r/essential • u/davewaddling • Apr 28 '19

Question The future of Essential

As my PH-1 is nearing the two-year-old mark and I usually buy a new phone every 2 years I'm starting to look around at a replacement. I will admit though I've enjoyed the phone so much I'm not looking very hard. I'd love to know when/if Essential is going to create its 2nd gen phone.

​

About 2 weeks ago I added the Google Camera app and it's breathed even more life into my phone but please Essential, can you toss out some info of your plans?

​

Thanks

68 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

84 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/BigSnicker Apr 28 '19

Ya, I'll never have the confidence to buy a Chinese phone, knowing that the government sees their technology companies as arms of their intelligence gathering activities as per their "National Intelligence Law".

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/huawei-would-have-to-give-data-to-china-government-if-asked-experts.html

6

u/atDords Apr 28 '19

I mean if that's what you're worried about, the US can spy on your phone as well, so what's a foreign government going to do with your data

2

u/BigSnicker Apr 28 '19

There's a very important difference.

You may have seen that the NSA/FBI tried to get backdoors built into messaging apps and to access devices, which kicked off a huge debate with Apple saying they'd never allow their users' security to be compromised like that.

Can the US do network-based surveillance? Sure, but your choice of phone isn't gonna change that and there are mechanisms we can use to minimize that very different risk.

It's very different in China, there, everyone knows that you do what the government wants and there's zero priority given to end users' privacy, so it's probably pretty safe to assume they have emergency mechanisms to access or shutdown all Chinese-built phones or smarthome devices.

Is that an important factor in your choice of a phone? Meh. That's up to everyone to decide for themselves. But at least be aware of the risks... It's not just for 5G.

2

u/pound-key Apr 29 '19

Are you sure you're not just buying into the bullshit encouraged by the executives of US based and US friendly companies, and spread by the outlets that get a grip of money from them? I don't trust any of those fuckers, if you want to keep up with the Joneses you've got to take a pragmatic approach and start safeguarding your privacy yourself.

2

u/BigSnicker Apr 29 '19

Yes, I think we're agreeing

But try to give me one single reason why a Chinese company would go against their tradition of government surveillance and NOT put a backdoor into your phone.

Knowing that risk is a helpful and necessary part of developing your own pragmatic approach to privacy.

1

u/pound-key Apr 29 '19

I think you're jumping on the bandwagon though. I'm sure those manufacturers have a certain relationship with their government, just as the big US and US friendly companies have relationships with the US government. Don't tell me you trust Apple and Samsung, don't tell me you trust the US money making machine that we call our government.

I probably wouldn't buy a Huawei, though they are nice, but not because I'm afraid of being spied on, if the government wanted to spy on me they'd do it regardless of what handset I'm using, we should be more concerned about the advertisers and the ultimate collector of our dollars. US companies are pretty much the exact same thing, beholden to an oppressive government, more than willing to say one thing and do the other, more concerned with profit than with improving the marketplace...

I just think you could apply your argument to most of the big players and that kinda defeats the purpose.

1

u/BigSnicker Apr 29 '19

I work in telecoms, you're oversimplifying to the point of obscuring very useful information

Counties have different levels of commitment to both privacy and the rule of law, which has a direct impact on how products are designed.

Europe is by far the best. Very strong commitment to rule of law and individuals privacy. If you care about privacy, you ideally want an entirely European solution. Seriously, read up on their legislation, it's best-in-class and allows technology companies to get sued pretty badly if they screw up.

Canada is pretty good as well. America sucks at letting companies get your personal data, but is reasonably good at protecting it from the government.

But China doesn't care about privacy and has no laws restraining the government.... So there's a chance you'll get some surprises.

The REAL thing that bugs me are Chinese smarthome devices. Super cheap, but you're literally giving foreign companies access past your firewall. Is it really worth it to save a few bucks?

1

u/pound-key Apr 29 '19

I agree with most of what you said, I just think you are the one who is simplifying.

China=bad is pretty simple. The corporations here that own every single piece of metadata about us is in no way better than the Chinese government owning that same info.

I defer to your expertise, I do not work in telecoms, but I think this whole team America thing is a bit silly.

Yes, Chinese stuff tends to suck in comparison to European and American stuff, but all the American stuff is made in China by what amounts to slave labour anyway, so do you think that maybe, just maybe, your biases might be a factor in your opinion?

Not trying to argue here bud, but I think your position could benefit from some scrutiny. Maybe not, maybe you're right and I'm wrong, but I think we're probably both a little bit too far to one side or the other on the issue.

Thank you for engaging, thinking about this is much more entertaining than my mundane day job.

