On Pinephone Pro's Alleged Chinese Connections

[Arnox]

@Vendor-Lazarus brought up a point in chat a little bit ago that kinda started a train of worry. Specifically, Pine64, the company that makes the PinePhone Pro, is based out in Hong Kong. It's a non-profit company that is privately owned by TL Lim that contracts out employees from Syabas Tech which is also owned by TL Lim. Now, according to this Reddit post I found, Pine64 is neither Chinese-owned or operated. It's a bit questionable of a conclusion considering just how much China is trying to shove their collective cocks into Hong Kong in general, but still.

That isn't all though. There are other supporting evidences that Pine64 is free from Chinese meddling. For one, the drivers are entirely open-source. And for two, the schematics are available. Now, with that said, let's be extra, extra paranoid here and just assume rather wildly for a second that the firmware is secretly doing its own thing and communicating with Chinese servers. Even if true, there are physical hard switches that allow one to utterly disable many components in the phone at your leisure. And finally, since I don't live in China and never plan to go there, they're not gonna have any legal/civil interest in me. The United States however... That's what I need to worry about. So even if there were no hard switches and that all data was getting sent to China, again by the way, a wild assumption, it wouldn't actually matter too much in terms of security in the United States.

So, my personal verdict here is that for my purposes, the security of it fully checks out.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Chinese corporation Tencent (owning many of your favorite games, 1 bAsED in Norway and 2 in Hong Kong) and the CCP: https://archive.ph/BGJss#selection-735.0-735.235 : "All Chinese companies, public or private, are required to have a member of the CCP on staff to hand down official party edicts. In addition, many companies have an internal CCP committee that comprises part of the governance structure. "

Chinese Corporation Kunlun (owning the Opera browser "bAsED in Norway") https://archive.ph/87srN : "The Chinese government has likely taken a significant interest in that data, which could be useful in targeting dissidents at home and for blackmail abroad. As a Chinese company, there is likely nothing Kunlun could do to prevent the government from accessing user data. "

The data they gather are then used to blackmail, extort, coerce, persuade, or nudge you to their point of view. It's not only those living in China that needs to worry. Look up Belt & Road initiative which concerns the rest of Asia, Africa, Middle-East, and Oceania.

 

[Arnox]

Chinese corporation Tencent (owning many of your favorite games, 1 bAsED in Norway and 2 in Hong Kong) and the CCP: https://archive.ph/BGJss#selection-735.0-735.235 : "All Chinese companies, public or private, are required to have a member of the CCP on staff to hand down official party edicts. In addition, many companies have an internal CCP committee that comprises part of the governance structure. "

Chinese Corporation Kunlun (owning the Opera browser "bAsED in Norway") https://archive.ph/87srN : "The Chinese government has likely taken a significant interest in that data, which could be useful in targeting dissidents at home and for blackmail abroad. As a Chinese company, there is likely nothing Kunlun could do to prevent the government from accessing user data. "

The data they gather are then used to blackmail, extort, coerce, persuade, or nudge you to their point of view. It's not only those living in China that needs to worry. Look up Belt & Road initiative which concerns the rest of Asia, Africa, Middle-East, and Oceania.

The thing is though, the target demographic of the PinePhone Pro is major computer nerds, so if there was some firmware tomfoolery going on, I imagine it would have been picked up already. In any case, the two companies you cite have nothing to do with Pine64.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

The thing is though, the target demographic of the PinePhone Pro is major computer nerds, so if there was some firmware tomfoolery going on, I imagine it would have been picked up already. In any case, the two companies you cite have nothing to do with Pine64.

"All Chinese companies, public or private, are required to have a member of the CCP on staff to hand down official party edicts. In addition, many companies have an internal CCP committee that comprises part of the governance structure. "

"The Chinese government has likely taken a significant interest in that data, which could be useful in targeting dissidents at home and for blackmail abroad. As a Chinese company, there is likely nothing ...the company... could do to prevent the government from accessing user data."

But fine. Maybe you can sandbox it and listen to outgoing signals.

 

[Arnox]

"All Chinese companies, public or private, are required to have a member of the CCP on staff to hand down official party edicts. In addition, many companies have an internal CCP committee that comprises part of the governance structure. "

"The Chinese government has likely taken a significant interest in that data, which could be useful in targeting dissidents at home and for blackmail abroad. As a Chinese company, there is likely nothing ...the company... could do to prevent the government from accessing user data."

But fine. Maybe you can sandbox it and listen to outgoing signals.

And Hong Kong isn't technically a part of China. Now with that said, there's been a LOT of interference from China for sure, but I don't think Pine64 was ever involved with any of that. The crackdowns involved freedom of speech and removing dissidents.

Now again, I guess it is very slightly but theoretically possible that something screwy was secretly installed in the firmware for the CCP, but considering it's either that or I have to goatse my security for Google and other effed companies whose apps spy on your phone, I'm gonna go with, um, yeah.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Hong Kong (and Macau) is part of China. You could look at them like US States. They're somewhat autonomous, but you wouldn't say a Utah company isn't an American company no?

You could also not use a smartphone, like me, or try the ones I posted in the chat (https://www.klarna.com/us/shopping/cl/cl1/Mobile-Phones/?attr_57921602=508215).

 

[Arnox]

Hong Kong (and Macau) is part of China.

Sorta, kinda, yeah. But in this specific case here, I don't think it's too relevant due to a multitude of factors.

You could also not use a smartphone, like me

Not really an option for me I'm afraid. If I didn't have a smartphone, I'd have to haul around a bulky laptop. Which... I actually wouldn't be too against if it was the right laptop, but it's still really not ideal, and battery life is a problem.

(https://www.klarna.com/us/shopping/cl/cl1/Mobile-Phones/?attr_57921602=508215).

Just for starters, most of these phones don't even have 4G, so they'd be almost dead in the water for the US. Maybe it's different where you live though. Secondly, these phones have zero schematics available with closed-source drivers and no modifiability and no hard switches. And for what? Just simply because Pine64 is based in Hong Kong? I think that's pretty silly. Might as well just get a Pixel and load it up with GrapheneOS.

Now, note that I definitely don't think it's silly to avoid any phone internals that come from mainland China. THAT is a fair restriction for sure and one that I agree with. That's one of the big reasons why I don't even glance at Xiaomi phones.