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Why have a compromised phone at all? You're still exposing yourself to telemetry. And if you've ever said anything positive about a Hong Kong democracy activist, you still have to wonder what's going to happen to you if you travel to any country with a mature extradition relationship to China.

I also think it's easy to underestimate your footprint when it comes to ecosystems that involve money in any capacity. No Amazon, Steam, no card information on a Netflix app, no signing in to Google to read a NYT article.

I think either you care about these things categorically or you don't, and I don't think anybody is going to be in the middle space you seem to be envisioning, which is concerned enough about the risks to avoid all banking but still a casual enough attitude about a compromised phone that you're fine with it for uses you consider non-secure.

Amazon and Steam work fine over a browser, as does signing in to Google. Why are you using Netflix on a phone?

The major problem is banking, although some banks still work with Waydroid, and a few banks have full featured websites that work. But you do have to be more selective.

Netflix has over 1 billion app installs on phones, so go ask 1 in 8 people.

Is a browser on compromised hardware supposed to be more secure than an app? Amazon, steam etc still risk exposing accounts authorized to make payments using your money. It's easy to think "I just won't use banks" and underestimate the risks of doing anything on compromised hardware, and the answer isn't to play the "what could possibly go wrong" game, it's to not use compromised hardware.

Oh I know this exists, I just think it’s ridiculous. My attitude was best put into words by David Lynch: “It’s such a sadness that you think you’ve seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real.” (I realize he later moderated this for, uh, reasons, but I take this as the proper attitude.)

I’m not really worried about mainstream Chinese manufacturers stealing my bank credentials. Fly-by-night budget phones full of crapware, yeah sure.

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