[conspire] CABAL meeting tomorrow (also, webmail security discussed here)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Rich Bodo (richbodo at gmail.com):

> I may pay a hefty price some day for my impatience, but security is
> full of trade-offs.

All tradeoffs and no pony, dammit.

> The HTC you mentioned in the previous post is a good option.  So is
> the nokia line of small linux boxen. 

Yes, will be considering the N900 (Maemo-based) -- rather excessive
$650 list price in the USA, expected availability, October.  Less
of a captive device than anything on Google Spyware^W Android.  3G/HSPA,
decent camera, autonomous GPS, good battery life, user-replaceable
battery.  No need to jailbreak it.  ;->  (Of course, the N810 should
become a pretty good deal, around then.)

So far, I've been perfectly happy having both a PDA and a separate
smartphone in my pocket.  As mentioned, I really like the security
isolation that the PDA has, because the only plausible attack modes
against it are ones I understand and can mitigate/prevent/deal with --
which in turn is because it's a relatively simple device.  There are
ways in which a device being dumb and single-purpose is a virtue.

The worst long-term problem with the OpenMoko-based Neo FreeRunner GTA02
I have is that, following the April '09 collapse of Openmoko, Inc., the
ridiculous problem with battery life (which I knew was there, it being
very explicitly developerware and not market-ready) will almost
certainly never get fixed.

So, I'm looking for a replacement for it, as to smartphone functions,
not necessarily PDA ones.  And, while the gee-whiz Internet-access, GPS,
Google Maps, etc., functions of advanced smartphones are pretty
impressive, you get them only if you pay for a telco data plan (or,
alternatively, can use them only whenever you can piggyback off
someone's WiFi WAP).  Me, I'm not yet rich enough to justify shelling
out the sort of money every month that typical data plans add to your
cellular bill.

Really, my old Motorola RAZRv3 was perfectly fine.  Damned shame I lost
it.  Touchscreen?  3G?  I don't actually need those.  Frankly, I could 
just pick up a used, unlocked RAZR V3re (aka V3_06), which is a GSM
model with EDGE support for data mode, and be perfectly happy.