this service exists mostly for people who can’t purchase a pixel directly. nitrokey ships internationally

hardware vulnerabilities undoubtedly exist, whether intentional or not. its simply the nature of designing these complex semiconductors.

that said, if one company intentionally creates a backdoor, won’t they all? what phone do you buy at that point?

any startup or small phone company may not have intentional backdoors, but I can guarantee their hardware security on all other levels pales to what apple and google can accomplish. I think the question then becomes are you more worried about google having a backdoor, or about third party compromises?

im not a fan of our choices, there is no silver bullet.

I got around it by registering a new number with phreeli.

granted, this is not something most people can go and do, phone numbers are hard to separate from. however, you might agree that privacy minded individuals are more likely to find that workaround acceptable.

I do like Dessalines post regarding alternatives, I’ll have to do more research.

personally, my bet is that they don’t have anyone qualified enough to pull off an exploit like that (on me).

the problem with my bet: what we’ve seen is that they won’t care, and accuse individuals of terrorism based off the color of their clothes.