Poll: How much would you be willing to pay for a Neo900 (complete device) with TI DM3730 1GHz/512M-RAM/1GB
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How much would you be willing to pay for a Neo900 (complete device) with TI DM3730 1GHz/512M-RAM/1GB

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jperez2009's Avatar
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#1491
I love this idea and this concept, but the mere thought of $40 shy of $1000 for the device made me cringe. I know these aren't finalized prices and they are subject to change, but wow.

I hope this project succeeds and turns into a full-blown, affordable manufactured phone. I still have my N900 and this would certain breathe new life into my little device's casing!
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#1492
Originally Posted by dos1 View Post
New progress update!
"In other news, we're happy to announce that Neo900 hardware is going to support dual-touch gestures[4] like rotating and pinching, without replacing the original, resistive screen from N900!"

Does it mean that there is a chance to backport the dual touch to N900?
 

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#1493
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
"In other news, we're happy to announce that Neo900 hardware is going to support dual-touch gestures[4] like rotating and pinching, without replacing the original, resistive screen from N900!"

Does it mean that there is a chance to backport the dual touch to N900?
Unfortunately, no - unless you do some crazy hw modding. We're not replacing the digitizer itself, but we're replacing the controller to which it's connected. Please refer to post from few last pages of this thread for more details. You may also want to read the issue on our tracker linked from the news - it has some discussion about the implementation in its comments.
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Last edited by dos1; 2013-12-14 at 20:03.
 

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#1494
Originally Posted by joerg_rw View Post
So what's the question? You answered it yourself. And actually there IS NO hardware concept to have a modem with firmware that's not modifiable, the chip manufacturers won't use fuse ROM to store their firmware, and as soon as it's flash it CAN get modified. And you can't make sure that what you "read out from ROM" is the actual content and not some fake that the malware delivers to you. Regarding FSF approval: we are not interested in getting THAT approval, we take pride in our own concept being better than what FSF defines. The idea of immutable firmware is based on a flawed concept, it doesn't help for anything.
The FSF has quite a large following and their endorsement and publicity could help this project a lot. I'm not asking you to change anything to comply with the FSF. As I see it, you both strive for user privacy and that's why I'm interested in their opinion of the differences. Maybe it's a lack of understanding on their part or maybe they're just being stubborn. Do they realise that the Neo900 is the best we are going to get in terms of user privacy? Maybe they can be swayed - even RMS used computers before the existense of the computer that meets all of his criteria.
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#1495
Originally Posted by wicket View Post
The FSF has quite a large following and their endorsement and publicity could help this project a lot. I'm not asking you to change anything to comply with the FSF. As I see it, you both strive for user privacy and that's why I'm interested in their opinion of the differences. Maybe it's a lack of understanding on their part or maybe they're just being stubborn. Do they realise that the Neo900 is the best we are going to get in terms of user privacy? Maybe they can be swayed - even RMS used computers before the existense of the computer that meets all of his criteria.
That's exactly what that article will be for. Long story short - we believe that strict monitoring of what modem does and raising user awareness that it's in fact a blackbox is the only sensible approach and blocking firmware upgrade is in fact violating user freedom without giving anything in return (FSF believes it's better for privacy, but we're not really convinced - it could be easily workarounded by modem manufacturer with malicious intents).

I hope that it will raise the discussion and awareness of the topic. We don't want to point out "haha FSF is wrong, don't listen to them", that would be pointless and mad. Instead we want to say "hey, FSF, we think some of your recommendations need some adjustments, and here's why". It's nothing new, we were saying that all the time in some IRC discussions etc. - so we felt like it should be written in some way, so it can reach more interested people and will enable us to stop repeating ourselves over and over again
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Last edited by dos1; 2013-12-14 at 21:10.
 

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#1496
Isn't what FSF proposing essentially tivoization?
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#1497
Originally Posted by qwazix View Post
Isn't what FSF proposing essentially tivoization?
They want to differentiate software and hardware. When user is not supposed to install the software at all, they threat such device as "a circuit" and not as a general purpose computing device.

I understand it as an attempt to draw a line somewhere on where the software ends and the hardware starts. Not very successful one IMO and I think our project is a good example where it doesn't apply very well.

