www/philosophy android-and-users-freedom.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       13/08/22 15:02:15

Modified files:
        philosophy     : android-and-users-freedom.html 

Log message:
        Clarify wording about the back door in the phone radio firmware.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.35&r2=1.36

Patches:
Index: android-and-users-freedom.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html,v
retrieving revision 1.35
retrieving revision 1.36
diff -u -b -r1.35 -r1.36
--- android-and-users-freedom.html      22 Jul 2013 12:41:20 -0000      1.35
+++ android-and-users-freedom.html      22 Aug 2013 15:02:14 -0000      1.36
@@ -159,11 +159,12 @@
 the microphone. On some, it can take full control of the main
 computer, through shared memory, and can thus override or replace
 whatever free software you have installed. With some, perhaps all,
-models it is possible to exercise remote control of this firmware, and
-thus of the phone's computer, through the phone radio network. The
-point of free software is that we have control of our computing, and
-this doesn't qualify. While any computing system might <em>have</em>
-bugs, these devices can <em>be</em> bugs. (Craig Murray,
+models it is possible to exercise remote control of this firmware to
+overwrite the rest of the software in the phone. The point of free
+software is that we have control of our software and our computing;
+a system with a back door doesn't qualify. While any computing system
+might <em>have</em> bugs, these devices can <em>be</em> bugs. (Craig
+Murray,
 in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/aug/12/politics";>Murder
 in Samarkand</a>, relates his involvement in an intelligence operation
 that remotely converted an unsuspecting target's non-Android portable
@@ -175,13 +176,14 @@
 firmware, in practice only the manufacturer can make new
 versions&mdash;users can't.</p>
 
-<p>Putting these points together, we can tolerate nonfree phone network
-firmware provided new versions of it won't be loaded, it can't take
-control of the main computer, and it can only communicate when and as
-the free operating system chooses to let it communicate. In other
-words, it has to be equivalent to circuitry, and that circuitry must
-not be malicious. There is no obstacle to building an Android phone
-which has these characteristics, but we don't know of any.</p>
+<p>Putting these points together, we can tolerate nonfree phone
+network firmware provided new versions of it won't be loaded, it can't
+take control of the main computer, and it can only communicate when
+and as the free operating system chooses to let it communicate. In
+other words, it has to be equivalent to circuitry, and that circuitry
+must not be malicious. There is no technical obstacle to building an
+Android phone which has these characteristics, but we don't know of
+any.</p>
 
 <p>Android is not a self-hosting system; development for Android needs
 to be done on some other system.  The tools in Google's
@@ -255,7 +257,7 @@
 
 <p>Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2013/07/22 12:41:20 $
+$Date: 2013/08/22 15:02:14 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>