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Should we be concerned about Privacy with low-level Chinese smartphone firmwares?

Since I’ve started eelo.io, at the end of 2017, I had many discussions about the privacy of Chinese smartphone firmwares. Many people told me:  if it’s technically possible to put some anti-privacy features into the firmware, they do it.

What would be the benefit of running eelo on such smartphones if their proprietary firmware drivers leak some personal data to corporates or to the Chinese government?

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eelo is more than tech, it’s a societal project for Freedom and Democracy

As Lawrence Lessig explained on January, 1st 2000, Code is Law!

Computer systems, and more specifically software and data networks, have been driving the way the world has evolved recently. Software is now everywhere: in cars, trains and planes, in your house, in businesses and in industry…. Continue reading “eelo is more than tech, it’s a societal project for Freedom and Democracy”

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An open letter to Elon Musk, from eelo founder

 

Dear Elon,

Since the 90s, you have been a world changer with great projects like Paypal, SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop and OpenAI. And I’ve noticed you have released Tesla patents into the public domain, and have open-sourced the Hyperloop and OpenAI projects.

Behind your projects, I sense a single course of action: empowering people, while making the world better…

Today, the digital giants are massively abusing individual and corporate data planet-wide, for the single purpose of fueling their businesses. Worse, this is installing a global surveillance system controlled by a small group of people. In the long run, this situation even threatens democracy.

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eelo.io – Holiday Season, latest updates!

I wanted to share a few news and thoughts to you all eelo.io supporters and backers. This past week has been fascinating.

I’ve realized that we are many people to be interested in the eelo.io vision and proposal.

Actually, I started the eelo project for myself by learning about existing stuff on mobile plateforms (I’m coming from the PC world…), hacking some LineageOS ROMs, and my goal was just to eventually be able to show to my friends and family: “look, I’m not using an iPhone anymore, I’m not using Google anymore but I can do the same things you are doing with your smartphone, and nobody is looking at ma personal data” (I fear I like to feel like a teen sometimes) …

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Leaving Apple and Google: my eelo odyssey. Bootstrap!

Today, I’m bootstraping the eelo project with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. During the past three weeks, I’ve released three articles to describe the project, what has already been done, and what is the vision. We want to build an exciting alternative to Google, Apple and to all proprietary services that are catcing our personal data and transform us into voluntary slaves.

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Leaving Apple and Google: my “eelo odyssey”. Part2: web services

I’m leaving Apple and Google for those reasons and I’m putting this effort into a new project: “eelo“. For this project, one big part is the operating system, in particular the smartphone operating system. I started to work on this part with others, and had first results that make me feel that maybe my move to a better digital privacy is going to be easier than expected 🙂

But today, a smartphone without internet services would be like a car without gasoline. We need email, we need online storage, we need advanced online applications… Also people like to access our data from several places and devices. The operating system has turned global.

So eelo needs to provide tools that can be accessed from other places, such as a web browser, but probably also from other computers and operating systems: notes, messages, calendar… And of course, we want all this with full respect of the user’s privacy, and no ads.

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Leaving Apple and Google: my “eelo odyssey”. Part1: the mobile OS

So I came out about my decision to leave Apple and Google. It’s a lifestyle choice to escape the tech giants that make me a product by privatizing my personal data .And I don’t like what Apple is doing now, Apple’s attitude, new iPhone and their price… It’s also an act of freedom for my children and all the people who will care: I want them to have a choice, and also a clear and informed view on how their choices can impact their life and their economical ecosystem as well. That’s what eelo is all about: offering a viable and attractive alternative to users for their digital life.

In this new post I’m going to describe what I was able to do so far on the mobile to get rid of Google and Apple, and what remains to do (spoiler: there’s a lot). In the next part I will explain what how things will need to be adressed on web services and draw a whole picture of the eelo project.

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LineageOS operating system: a major open source project that deserves all our attention

The LineageOS project was born from CyanogenMod’s ashes one year ago. And since, it has been embraced by a growing community of contributors and users. Built from Android open source code, it intends to offer a full and independent operating system for mobiles. What is LineageOS? how to install it? what can be expected? Why is it a major open source project?

Let’s have a look…

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