[wellylug] 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G - Free Software Foundation

Peter Lambrechtsen plambrechtsen at gmail.com
Sat Jul 12 10:19:14 NZST 2008


On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 8:42 AM, Pete Black <pete at marchingcubes.com> wrote:
> GPS-enabled cellphones will report their location on demand to the
> carrier, with no user confirmation - ostensibly for emergency response,
> and must also be able to be activated remotely so their headset
> microphones can be used to eavesdrop on conversations - these
> capabilities are routinely used by to bust drug dealers etc.

I think you are confusing a number of things

1) Carriers already use the "cell site hand-over" to triangulate
customers, I know this is done in the US, not sure if it is done in
NZ.  This has nothing to do if you have a GPS receiver in it or not.
I am not sure what the case is for GPS enabled phones, but that would
require significant integration between the GSM modules and GPS, plus
have a standard protocol for communication between the two.  From my
understanding such a thing doesn't exist.
But that doesn't change the fact that ANY mobile CDMA or GSM can have
their location reasonably accurately tracked down to a meter or two.
If you don't like that, don't own a mobile.  Or keep it in network
monitor mode and switch it off when you see your phone being kicked
off cell sites that you have a good signal strength with.

2) Enabling mic's on mobile phones only seems to be a feature that is
enabled on certain models of phones (as per the links you provided).
And I would doubt that since iPhones are computers rather than managed
mobile phones from the providers as is the case with CDMA (Telecom)
phones which are common place in the US.  If you disabled the GRPS
interfaces on your phone then the providers ability to reconfigure
your phone is significantly reduced.  Something that can't be done on
the CDMA network due to the phones being centrally managed via IOTA.
Lets see if this also happens on GSM networks with non-provider
supplied phones.... Somehow don't think so.

Me, I am a proud owner of a Generation 1 Jailbroken AnySim iPhone
ex-the US.  Works great, the only downsides are the poor battery life
(2-3 hours of talking during the day and the battery is about 1/2
gone). The fact it's not a "Mass Storage Device" so you can't plug it
into a computer and drag files onto it.  I also disabled GRPS on my
plan due to Vodafone being so expensive mobile data.  The other
disadvantage is that the Wifi doesn't have promiscuous mode for the
hackers amongst us.

But my 3 1/2 year old knows how to use it (and my 2 year old is almost
able to use it as well), takes photos with it, can navigate the photos
and zoom, (says mummys phone is broken since she can't touch the
screen and make the pictures change) has a SSH client, the Safari
browser is awesome and there is javascript API's to tell you what
rotation the phone is in (in landscape left or right or portrait!) and
there is a wealth of different apps out for the phone (video recorder)
that for the most part work really well.  IMHO the most important
thing about a phone is that it just works, use iTunes on Windows (hate
me if you will) to rip my CD's directly onto the phone.  The iPhone
certainly fits that bill.  I think for $440NZ all up was a good deal
for the 8GB model.



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