Sailfish SDK Update Switches From X11 To Wayland

[Chaz]

He's implying you should buy a phone too big to fit in a pocket, and then add a third-party casing around it with round corners making it even bigger

You know, that's not a bad idea. If they can get the touch screen and the hardware KB (???) worked out maybe I'll get some giant pants.

[mrugiero]

Technically the US and all other "democratic" governments are actually republics - where people elect representatives for their vote. Democracy is just a short hand to describe that system, just like "communism" doesn't truly describe the governments in the Soviet Union or China, but is a useful shorthand approximation.

Of course, but that wasn't the point. The point is you vote someone you *think* you agree with, or the one you think you agree the most with. If there's a concern in which they'll vote that you aren't aware of, you have no way to make an educated guess about you agreeing or not with the candidate.

[Luke]

At least China handset spyware won't turn you in to the FBI and the NSA

What saddens me on the hardware side is that the Jolla group ended up in bed with Chinese partners, rather than folks from countries where freedom and openness are still somewhat respected. Well, they had options but chose to do it that way.

I would far more trust Chinese hardware that hardware made in any country allied with the US. This is because backdoors planted by Chinese intelligence are likely to be unavailable to US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The sweatshops and prison labor are another story, or course-and if you are organizing Foxconn workers in China, you then need US hardware, figuring the NSA won't share any of their backdoors with China's MSS. Don't use Apple, they will help Foxconn and can access any backdoors they planted themselves.

[Ramiliez]

I would far more trust Chinese hardware that hardware made in any country allied with the US. This is because backdoors planted by Chinese intelligence are likely to be unavailable to US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The sweatshops and prison labor are another story, or course-and if you are organizing Foxconn workers in China, you then need US hardware, figuring the NSA won't share any of their backdoors with China's MSS. Don't use Apple, they will help Foxconn and can access any backdoors they planted themselves.

This line of thinking is weird If HW or SW has backdoor when US or Chinese spies/hackers finds out about it. Youre compromised by both sides also US NSA or PLA Unit 61398 they know how to use reverse engineering if theres a backdoor they might discover it even if they dont have information about it.

Notion that Chinese backdoor is better than American is just stupid

[aironeous]

Very happy to see sailfish sdk get ahead of the game and go wayland. Mir by Canonical seems like a very wrong move to me.
I'm just waiting for the Jolla phone even though the HTC one body looks pretty good and I'm a little tempted by the good specs.

Sorry to take the bait and go a little off topic but I believe this is an issue that affects us all.
I also felt a little sad when Jolla set up in China. China is the #1 counterfeiter of the world. That is direct trade and job theft. I remember hearing an NPR radio show where some guys that used to work for the government said that China's technology theft from the US costs us 300 billion to 1 trillion per year. That does not even include the online gold farming and the tremendous loss from counterfeits not to mention that they are ruining our brands image of quality with their cheap knock offs.

If you analyze China's actions they are at trade war with the US and are using "the art of war" against us. They reinvest their ill gotten gains into more trade and technology theft and trade cheating. Communism and property rights kind of really don't go together.
Not only do they trade and job steal but they trade cheat on top of that. Everything from oversubsidizing their solar industry to putting huge tariffs on american imports (certain ones) to make them unavailable to their people.

China is an old country that has had a long time to get it right. We are a young country. We used to have a dictator too but we cancelled that and made a democratic republic. What did China do? It chose communism, something that doesn't work and never has. So what they have decided to do instead of change their form of government is steal US technology and trade and hold up the gains from that as an example of how awesome their communsim is.

As one of its victims of trade cheating (I used to work for a solar manufacturer until China flooded our country with cheap solar panels and we had to close down) I can tell you I was very fond of China until I lost my job and took a look at China's trade practices. After lots of reading online my conclusion is they are in denial that communism doesn't work so they are stealing US wealth to prop up their failure choice of government and make it appear to work. We are stuck in a downward spiral because of their taking our manufacturing jobs.
More workers looking for jobs equals lower wages making us more dependent on cheap Chinese goods. We cannot all have service jobs it just wont work. With no manufacturing occuring here it will be an easy task in the future to drop the dollar as the worlds reserve currency as we will be seen as a country with no value. So that is also one of China's goals and that will devastate us. Devastate.

