I can't find anything about a separat Sailfish Secure OS. Has it just been merged into mainline SOS? Or has it been dropped at some point in time?
When I came across it i was checking out related articles on Wikipedia. I don't know if it was merged into mainline, but I would think that to be a good idea and don't see any downside (although I don't know the target audience of Sailfish). I think there was also a chart that mentioned it somewhere on some article or linked page, however I lack time to look for that right now. As I understood it, the "secure" version was initially made for a smartphone with specific requirements, so maybe it is maintained by those people, or it died. You got my curiosity up, so maybe I will check it out some time.
My stupid question is why don't those behind mobile OSs try to make the most secure, hardened version of their OS that they can? Wouldn't Google still be able to
steal collect
sensitive personal info stuff to make the best user experience possible without making every user a gigantic target? Sure, I suppose part of the responsibility lies with the user, and you can't always be sure that those behind that thing you absolutely want on your phone don't have unknown devious intentions, especially if you are unwilling to go with the Apple model. I know that is somewhat contradictory. I figure those smarter than me could make it happen.
My reasoning is that most people have a lot of stuff on their smartphone that they don't want everyone to see, and they may not be thinking about that when they grant permission to the pretty themed text thingy access to their files, which they intend to use to send pics and such to others. They also don't expect it to listen to all their conversations and pick up on things that could be harmful to them if it got out (financial info, for example). If my family is any indication, most people with these devices always have them on them, and use them to do many things that are of a sensitive nature. These should be running an OS that is far more secure than that on their computer (yeah, that is laughable in itself). I don't want to get into specific details, or make guesses about things I don't know, but the things I do know about, know how to do, or have done, are pretty frightening when coupled with the knowledge of the things people use them for. Some of these things can be implemented by default without the user noticing much difference (encrypt everything stored on the device), and other things require small changes that are similar to the inconveniences they are used to dealing with as software changes anyway. Once they get used to doing things a certain way the user complaints will go away. Ultimately Android is a commercial product (I am not going to argue about licensing and shit, you know what I mean), so the default setup intended for smartphones and tablets should be protecting the user. It sucks that I say that, because really this is the type of thing that in other aspects of life I would tend to say the opposite. But, really, users are stupid. They don't know they are stupid. Rather than setting them up to be victims by those other than Google, they should have to go out of their way to do really stupid stuff (ya know, within reason... It is their own fault if they reply all, or drunk dial, or send naked pics to mom instead of Tom).
I don't even know what I am going on about...yeah, I want to use my Pyra as a smartphone, too. It seems like the perfect smartphone for me. With a wired headset, that is. I wish I could send myself one back in the early 90s.