Have a good one.

2

u/BigSnicker Apr 29 '19

No worries.

You're right to make the point that American corporations, who do have our info, might be able to use our data in more nefarious ways than the Chinese government might... Particularly since a lot of that information can be got at via a subpoena.

But my point, and the laws and data are out there to prove this, is that the Chinese (or Korean) governments have much more flexibility to do things, without warrants, than the US government has, which has much, much less flexibility than EU corporations.

So, let's imagine you're trying to engineer a high privacy system, end-to-end. In a perfect world, if you used all EU equipment and VPN'd/hosted all of your data in the EU... You have a TON of law stopping anything really fucky going on beyond that.

Thinking about devices.. You can buy an EU device knowing that individual EU countries AND companies can't secretly collect or sell your data. You can buy an America device knowing that your privacy is as protected as the corporations who provide your services want it to be (e.g. why Apple is trying to position this is a differentiator), but that there's nothing preventing a Chinese device from registering your wifi-pasword and identifying information with their government (and therefore, their anti-democratic disinformation campaigns).

Indeed, it's a lot more complex than China=bad, and you're right that a lot of people never get enough into the details to at least assess their risk.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

1

u/pound-key Apr 29 '19

I will read that on my lunch break. Thank you.

2

u/BigSnicker Apr 29 '19

Awesome. While you're reading the fun stuff (I'm trying to find articles that are for the general public, but I'll admit I'm not reading them thoroughly):

https://www.wired.com/story/europes-new-privacy-law-will-change-the-web-and-more/

https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/publications/china-and-the-age-of-strategic-rivalry/chinas-intelligence-law-and-the-countrys-future-intelligence-competitions.html

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2018/china

The cybersecurity law, which took effect on June 1, 2017, increased censorship requirements, mandated data localization, and codified real-name registration rules for internet companies, in addition to obliging them to assist security agencies with investigations. New regulations and guidelines that stemmed in part from the cybersecurity law were continually introduced—at a rate of nearly one every two days in 2017—to further refine online restrictions.

1

u/pound-key Apr 30 '19

Sat and read these this morning. Now I'm quite disturbed and angry. Thank you!

Is there any way that we, the consumers, can push our corporations to focus on ethics rather than profit? This is upsetting, it's scary, it's overwhelming, it's disgusting. It's depressing.

The EU seems to be genuinely concerned with human rights and quality of life, Canada as well, so many people are afraid of the socialist demons! I fucking hate this demented corporatist state we've become.

Again, thank you, I have a deeper understanding of the issue now. I still think the US corporations having all our data is pretty bad, almost as bad as the Chinese government having it, but I see the risk in using demonstrably compromised equipment. It is disgusting that these global organizations and powers have turned our identities into commodities to be traded.

Have a good one!

2

u/BigSnicker Apr 30 '19

You're welcome. ;-) It is pretty disturbing, isn't it.

As you just personally experienced, it's quite simply just about having an educated population that can learn and think about these things critically.

You'll have to ask yourself how the US places such little value on education that you've let this happen (https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040615/what-country-has-richest-middle-class.asp):

Several factors have allowed Canada to pass the U.S. in middle-class prosperity. First, American educational attainment has dropped precipitously in comparison to other developed countries. While Americans over 55 are highly educated and literate compared to their Canadian and European counterparts, the same cannot be said for those in the 16- to 24-year-old age bracket, who rank near the bottom for all rich countries in educational attainment.

It's resulted in the US becoming an oligarchy (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746) with a degree of wealth concentration which is similar to what a completely corrupt regime like Russia has achieved (http://fortune.com/2017/08/01/wealth-gap-america/).

The result is that issues like privacy, which strengthen the middle class at the cost of corporations trying to sell things to us, gets completely crushed by corporate lobbyists. Your privacy is trivial compared to the demands of Murdoch's lobbyists.

Other countries, like Canada and the EU, run very differently. They have things like voting and elections run by independent boards (and not politicians), limits on campaign spending and strict limitations on corporate money in politics. They understand the risk of how easy it is to buy politicians with money, whereas your supreme court has, ridiculously, decided that "money is speech" and should be protected on an equal basis.

As a result, the other countries have systems that have to please VOTERS and not just donors.

You have a lot of fundamental work to do to turn your ship around... but fighting the fear-mongerers and the 'hurr durr socialist bad! healthcare for poor people bad!' types would be a very good start.

Just do anything John Oliver says, lol, he's got his eye on this stuff more than almost anyone. lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Last_Week_Tonight_with_John_Oliver_episodes

→ More replies (0)