When you get your jolla phone, what will the quality be? Will any of those components be made by a factory that is/was also a counterfeiter? Counterfeits of some brand that comes from your country? By buying the phone will you be giving a thumbs up to Chinese counterfeiting/trade theft? We don't know. Will they put a back door in the phone so they can turn on the microphone while you are in a business meeting?
Overall the country is morally bankrupt when it comes to property rights so just keep that in mind.

[Ramiliez]

@aironeus

China is very capitalist country apart from political power which wielded by communist party everything is led by capitalists.

Chinas policies are heavily influenced by Realpolitik read-up on it Its the no 1 reason why is China successful

[jalyst]

OMFG... >.>
At least 1 user here has form ranting/raving on this issue, foresaw it being perpetuated, sadly.
And all because one user chose to go completely off-topic, & get the ball rolling.

[Luke]

I could care less about "counterfeting"

. China is the #1 counterfeiter of the world. That is direct trade and job theft. I remember hearing an NPR radio show where some guys that used to work for the government said that China's technology theft from the US costs us 300 billion to 1 trillion per year. That does not even include the online gold farming and the tremendous loss from counterfeits not to mention that they are ruining our brands image of quality with their cheap knock offs.

If you analyze China's actions they are at trade war with the US and are using "the art of war" against us. They reinvest their ill gotten gains into more trade and technology theft and trade cheating. Communism and property rights kind of really don't go together.

These line of reasoning reminds me of Apple whining about Android, or MPEG-LA deciding they don't like ffmpeg, whining about their state granted monopolies known as software patents allegedly being breached.

[Luke]

Yes, backdoors can be reverse-engineered

This line of thinking is weird If HW or SW has backdoor when US or Chinese spies/hackers finds out about it. Youre compromised by both sides also US NSA or PLA Unit 61398 they know how to use reverse engineering if theres a backdoor they might discover it even if they dont have information about it.

Notion that Chinese backdoor is better than American is just stupid

Not necessarily. In the US, Twitter data is commonly sought by cops, and Facebook is a notorious snitch. By comparison, in Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring, those governments were unable to get anything out of either one, as these services and their software backdoors serve the US, not them.

Also, keep in mind that the sort of reverse-engineering NSA can do can be done by others, how do you think we got Nouveau? In this case, instead of an open driver, we would get another high-profile surveillance scandal. You can bet people like Wikileaks have people working on this as we speak.

Worst-case scenario is still a backdoor engineered by your primary adversary, using their code instead of reverse-engineered code and known from the day it was conceived. Still, smartphones of any kind rely on so much firmware controlled by known untrusted carriers that none are safe in my judgment. I will use the iPhone as an example: It could contain a Chinese backdoor (from Foxconn), an NSA backdoor (from Apple), the "diagnostic mode" common in US dumbphones demanded by the FBI to remotely turn on tracking and microphones, and a fourth backdoor from your carrier.

Hardware designed for a network tends to be malicious, which is why I keep computers and network devices strictly separate. They can still bug the modem, but it can't see what I refuse to send it, meaning they can see my published videos easily enough but have no way to get my raw clips off my encrypted drives.

A safe smartphone would have to have every single piece of code and even microcode replaceable (no mask-programmed ROMS), and run verifiable open-source firmware for absolutely everything, all the way down. This way undocumented anti-features simply would not work. I'm damned glad to see that both Jolla and Ubuntu are taking the first steps in this direction with open-source operating systems for these phones. Something like Coreboot then becomes an urgent priority.

[Ramiliez]

#Luke

Look very few Arab countries have actual indigenous capability to launch or defend against cyberthreats though there are some exceptions (Turkey,Iran,China). Thats why in Egypt they shutdown the internet because their cyberwar capability was lacking

Ive said it earlier and now im going to repeat it backdoor is potential vulnerability doesnt matter which side put it in. Also US or China can share their backdoor with allies