Librem 5 xkcd Security

Hardware
1

I’m adding this to my todo list! :smile:

4 Likes
2

Yes, and please add these security features to the librem 5! :wink:

3

Jesus, talk about holding a grudge and getting even.

I personally prefer to just be expected to take care of my phone and not have any method of tracking existing in the phone. I feel that anything that could be used to track your phone in the event of loss could also have a backdoor put into it, or vulnerabilities in general that governments, corporations, and hackers could take advantage of.

I turn on passcode and 10-attempt secure-erase, but I leave any tracking options disabled. I would outright delete those functions out of the phone if I could.

If it weren’t for the unarguable usefulness of GPS I’d actually prefer the phone not even have the hardware required for location tracking exist on it to begin with.

Actually, if Librem 5 didn’t have those things I’d still love to buy it. Something I’ve considered for a long time is to have a phone for other things, while buying a separate GPS device to use when I need it. I’d honestly prefer my phone and computer to be literally incapable of location tracking. If I need that kind of thing, I’ll use a specialized tool. I only need one during traveling and vacations and the likes.

Of course, the Librem 5 will have those functions I’m certain. Will just have to trust that the software is all clean and the system is resistant to anything bad.

1 Like
4

The L5 could have a physical disconnect switch like the laptops do…

5

That is actually quite a simple-but-great idea that I hadn’t thought of.

In fact, I think three killswitches would be nice:

  1. A killswitch that disables all sensors and GPS capability - essentially anything that could be used for location services or monitoring disabled at the hardware level when flipped.

  2. A second killswitch that disables cameras and microphones.

  3. A third killswitch that disables all radios.

That would be amazing. I personally would have the first and second killswitches in the off position most of the time while having BluTooth disabled software-level. I’d only flip the third switch to disable all radios entirely if I’m really wanting to totally disappear for a bit.

6

The product page already says “Hardware Kill Switches for Camera, Microphone, WiFi/Bluetooth, and Baseband”

I don’t know how many switches they’ll use, but hardware killswitches are already planned