However, there's also a privacy aspect in their argumentation that they're embracing, and I don't understand at all how forbidding firmware updates is protecting anyone's privacy, since the backdoor may be there from the very beginning.

(BTW. "tivoization" will be there anyway unfortunately, as almost any GSM modem has signed firmware - those that don't are few generations old and there's still not a plenty of them...)
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#1498
I think that article (written by someone with enough technical experience to dodge false informations, but with enough "common speech" sense, to make it understandable without EE entry courses) about this matter is great idea.

I agree that FSF seems to be terribly wrong on this one, and such document/discussion spawned could help fix it in their "upstream". After all, FSF is also done by normal people, and their policy isn't set in stone - may contain "bugs", or even wrong conceptions.

Unless they're stubborn over-the-line, this could be a Neo900's way of contributing to FSF, as added value.

/Estel

// Edit

Originally Posted by joerg_rw View Post
Regarding FSF approval: we are not interested in getting THAT approval, we take pride in our own concept being better than what FSF defines.
Don't underestimate possible FSF impact on reaching Phase VI (1000 ordered devices) and theoretical Phase VII (1000 devices a month) goals. Pride in good concept is nice, but pride alone won't help reaching that milestones

Of course, I agree that we shouldn't change things to comply with wrong concept, but as said, they're Free project like us, and could be convinced to re-evaluate. If not - well, "pity", and lets move on. Still, throwing FSF approval without even trying doesn't sound like good idea for Neo900 cause.
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Last edited by Estel; 2013-12-15 at 04:51.
 

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#1499
We're also looking for complete N900s in good quality (though possibly with broken mainboard) as well for as sources for spare parts. We'd like to kindly ask our community for a little bit of help there -
I have a decent, fully-functioning N900 I could potentially part with for the cause. If I do, can I get a discount on a NeoN900?
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#1500
Originally Posted by wicket View Post
The FSF has quite a large following and their endorsement and publicity could help this project a lot. I'm not asking you to change anything to comply with the FSF. As I see it, you both strive for user privacy and that's why I'm interested in their opinion of the differences. Maybe it's a lack of understanding on their part or maybe they're just being stubborn. Do they realise that the Neo900 is the best we are going to get in terms of user privacy? Maybe they can be swayed - even RMS used computers before the existense of the computer that meets all of his criteria.
Wicket,
Mr Stallman mailed me, asking about all the FSF rules and if they are satisfied by Neo900. I answered that all are met but the modem firmware update that we will offer (according to what the modem module can do: update firmware via USB), that we can't change that since we can't evaluate the hardware internals to make sure whatever we do will reliably forbid manipulations to the firmware (write-enable pins may not have the expected effect, even if they existed), and that I think the firmware must be considered "rogue" by definition (you never know what's in there, even on genuine firmware) and thus we follow another approach of tight monitoring of the modem's activities from very beginning, which will tell us when the modem misbehaves even with genuine firmware.
I received no answer to that from Mr Stallman yet, after one week.

So that's what you might assume is what FSF and Mr Stallman think about Neo900:
They like our project since it's striving for freedom and openness, but they don't want to further care about it and answer to us, when we can't fulfill their requirements, even when those requirements are impossible to fulfill.

Here a complete quote of my 2 original answers to first and second mail from Mr Stallman (I received and answered 2nd mail first, thus my answer to 1st mail refers to my answer to 2nd):
On Sun 08 December 2013 00:50:37 Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> If the modem firmware is an installable program, then the fact that
> it is nonfree means the machine is running some nonfree software.
>
> If the modem firmware can't be changed, it is effectively in ROM, so
> it might as well be a circuit. It doesn't need to be considered
> as software. For instance, the FSF can disregard it when judging
> whether to endorse a product.

There are no modem chips that have a write-once or mask programmed ROM for
their firmware. And probably never will be.


> Could you possibly design the machine with a wire which, if cut,
> prevents flashing the modem software? Or some other way a user
> could prevent further reflashing of the modem software?

Since we don't know of the internal configuration of the modem hardware, we
can't ensure we actually forbid all changing of the firmware, no matter by
which means. Even an explicit WriteEnable pin on the modem chipset's flash chip
(if it were a separate chip) is not guaranteed to work the way it's advertised
by the chip manufacturer.

