| > That's the old open source argument. Indeed, so it's unfortunate that it doesn't get more discussion in situations such as these. > How difficult would it be to hide functionality like this in some obscure code that's camouflaged as something else? More difficult than it would be with proprietary software, where anyone at any time can add malicious code that may never even be discovered over the lifetime of the device. Free software doesn't prevent malicious actors from contributing malicious code, but it certainly improves chances. It also makes such a move very risky. Just as laws are a deterrent for many crimes, so is public scrutiny. > How hard would it be to automatically install an app that does this after first boot, disguised as some self updating or analytics feature? In a fully free OS, this app would have been built from source. So the same arguments apply. > If someone puts an Android fork online, who has the time to go through the changes to discover something like this? Again, it improves changes. Here's a good example from Replicant: http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/SamsungG... > Also, such features could even easily be placed on a tiny, dedicated chip inside the phone, completely apart from the OS. Sure, but that's not an excuse to throw our hands up and not worry about the security of the software running on it. The OS might even be able to itself mitigate certain things (e.g. the Samsung backdoor mentioned above). This issue also exists on PCs: https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme |