I don't know any GSM baseband that can run without their own
memory.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <gnu...@no-log.org>
---
freedom-privacy-security-issues.php | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
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b/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php
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@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
<div class="col-md-9">
<p>Mobile devices such as phones and tablets are taking
and increasingly important part in our computing, hence they are particularly
subject to freedom and security concerns. These devices are actually full
computers with powerful hardware, running complete operating systems that allow
for updates, software changes and installable applications: this makes it easy
to run <a href="//www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">free software</a> on
them. Mobile devices are often used for communications and provide hardware
features that are sensitive when it comes to privacy and security: GPS, camera,
microphone, etc, in addition to storing the user's data. Hence, they are
particularly subject to being used to spy on the user.</p>
<h3>A simplified overview of mobile devices</h3>
- <p><a
href="images/freedom-privacy-security-issues/hardware.png"
data-lightbox="overview" data-title="Hardware-side overview"><img
src="images/freedom-privacy-security-issues/hardware.png" alt="Hardware-side
overview" style="width: 250px; float: left;"/></a>On the hardware side, mobile
devices are built with a system on a chip (SoC) that includes a processor (CPU)
and various other fundamental components, around which are found various
integrated circuits, memory (RAM), storage, user input/output (I/O), etc. When
the device is telephony-enabled, it also features a modem, which is the
component in charge of dealing with the mobile telephony network. Nowadays, it
is usually a powerful processor, sometimes with its own memory and storage.</p>
+ <p><a
href="images/freedom-privacy-security-issues/hardware.png"
data-lightbox="overview" data-title="Hardware-side overview"><img
src="images/freedom-privacy-security-issues/hardware.png" alt="Hardware-side
overview" style="width: 250px; float: left;"/></a>On the hardware side, mobile
devices are built with a system on a chip (SoC) that includes a processor (CPU)
and various other fundamental components, around which are found various
integrated circuits, memory (RAM), storage, user input/output (I/O), etc. When
the device is telephony-enabled, it also features a modem, which is the
component in charge of dealing with the mobile telephony network. Nowadays, it
is usually has a powerful processor, with dedicated memory and sometimes
storage.</p>
<p>Regarding the software side of things on mobile
devices, the main CPU (inside the SoC) starts by executing initial boot code,
often known as the bootrom. This code will look up various places such as NAND,
eMMC or MMC (sd/micro sd card) storage, depending on the hardware
configuration, to load a bootloader. The bootloader, which is in fact often
split in different stages, is in charge of bringing up and configuring various
aspects of the hardware and eventually starting the operating system by loading
and running its kernel.<br /><a
href="images/freedom-privacy-security-issues/software.png"
data-lightbox="overview" data-title="Software-side overview"><img
src="images/freedom-privacy-security-issues/software.png" alt="Software-side
overview" style="width: 250px; float: right;"/></a>The kernel itself, among
other things, deals with the hardware directly and provides ways for other
programs (running in user-space) to access it. In user-space, hardware
abstraction layers a
re progr
ams specific to each device that know how to properly drive the hardware. They
use the kernel to communicate back and forth with the hardware and implement
the proper protocols for it.<br /><br />The actual knowledge of how to drive
the hardware is split between the kernel and the hardware abstraction layer
libraries: both are needed to make it work properly. Hardware abstraction
layers provide a generic interface for the framework to use. The framework
itself provides an interface for applications that is independent of the device
and the hardware. That way, applications can access hardware features through
the generic framework interface, which will call the hardware abstraction layer
libraries, ending up with the kernel communicating with the hardware.</p>
<p>Many other components of a mobile device also run
software in different forms. The various integrated circuits run small pieces
of dedicated software that are called firmwares. When the device is
telephony-enabled, there is also software running on the modem. Modern modems
are complex and run full operating systems.</p>
<h3>The current situation of freedom and
privacy/security on mobile devices</h3>
--
2.7.2
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