Also see my reasoning in other mail I sent, about program code generally
loaded to RAM before execution, and about initial genuine firmware not approved
for absence of any backdoors or other undesirable functions.

Sorry when I'm less concerned about FSF approval and whether the firmware of
modem is considered software or blackbox - what worries me is user's privacy
and that the user at all times has absolute control over what's going on with
her/his device. Firmware in ROM is an inapt means to ensure that privacy and
control.

best regards
jOERG
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On Sun 08 December 2013 00:51:37 Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> Can the radio modem processor modify its own program?
>
> If so, the universal back door will be able to reload it.

Yes, most likely the modem CPU can write the modem internal flash where the
firmware with the backdoor is stored, so they can replace backdoor A by
backdoor B or any other "malware".

Forbidding rewrite of the firmware doesn't ensure there's no backdoor or other
nasty tings in it from very beginning. Also usually the "firmware" gets loaded
from flash storage to RAM for execution, this opens up an option to load other
executabe code to RAM without even changing "the firmware" as stored to modem
"in an immutable way" at all.

The only thing that helps make sure the modem behaves is tight monitoring of
the modem's behavior ;-) and all applicable means to block behavior we don't
like to see.
In particular: check modem RF output to learn when it's sending though it
shouldn't, monitor modem's power consumption and compare to a sane profile,
make sure the modem is OFF when we expect it to be (trivial), make sure the
modem cannot get a GPS fix when we don't want it to do (also trivial, cut/short
GPS antenna), separate mic from modem audio input so user has full control
over what the modem "hears" (up to the point where you feed it with fake audio
of your choice), monitor the clock of modem's digital audio input which
indicates modem is listening.

If you know further parameters that should get controlled to stay "on top of"
what modem does, please let me know.
I hope to create a device you wuld be willing to at least consider carrying
:-)


Best Regards
jOERG
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And here as an example a complete quote of my answer to another mail I received at 2013-12-07 03:58 from "anon" user [color and bold added by me for this post]:
Hi!
Though we are not really interested in complying with somebody else's
definition of a good, user friendly, secure and free hardware, we seem to
follow mostly the same rationale in most points.

On Sat 07 December 2013 03:58:13 Anon wrote:
> I wrote an e-mail to Richard Stallman asking about what he thought about
> the Neo900 because I was thinking about backing the project. He asked
> some points about the phone that I couldn't answer but maybe you could.
> The following is what he wrote to me:
>
> This is a big step forward in privacy. Whether it is good enough that
> I would be willing to carry one, I don't know. Nonetheless, I am
> strongly in favor of it, and I am willing to say so. Where and how
> should I say so?
>
> >Neo900 can be used with 100% Free Software stack.
>
> I am not sure exactly what the "stack" includes, and this issue calls
> for precise answers. Could you tell me which parts of the points
> below it will satisfy?
>
> * The radio modem should be on a separate chip.
>
> * The main computer should be able to turn the radio modem on and off.
>
> * The microphone and the GPS should be connected to the main computer,
> not to the radio modem.
>
> * The software on the main computer should be free -- all of it.
>
> * The radio modem should not be able to control the main computer
> or alter its memory.


All of the above points are 100% satisfied.

>
> * It should be designed so that nothing short of physical manipulation
> can alter the radio modem's own software. This program must not be
> updatable through software.


Here we disagree and take pride in announcing that our modem presumably can
receive firmware updates by a process commonly known as "flashing", which is
done exclusively under absolute control of the user. This allows the modem
software to get updated to fix bugs or implement new features (like e.g. done
for the GLONASS functionality).
If the flasher used to do this counts as "updating software" in the sense of
above, or if changing the charge in flash cells is a "physical manipulation"
that would be allowable according to above requirement is beyond our
knowledge.

Anyway we fail to understand the rationale that results in above requirement
spec. We can't see how such a restriction in user's freedom to do whatever
possible with the hardware she owns and controls is a good and beneficial thing
for the device's privacy or freedom or security or whatever. Thus we reject
any change of our product requirement specifications regarding this.


Best Regards
Joerg Reisenweber
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Last edited by joerg_rw; 2013-12-16 at 09:35.
 

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