You know if that happen then flip phone users will have hard time because network will promote only high end selective phones. SIM card gives you freedom of putting it in $25 or $640 phone and it works just fine. People with security, budget and privacy concern go for flip phones. Just like net neutrality, phone neutrality is a good thing. One should never be forced to purchase smart phone if he does not want it. A dumb phone just works fine for calling and text messaging.
I have never used internet on my phone and I will never be excited about it (3G 4G, 5G or anything). I carry my laptop everywhere I go and it serves my need well.
I must add you can find flip phones cheaper than cost of lightening cables.
> People with security, budget and privacy concern go for flip phones.
No. That ensures you can't send encrypted messages or do encrypted calls.
Also see one of the reasons Signal moved to sending encrypted messages as data and stopped supporting encrypted messages sent as sms.
> SMS and MMS are a security disaster. They leak all possible metadata 100% of the time to thousands of cellular carriers worldwide. It's common to think of SMS/MMS as being "offline" or "peer to peer," but the truth is that SMS/MMS messages are still processed by servers--the servers are just controlled by the telcos. We don't want the state-run telcos in Saudi, Iran, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, Cuba, USA, etc... to have direct access to the metadata of TextSecure users in those countries or anywhere else.
Apps routinely ask for many more permissions than they have reason to and users have been conditioned to just 'get it over with'. Technically you are right, in practice users hand over the keys to the kingdom without a moments pause to think of the implications.
Now, you could of course argue that they only have themselves to blame.
I'd argue that if someone wants to get a flip phone for privacy reasons they should be able to not download shady apps and give them permissions without thinking.
Flip phones have some of the best protections available: the sensors aren't there. You can't leak your location if there is no GPS module in your phone, you can't have your camera hacked if there is no camera and so on.
I'd prefer all this stuff came with physical switches so it can be enabled/disabled in a hack-proof manner.
You can't leak your location if there is no GPS module in your phone
While not as precise, you can definitively leak your location by scanning for the surrounding cell towers, especially in a city, which usually have hundreds or thousands of them (Manhattan alone has eleven, for example). I used to run a Python script on my Nokia phone that logged the tower ID, and I could reliable tell when I got to work, home, etc.
And that's just for people who control your phone. Your operator has U-TDOA¹, which is typically accurate to 50m.
Sure, but that's telcos and the local law enforcement. It's not google, facebook, 500 advertising networks and a whole pile of other parties.
It's also not accurate to within enough resolution start targeting advertising and other nuisance information at me even if there was a way to present me that (which there isn't).
I'm well aware of the power of triangulation, I used to go fox hunting.
Sorry, I didn't explain myself well. I'm just talking about the main towers, for each of those there are many smaller ones. Check out http://opencellid.org/ it's amazing, actually.
Corporations merging their databases. This is happening in real time, right now.
I don't have any illusions about being able to stay private from the eyes of nation state level adversaries but commercial entities can still be kept out if you try.
I must add you can find flip phones cheaper than cost of lightening cables.