Daniël

Machine learning #ML, #Rust, #macOS, #NixOS. If AI is the future, it must be open.

Website: https://danieldk.eu/
GitHub: https://github.com/danieldk/
Pronouns: he/him/his

Public Key

npub1v79wn9xm2qhlyuz52xxdl59vvnt4etgf2udl2gfzphxlnlcauc7qye2ss7

NIP-05 Address

danieldk_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsx0zhfjnd4qtljwp29rrxl6zkxf46u45y4wxl4yy3qmn0eluw7v0qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dswr776v

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1v79wn9xm2qhlyuz52xxdl59vvnt4etgf2udl2gfzphxlnlcauc7qye2ss7

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Last Notes

2026-05-10 18:44:02 UTC

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Do you have a reference for that? You might be mixing up Motorola Mobility with Motorola Solutions, which are two separate companies.

2026-04-06 17:28:57 UTC

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Moreover, what is better for longevity, a phone that gets nearly all updates on day 1 and has an SoC that is fast enough for years to come or a phone that is a security risk from day 1 and had a pretty mediocre SoC even when it was released?
E.g. Fairphone promised at least five years of updates for the Fairphone 4. However, in 2026 it still running a Linux patch release (4.19.197) from 2021.

2026-04-06 17:22:25 UTC

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Conflict-free minerals are a good point, but you save a lot more minerals (and thus labor extracting these minerals) by buying a second-hand phone, or ensuring that your phone gets a good second life by e.g. selling it.

2026-04-06 17:20:58 UTC

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That is very much a secondary effect though. By buying a new Fairphone you are directly financing a Chinese ODM (T2Mobile) that develops the hardware and software, with proprietary Chinese TCL blobs.
And for the large price you get a phone with an SoC, cameras, and speakers of a 200-300 Euro phone.
Most of the extra cost does not go to wages, the extra wage cost is ~$1.90 according to their own marketing materials

2026-04-06 15:17:56 UTC

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maybe buying a second-hand Pixel is an option? Re-using a phone is a great way of reducing the impact of phone production.
Fairphone is bad when it comes to security. It doesn't have a secure element like the Titan M2 in the Pixel (only TrustZone) and their kernels, firmware blobs etc. are way outdated. Even on the FP6 they are still shipping firmware blobs from June last year, even though Qualcomm does monthly security bulletins.

2026-04-06 08:24:53 UTC

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Put differently, he is using the "think of the children"-argument to attack anyone who has better privacy and security than them.
This effort to make security and privacy suspect puts them really in the same camp as the people using similar arguments for Chat Control, weakening cryptography, mandatory age verification, etc. They are amplifying this "security is only for bad people"-narrative.
Murena is *not* a privacy company.

2026-04-06 08:19:44 UTC

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Ok, I think we can at least agree that Gael Duval's statement implies that phones that do security hardening are for criminals and spies?
Now, next, which serious projects (not snake-oil security phone companies) focus on phone hardening?
So, in what way is he not attacking @npub1kwa…e0nj ?
(Perhaps ironically, he is also attacking iOS and Pixel OS, but that will whoosh past his audience, since most people do not know about Apple/Google's hardening efforts).

2026-04-06 06:38:14 UTC

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Ehm, the thread literally starts with a video? It's pretty clear who they are attacking.
Why are you defending a company that says "security is only for pedophiles and spies"?

2026-03-18 19:29:52 UTC

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This is not just a theoretical concern.
Some European countries border on autocracy. Imagine that this initiative is successful. An autocrat could pressure Volla et al. to only attest phones that have a chat backdoor under the thread of banning them from the market.
It is anti-privacy, anti-security, and anti-freedom.

2026-03-18 19:20:15 UTC

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Centralized remote attestation is diametrically opposed to privacy, since it makes projects vulnerable to pressure to weaken security & privacy, delay updates, etc.
AFAIK the support for remote attestation that is already provided in AOSP does not suffer from this issue, because there is not a single entity that enforces it (banks can whitelist signing key fingerprints).
So the only reason I can think of is control.

