Ask HN: Do you even trust your phone?

1 pointsialwaysforgetm6y ago1 comments

I have this Android device with a few apps installed (mostly the essential Google services, Whatsapp, Firefox and a few games), and I try to avoid unknown apps as much as I can. And even then, I don't trust my own phone to be secure. I have this huge worry because it's not receiving any updates from Samsung anymore (it's a GS6), so I kinda treat it as a semi-untrusted device: I will never install apps from banks/investment (lol Robinhood), I try to never do too-sensitive things from it. The only sensitive thing I keep on it is my main email, and it always worries me. I do use it for 2FA.

What is your take on this? Do you share the same constant anxiety that your phone may be insecure? Do you take any specific steps to help mitigating those fears and reducing the probability of being compromised?

News such as the Agent Smith one we saw today makes me even more nervous. Now I'm considering switching phones again, but the reality is that I simply do not need a new phone (my hardware works just fine!), it's super expensive, and I would end up doing this simply because of software updates for the OS.

1 comments

oblib6y ago

No, I don't trust my phone, but I'm not paranoid about it being used to spy on me.

I have an old iPhone 5s with only a few apps installed. No Facebook or Instagram, and Siri is turned off as much as possible.

Like you, I don't want or need a bigger or more powerful phone, and I won't be getting one until mine is obsoleted.

My desktop is a late `09 Mac Mini with the RAM maxed out and an SSD drive and it still works great for me. Can't run the latest Mac OS but there's nothing there I need or want.

I have several email accounts but only use one on my iPhone and I forward emails I might need to the iPhone when necessary.

My biggest problem with my iPhone is my sweet wife and daughter used my iCloud account to set her phone up and she downloads all kinds of silly apps that appear on my phone as soon as she gets them. I just delete them when I see them, but if I had known better I'd have insisted they set up an iCloud account for her.

Luckily I set up a separate email account for her on my mail server. Last I looked she had over 10,000 emails from crap she's signed up for and she never deletes any of them. Mixed in with those are emails that are important to her, so one of these days I'll have to clean that mess up too.

So for me these phones are a bit of a PITA, but not a source of anxiety.

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