Who's Spying Your Phone 2020, Pine Librem, via Braxman

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 11:28:33PM -0500, grarpamp wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6-axLHh5V8
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWBaW4f38I
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNItvMBIXyQ
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Collection_System_Network
> 
> Pinephone switches not externally accessible.


Pinephone looking as open as it gets in 2020:

  https://www.pine64.org/2020/01/24/setting-the-record-straight-pinephone-misconceptions/


tl;dr:

  Here’s what’s open
  - Allwinner A64 SoC uns mainline Linux, uses mainline ATF and
    u-boot and there are open source drivers for all main SoC
    components. This openness extends to the Lima GPU driver
    introduced in kernel 5.2.

  - Linux 5.6 will contain drivers for all major components of the
    SoC. The parts which still need to be upstreamed to mainline are
    HDMI audio and msgbox – both drivers are in the works. For more
    information on mainlining efforts, please refer to the A64 column
    at https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort#Status_Matrix

  - It’s worth mentioning that LPDDR3 initialization is done by
    u-boot SPL, which is also open source. There are no blobs in
    there either.

    Needless to say, the PinePhone itself is an open platform for any
    OS to run on. The grand majority of the OSes developed for the
    PinePhone are, in and of themselves, completely open too.


  The blobs:
  - The non-FOSS parts of the phone are as follows: WiFi and
    Bluetooth firmware must be uploaded to the Realtek RTL8723cs on
    initialization, an optional auto-focus firmware (currently not
    used in any PinePhone OSes) can be uploaded to the rear
    OmniVision OV5640 camera, and the Quectel EG25-G LTE modem runs
    its own closed-source OS.

  - The WiFi module communicates with the CPU over SDIO and BT is
    over UART – neither of these connections provide direct access to
    CPU memory.

  - The LTE modem on the PinePhone is a ‘black box’, and runs its own
    Linux system internally. This includes all the proprietary
    modules (blobs) needed to run the actual cellular radios.
    However, this system is almost entirely isolated from the main
    system running on the A64 SoC. The only data contacts between A64
    and modem are USB connection for data and I2S connection for
    audio. All data going in or out of the modem must go over these
    connections.

  - There is no RAM or flash storage shared between the systems. In
    short, unless you explicitly send data to the modem, it is never
    in contact with the blobs running inside it. The modem cannot
    send any data to the phone unless phone is willing to receive it
    (that’s the basics of USB).