New Post: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the United States of America

[OpojOJirYAlG]

@lemx

I do not believe that, in general, an US agency might act more freely abroad than at home.

This depends greatly on the agency. The NSA and CIA for instance will both act more freely abroad as that is where they are intended to operate. Each agency has its own function and limitations so it is important to consider the context when assessing whether an agency is more likely to operate in a given locale.

[lemx]

The NSA and CIA for instance will both act more freely abroad as that is where they are intended to operate.

You are not considering that NSA or CIA are not acting inside of a vacuum, and are not bound only by the constraints of their own national laws.

I rewrite my thought: I do not believe that, in general, an US agency might be able to act more freely abroad than at home, due to various known and unknown constraints.

[Bass20]

Doesn’t all of this assume that these three letter agencies are actually acting within the laws? And also that either US and/or foreign companies and foreign governments are not cooperating willingly with these agencies for under the table payments of large sums of money?

[irvinewade]

Why would anyone think that the NSA is the only danger? Many countries have similar capabilities with similar goals. They all represent some kind of risk everywhere in the world - although quantifying that risk depends in part on understanding which agencies, if any, are likely to be targeting you.

[OpojOJirYAlG]

Good point, the original context was that of NSA obligating backdoors and since then we’ve had a bit of scope creep.

The threat of all devices having backdoors due to a mandate is very different, and non-existent in this context, than the threat of a targeted act by any agency of any country.

[fsflover]

@Nick2021

Malware can be inserted either by the chip designer, or by the designer of the subsystem libraries that the designer is using.

See also:

Purism products feel like an obvious vector for targeting

I’m kind of reluctant to get Purism products because it feels like an obvious vector for targeting those who want to ‘go dark’ that badly. [The Purism] products might be compromised in a way that renders interdiction redundant. Just a hunch though–nothing substantial to base this on. The same reasoning might apply to [software], but I think it’s much harder to compromise an open-source OS than it is to install a microscopic piece of hardware into a system (something the Bloomberg piece on Chin…

[Nick2021]

Of course you are right that the NSA is not the only danger, but they are the main danger because they are by far the biggest and have by far the most resources. I don’t think any other country has comparable capabilities.
The Snowden material revealed that in 2013, NSA paid no attention to laws protecting US citizens’ privacy. Since then, the law has changed slightly, but the NSA probably hasn’t. Besides, “national security” is a great excuse. Just invoking the phrase “national security” may be sufficient to get around US laws supposedly protecting citizens’ privacy. Besides, violations never come to light unless a whistleblower exposes them, and we’ve seen what happens to whistleblowers.

[tracy]

As as a U.S. company, take heart in the fact that U.S. corporations are considered “U.S. Persons”. Which means if we go back to pre 9-11 modus operandi, it is some other agancy’s job to collect intel on pure.sm.

Odd though, the two letter domain of “.sm” implies this is in San Marino; a little landlocked country inside of Italy… wonder if the U.S. person exception occurs if this traffic is considered going out of the U.S. and back?

[david.boddie]

@tracy

Odd though, the two letter domain of “.sm” implies this is in San Marino; a little landlocked country inside of Italy… wonder if the U.S. person exception occurs if this traffic is considered going out of the U.S. and back?

The Great Puri.sm Outage of 2018 – Purism

[tracy]

Thou takest my humour too seriously.

[amarok]

The Register mentions the Librem 5 USA in their security news roundup: https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/07/in_brief_security/

[fsflover]

@Nick2021

The Snowden material revealed that in 2013, NSA paid no attention to laws protecting US citizens’ privacy.

At least in the US you can fight against NSA in the courts unlike in China. The only reasonable alternative phone would be Fairphone then, but it’s full of proprietary blobs and therefore should be less trusted.

[buzzLightyear]

The Librem 5 USA is “Now Shipping” and will be available in 6 to 8 weeks. Not sure what “Now Shipping” means when it is available in 6 to 8 weeks? I think it is again playing with words.

Or maybe it means, it will arrive after about 1.5 to 2 months once Purism ships it. But it is kind of funny to read, “Now Shipping” and will reach you after 2 months. That would be the slowest shipping method

[Bass20]

I’m curious too, is there additional final assembly that needs to be done before shipping? Testing? Something that would take 5-6 weeks, and THEN shipping the phone?

[leetaur]

Or maybe new orders will be shipped in 6 - 8 weeks And current orders are being processed now.

[amarok]

Librem 14 "Road warrior" deliveries when?

It typically doesn’t take too long but I’m reluctant to make an estimate right now (beyond the above reasons) because this is a brand new design, first generation. It might take a bit longer than usual to flash and test (especially with this new EC firmware we want to do extra testing), and as it’s the first batch there’s extra testing I imagine that will be done. And I’m not clued into how long that might take. But barring any major issues that come up in final testing I don’t suspect it would…

[Bass20]

Thanks but I was referring to the L5 USA, my bad.

[amarok]

I think the same process generally applies, probably. They have to install the OS and make sure it boots, etc. (I think that’s the case, anyway.)

[Bass20]

Makes sense, just haven’t seen anything detailed about this aspect from Purism, but may have missed it somewhere…

[TacticalPandaLE]

@buzzLightyear

The Librem 5 USA is “Now Shipping” and will be available in 6 to 8 weeks. Not sure what “Now Shipping” means when it is available in 6 to 8 weeks? I think it is again playing with words.

I was simply thinking that they were shipping preorders now and the 6-8 week timeframe was referring to new orders, i. e. when they reach the mythological “shipping parity.”