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by mbrock 3868 days ago
On iPhone, is it even possible to distribute software that's open source in the sense of being verifiable? It's all binaries coming from a central server. And the operating system code is secret. Maybe all your keystrokes are sent directly to Obama so he can scan them for terrorism.
1 comments
mehrdada 3868 days ago
It is now possible to compile your own binaries and deploy it yourself without paying $99.

As for trusting the OS, it is true, but I would argue it is no better than running on an Android phone that you don't compile and deploy the OS for. There can be a hardware backdoor in your phone too. At some point, you will have to trust your infrastructure to a degree.

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mbrock 3868 days ago
Yeah. I guess if you have Xcode installed it's even quite easy. Of course, push notifications won't work.

It's hard to trust anything after Snowden. I don't know why my smart phone wouldn't be spying on everything I say. If not now then next year.

Maybe for messaging, what's most important is decentralized anonymity. We can use code language to conceal secrets. For actual documents, we can use more trustworthy platforms, at the very least ones with non-secret operating systems.

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