On Sat, October 17, 2015 8:33 am, Sven Arvidsson wrote: > On Fri, 2015-10-16 at 16:49 -0500, rlhar...@oplink.net wrote: >> ...Is there anything small which can run Debian? ... > The modem is the biggest gotcha when it comes to surveillance by > something like the NSA. (I think security updates, crappy apps, malware > and similar are a bigger issue for most of us).
In the US today there is no privacy; everything is captured and recorded; that is not my concern. But there are some "insult added to injury" things which easily can be avoided, such as Internet-connected Samsung television sets with microphones (which Samsung admits are active) and Siri, which, in order to function, must listen to and analyze every sound it can hear. To put up with either of those intrusions is stupidity. > Oh, and I would love to be able to run Debian on a phone or tablet in > the future, but that seems like an uphill struggle. The more I consider the liabilities of a "smartphone", the more I think that my need for mobile Internet access best would be served by a very small PC and a G4 cellular modem; and that my need for mobile telephone can best be served by my old flip-open cellular phone. I just now remembered the Asus eeePC. Those can run Debian, can they not? If so, that may be the solution. And the combination of an eeePc and G4 modem may be less expensive than is a smartphone. Russ
