KPLUG Monthly Meeting

Bridge to Total Mobile Freedom by: Michael Spacefalcon

What computer do you use the most? What computer travels with you wherever you go? Is it a desktop? A laptop? A server? Chances are, the computer you use the most, one which is almost attached to your person, is the one that you may not even think of as being a computer: it is your mobile phone. But not many people fully realize just how unfree these devices currently are, and how the pocket-resident computers we use the most are built and function in ways which are the very antithesis of the ideals of freedom for which we strive as users, developers and promoters of Free Software and other computing-related freedoms. In this talk I will highlight the most non-free aspects of current mobile phone technologies and present some solutions for making mobile phones more free. I will go over what has been done before by others (Openmoko and OsmocomBB projects in particular), and then give a glimpse of my own work in this area, which is currently in the earliest stages of development.

Michael Spacefalcon says: I wear many hats. Sticking to just what's relevant for my technical presentation, I've been a low-level system programmer all my life, having started programming in assembly on an OSless computer at the age of 7. I do embedded SW work in my day jobs, and on the hobby side of my life I fight on many fronts to gain full ownership of every aspect of my personal computing environment. I have designed and built on my own SDSL modem, and I run my own servers on my own turf for email etc, which connect to the Internet through this modem of my own design and make. My servers run my very own version of UNIX which to my knowledge is not used by anyone else in the world. I dislike using software not written by me.