3 Steps

Let’s talk about 3 workable steps to setup a not so bad pocket technology stack.

What is pocket technology? You remember that little thing you american pull out 205 times a day? That is an amazing piece of high technology in your hand, not without its dark secrets.

What is a technology stack? Simply the things that get pieced together to make the raw amazing technology work. In the case of pocket technology, you need the hardware, and the main software. The third element in today’s stack is a messaging software, and thus you complete three broad layers of today’s technology world known by most engineers: the physical layer (hardware), the logical layer (software), and the application layer (also software). The lowest layer serves as support to the highest levels in turn.

Enough pedantry. My poor man suggested stack to you:

• The hardware: Pixel 6A
• The OS: GrapheneOS
• The messaging: Signal

This stack takes away the infamous power of your pocket technology to read your mind or listen to your conversations. How? Because Google’s God like app Play Services isn’t able to mess with the rock star hardened GrapheneOS (GOS) and uniquely identify your phone for its voyeurs friends the advertisers, since on it, it’s just yet another Android app without special permissions. GOS offers the same level, if not higher, of privacy that iOS gives to Apple fanatics. Which is great, as it truly liberates the Android, as it is meant to be, owing to its open source status. On other Android phone brands like Samsung or Huawei, God Google Play Services app is everywhere, sees everything, hear everything, cannot be uninstalled, can uninstall things on your phone, and haunt you while you sleep.

Everyone knows Signal messaging app by now. If you are using WhatsApp (which you do, necessarily trapped in your social network and its unreasonable stubbornness, just like me), you are using Signal’s absolute badass end to end encryption protocol, which laugh in the face of attackers and other actors interested by your private exchanges, by being, again, open source and even free software. Just picture that: a software claims to be secure, its algorithm is published for anyone to have a look and try and learn how to break it, and still no one has managed to (not publicly in any case), after more than 10 years of existence.

With this pocket technology stack, you have access to high end technology for less than £200, and you are guaranteed, still, 2 years of security updates at the hardware level by Google, and at the software level by GOS (on most recent Pixel phones, we are talking about 7 years security updates).

There is something sweet about using the devil to free oneself from it.