2026-03-18 17:08:14 UTC

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And the Volla Phone Quintus is the Daria Bond 5G from an Emirates company (marked up by 560 Euro). Given that Eurowashing, maybe attacking GrapheneOS for using Pixel hardware is a bit rich? At least Pixel has proper device security.
Back to to the original topic. I only have a stake in this as an EU citizen, but having a small set of companies decide who can run what is bad, it's another attack on the freedom of EU citizens.

2026-03-09 18:23:14 UTC

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it is worth checking Volla's source trees. They use ancient kernels firmware blobs, etc. It's pretty much the same issue as GMS Android, the whole attestation thing becomes security theater if phones with years of known holes get attested.

2026-03-06 11:56:54 UTC

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At any rate, this is not really a secret, e.g. the PostmarketOS Wiki also states that the Quintus is just the Daria Bond: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/The-big-list-of-who-has-what-device
@npub1w06…zdyc @npub1khf…nxkz But if you want to overpay 550 Euro for a phone with ancient A78 cores, old kernel trees (Linux 4.19), and questionable security...

2026-03-06 11:52:35 UTC

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Apparently, the Volla Quintus is a rebranded Daria Bond, designed by Multi Ways International LLC from the Emirates (see the Amazon link in my earlier Toot).
Check the Quintus kernel tree: https://github.com/HelloVolla/android_kernel_volla_mt6877/commits/volla-15.0/ . One of the main developers works for the Emirates company that makes the Daria Bond phones (you can match the committer's name): https://www.productdesignaward.eu/winners/epda/2024/11768/
Maybe they do some assembly in .de, but it looks like an .ae ODM phone in hardware and software.

2026-03-06 10:41:41 UTC

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My main point is that many so-called European phones are just rebranded products made by non-European ODMs, probably from countries that you do not like either or even less, including kernel/firmware maintenance.
Even though they were designed by a US company, Google Pixels were at least designed from the ground up for security (hardware-assisted exploit mitigation, Titan M2 secure enclave, etc.) and have well-maintained firmware, etc.

2026-03-06 10:20:46 UTC

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So instead you pick a phone developed by a UAE company, with parts of the software maintained by the same UAE company?
At least you could do yourself a favor and get equivalent Volla Phone Quintus hardware for 500 Euro off: https://www.amazon.ae/Android-Smartphone-Storage-Octa-Core-Monetization/dp/B0DDYDZC4V?th=1
That's currently 164 Euro.
Of course, that's just in jest... just pick up a second-hand Pixel and install @npub1kwa…e0nj and get an actually secure phone with as much or little Google as you want (degoogled by default).

2026-02-20 17:02:58 UTC

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fair, but a lot of people mean SailfishOS, Plasma, Ubuntu Touch when they refer to 'mobile Linux', like (I assume) the person I was reacting to.
I completely agree with your criticism of the security and privacy of the desktop Linux stack. I have been trying to shout that off the rooftops for years, but it's an uphill battle.

2026-02-20 12:12:03 UTC

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Most Linux phone OSes have *far worse* security than Android.
Why not just use an AOSP-based OS like @npub1kwa…e0nj ? You get all of the upsides and very few to none of the downsides.
Even if you do not like Google's decisions, just ditching the engineering marvel that is AOSP does not make much sense at all.

2026-01-09 09:29:07 UTC

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Yes, I know that GrapheneOS can run sandboxed Google Play Services, but the point is to be able to run Google/Apple-less.

2026-01-09 09:27:47 UTC

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Let's do it!
Though, please also invest in an alternative to the Google Android and iOS ecosystems.
A lot of Europeans are ready for it, but it is too hard due to app ecosystem lock-in.
Require bank/government apps to also work on Jolla's Sailfish OS, @npub1kwa…e0nj, etc. In both cases they could still be Android apps, but they have to work without Google Play Services/SafetyNet, etc.

2025-02-16 17:07:22 UTC

Huge shoutout to [@AsahiLinux](https://social.treehouse.systems/@AsahiLinux ), twprules, and [@nixos_org](https://chaos.social/@nixos_org ) for making high-end ARM64 NixOS possible.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/014/651/168/651/372/original/43b56d5547bc8803.png