I still have to watch it, but it's concering to see his product being promoted because Unplugged's founder, Erik Prince appears to be against America. He has since 2016 been involved with the People's Republic of China (had to use https://12ft.io to read the last paragraph), in 2019 allegedly helped China build Concentration Camps for Muslims, in 2007 his employees killed unarmed people & were sentenced to 30 years in jail each, and I will find more.
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Unplugged Phone rollout - I need tech nerd input
- Thread starter Terry Cross
- Start date
Hell of a first post. I just hope you're also against OEM Chinese brands like Holosun, Swampfox, Olight, Feenix, and former U.S. brands now fully owned by the Chinese like Lenovo, General Electric, Haier, Milwaukee Tools, Ryobi Tools... If so, great!
Thanks - I always buy American made because I've seen enough people lose their jobs after companies are sold to China or other countries over the last few decades; as well as those products' quality go to sh*t.
I recently had a friend buy one of these "Unplugged" phones and when he told me that it was "more secure" because it had a proprietary version of Android, I called bullsh*t & went to investigating so I could provide him with facts, not marketing fiction, about why he should be wary of this product for that one reason alone that you can't see the Operating System's code! After getting into the research, I learned that my gut insticts were correct. I also came across this thread while doing research, so I wanted to share what I've found here to help others.
I also learned that the "UP Messenger" is a just branded/ripoff of the Matrix client known as Element... This phone has all it's marketing hype of selling promises that it can't keep, as you can read about in this 2022 MIT Technology Review article titled "Erik Prince wants to sell you a “secure” smartphone that’s too good to be true".
I'll start out by saying I do not know Eric Prince or much about him. I have listened to his book about standing up Blackwater, which was interesting. The Shawn Ryan show has a couple interviews with him that I enjoyed listening to as well. He doesn't come across as the devil incarnate like the poster above seems to think, but like I said, I don't know him. He has led an interesting life.
I do know one thing, liberals in this country love to hate rich people, gun owners, and conservatives. He checks a couple of those boxes.
As far as the phone goes, I have no clue. I would love to hear from someone with experience in that industry.
I do know one thing, liberals in this country love to hate rich people, gun owners, and conservatives. He checks a couple of those boxes.
As far as the phone goes, I have no clue. I would love to hear from someone with experience in that industry.
His Unplugged phone product may or may not be whatever is touted but Erik is about as Pro America, Pro USC, Anti Big Government, Anti corruption and pro freedom as anybody I have met.
I can vouch for that much personally.
His is pissing off a ton of people because he is frank and vocal with his opinions so there are a lot of goobers and outlets gunning for him. Accordingly, there will certainly be articles and links easily found that try to connect him to as much negative publicity as possible.
You are most certainly entitled to have your own opinion about what he "appears to be".
I will give my own opinion above as a retort based on his long track record of statements and actions.
Earlier this year, I asked a guy that I work with if he had ever heard of Straight Jacket. He said no.
An hour later, he picked up his iphone to go to lunch and it had an ad for Straight Jacket. His phone was listening to my voice.
An hour later, he picked up his iphone to go to lunch and it had an ad for Straight Jacket. His phone was listening to my voice.
I make it a point to turn all that stuff off, and it still happens to me. I had a random conversation about some kind of evergreen trees with someone once. I got home and opened up my wife's laptop that night, and there were ads for evergreen trees all over her facebook.
That is just one example of many.
I may toss my phone if I can read microfiche with my library card, I may go old old old school, might spin up the Mimeograph to print a few articles
Yesh
I'm a gun owning conservative that this phone was targeted towards, as its original name was to be the "Red Pill Phone". I totally agree with you that liberals in this country hate on rich people (because they want everyone financially equal); hate on gun owners (partially because they have no training with firearms so they afraid); and hate on conservatives (for so many reasons because they don't see the same things we do).
This phone has a closed source version of Android, which means that you or I or anyone will never know exactly what the code on your phone is doing in the background as NO ONE can look at that code. You'd most likely get sued for reverse engineering any of this company's code to show any suspicious activities they were doing. Reverse engineering means taking their raw code, learning what it does, and then sharing anything malicious with the public.
Great, he may be 800% American - who knows really? I search around about him & then find references to provide to shine the light on the things he has done in the past (or allegedly) which don't paint a pretty picture. I would encourage you to provide some references too. I'd be very curious to hear about the good things he may have done.
Regardless, the main focus of this post is if what he's selling is what he says he's selling or not. There are too many products advertised to deliver promises that are impossible, touted as "the most secure" or "the most private" phone, and this sets off many RED FLAGS regarding their marketing facade.
When it comes to phones, as others have said, don't use one if your threat model is too high. That's not realistic for most people, so then that brings us to three different options - Apple Crap, Android & variants, or Mobile Linux (which is under a lot of development still, but has hope in the near future).
