biometrics then it would need to be discussed with that person’s executor.

Yes, not clear whether they actually purchased and used each device, for real-world evaluation - particularly the one that is going for a lazy $13,500 (ranked #4 but obviously not ranked that for affordability).

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Not just L5 it is #1 but also L14 it is #1 too.

Thanks Purism :pray:

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Until a police officer takes your smartphone and hold it in your face/eye-direction to unlock it. People often understand the issue when it’s too late.

They wrote “Librem 5 costs 1.999$” which is not true. It’s Librem 5 USA. It’s just another argument why I’m sure they did not buy any.

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Technically it is the Liberty Phone that costs $1,999 USD now.

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Ops, was posting faster than thinking. :upside_down_face:

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Maybe. The context of my post, inherited from the post to which I was replying, was that you are dead. Biometrics may or may not work in that scenario. For example, if the biometrics are “face with liveness detection” then it would be more complex than just holding the phone up. More complex still depending on the circumstances in which you died. (For example, your death may have killed the phone too, or your death may have destroyed all your biometrics in a fiery mess, or both.)

It also depends on your requirements after your death which could, for example, be:

  • you don’t want anyone to be able to unlock, or
  • you want your executor to be able to unlock, or
  • you don’t want the authorities to be able to unlock.

As I wrote several posts earlier 
 I won’t be using biometrics.

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If you want to make it possible for other people to unlock it, there are easier ways to do so. But we’re speaking about a security feature for the most secure phones on market. So being able to do something or not when you’re dead doesn’t help you as long as you’re alive and authorities may want to have access to your device.

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You don’t have to convince me. As I already wrote a couple of times, I won’t be using biometrics on any device that offers it.

Note though that in some jurisdictions (for example, mine) you can be legally compelled to unlock if locked via a password or biometrics or both (even if you are not charged with a crime). So if your threat model is “the authorities” both the first factor and the third factor are potentially highly legally deficient. (I mean you can refuse. You can go to jail for 2 years. Which for some crimes may be a good deal.) YMMV. :slight_smile:

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