1. Apple is a surveillance company and using their products is just putting your data into this company's surveillance network. Furthermore, these phones have been cracked and broken into. This can even be seen from the
2. Android & variants - Google is a surveillance company too. If you use an unmodified Android phone, then you are definitely putting your data into this company's surveillance network. There are alternative versions of Android which provide different types of protections, and most of them are open source which means that anyone can view their source code and see what the code is actually doing on their phone.
2.a. One open source Android variant is called LineageOS, and running this can protect your data from specific adversaries. You can keep your data from the G00g if you do not install their Play Store or Play Services on your phone. Instead you can install free & open source applications from the F-Droid store, which again are applications that you can see all their source code. This variant will work on a lot of different phone models, which can be found on their website.
2.b. The version of Android shipped with Erik's Unplugged Phone is called LibertOS, which their company will tell you is a proprietary operating system. As I responded above to @kennyg , which btw I love the forum name - keep playing that sax, closed source code creates issues because there is no way to know what the code is actually doing on or with your device.
2.c. IMHO, and as others have stated earlier in this thread, there is an Android variant called GrapheneOS (GOS). By default GOS does not come with any G00gle Play Store or Play Services or any of their spyware apps installed. GOS is completely open source so you can go & look at the code that is running on your phone to see what it is doing. You also get the advantage of a full phone encryption via the Titan hardware chip in the phone, whereas many other phones only provide a software-based full phone encryption, which is much weaker. By design, if anyone were to tamper with your GOS phone, then it would just flash back to factory default and they would not be able to get your data. I also recently learned that GOS has a feature where you can setup a "Duress" PIN or Password on GrapheneOS , as seen in this YouTube video. I've never seen any other phone offer that feature.
3. Linux on Mobile is coming along. The PinePhone is very hobbyist, but it can work. Other users posted in this thread about the Librem phones, which I have not used yet.
And this is a perfect example showing the dangers of using closed source software on your phone. Unfortunately with Apple you do not have any choice other than to switch to a different platform.
blah blah blah.....dunna matter 1 iota.
Anything you do with ANY phone goes thru THEIR towers.
They vacuum that shit up and monitor it.
Do you think data travels via magic ?
Unicorns carry the signals ?
For once, this is actually a solid take.
Even if one creates a device that implements effective end-to-end encryption and whatever, the metadata generated by the operation of the device is often enough to hang the user. The Feds didn't care what Granny was texting her grandkids from the Capitol on Jan 6; they just needed to know that she was there and who else she was with.
I applaud the attempt to create this device, but I'm concerned that it's a bit like wearing a condom when banging hookers and claiming that one is practicing safe sex.
And in all this hullabaloo nobody even talks about all the security implications of the baseband radios in the phones...
Everyone is going to have a different "Threat Model", which is who are you protecting yourself from. Here is a better explaination about Threat Modeling from the EFF, https://www.eff.org/files/2020/01/06/threatmodeling-onepager.pdf
If you want to protect yourself from government agencies, then just stop using any tech. The phone's "modem" is a "black box" that no is seeing inside of, including the Unplugged people.
If you want to protect yourself from predatory surveillance companies, then GrapheneOS is a great solution for that, which I already explained above.
Each person's "Threat Model" will be different from one another.
If you want to protect yourself from government agencies, then just stop using any tech. The phone's "modem" is a "black box" that no is seeing inside of, including the Unplugged people.
If you want to protect yourself from predatory surveillance companies, then GrapheneOS is a great solution for that, which I already explained above.
Each person's "Threat Model" will be different from one another.
Lol. Wgaf if chyna has your phone info
Us .gov is more of a threat than any of these foreign countries. Period.
Us .gov is more of a threat than any of these foreign countries. Period.
Prince is based.
PMCs are based.
Mercs are based.
Happy fun camps for all heathens are based.
It's all fun and games until Erik Prince and his merry band of misfits show up to wisk you away to a black site because his company won a CIA contact.
I like listening to what Prince has to say on podcasts because he's very intelligent and well-spoken. Given his history of doing spook stuff for three-letter agencies in many countries including our own without accountability to elected officials, I'm maybe just a touch skeptical about placing my blind trust in him.
Oh I don't trust anyone. I'm mostly kidding. Mostly.
Sometimes I wish I had taken a different path and experienced that side of the fence but generally I'm glad I didn't.
If you use a smart phone. The personalized experience is what is tracked when state level actors want FISA or any warrants. That advertising ID is unique to the handset. You can reset it , but you are issued one.
Each service you login to is more info. Email and phone and any social media.
You can almost get the same experience by buying a burner smart phone and not logging into any accounts and trying to use it .
Each service you login to is more info. Email and phone and any social media.
You can almost get the same experience by buying a burner smart phone and not logging into any accounts and trying to use it .
Proper use of a "burner" phone is extremely difficult, to the point where the device is nearly useless.
From what I hear, and this is just a rumor so maybe it’s not true but I’ve been hearing about how secure it is to use pagers. Also, wouldn’t a good set of walkie-talkies be almost as good?
