Can’t say whether the article is accurate. I doubt that my phone has been infected by Pegasus.
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The infection vector is through links in either SMS or emails. Neither of which I’m inclined to ever click. It’s a spearphishing attack and not a broad-based attack.
The carriers will not allow those old phones on the network as you can turn off precise location, or they did not have it for emergency reasons (or selling that info to government agencies).
I also doubt many people’s phones are infected as it seems to be Malware for specific targets in mind. I would be more worried about Stingray systems which force your phone to send unencrypted traffic without you knowing. I recall some company was supposed to come out with a phone which would inform you if your connection went in the plain. Don’t know what happened wit that
Unfortunately people en masse aren’t likely to adopt encrypted voice calls or even sms.
Voice is already encrypted. SMS is not. It is Stingray which acts like a cell tower you phone connects to, but does it without encryption.
If you’re talking about SS7, it’s a dinosaur from the 70s and about a reliable as you’d expect encryption from the 70s to be. 
I think that this should go hand in hand with Net Neutrality. We need hardware and software neutrality as well.
Just yesterday I was trying to get some forms from my local government online. Their all PDF, so that’s fine, except it’s a trap! Inside the PDF are forms made with a proprietary format that I cannot open with any PDF viewer on Linux. Of course you need Adobe Reader to open it, which they don’t even make for Linux anymore. The old version is impossible to navigate to from Adobe’s actual website. So here we are locked in our homes, or at least locked out of public buildings for over a year. People can’t get documents in person, they can’t get access to public computers at their library. If they picked up a computer for free somewhere and put Linux on it to even make it run they still couldn’t get access to government forms. We are being herded towards proprietary solutions by our very own public servants.
I did find Master PDF Editor for Linux that will open these files. Still proprietary but at least actively developed for Linux.
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I do not know what you mean exactly but this old Nokia phone still works and the battery is incredible but yes, in the future I guess they won’t work anymore.
I am saying carriers will not allow them to connect to the cell network. At least not in the USA.
It’s not that we’re being herded into something per se, it’s more that governments are locked in proprietary software solutions. (i know this, because i work in this field).
There are opensource solutions being deployed, but that’s all on the back end. Anything facing the public is proprietary. I’m guessing that this is because not all that many people are aware of Linux. (i can see this all around me).
Funny story: with the lockdown, i was ordered to work from home. No problem but this; since i opted for a desktop instead of a laptop, i couldn’t have a laptop to work from home. (i know, ridiculous, but that’s how they think at my workplace). So, i try to connect with the vpn software my company demands i use, and no dice. Called support and explained my problem. Their reaction: “oh, you’re using Linux. Well, that doesn’t work. We can’t get a connection going. We’ll look into it and see if we can find a solution.”
End result: i got a “sort of” nice little vacation, where the only thing i could do was answer a few phone calls, but that was that.
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I see a lot of people here who apparently either do not know the difference between “Open Source” a blanket term for any software that anyone can read the source code, which in no way means it’s free of spyware, or complies to any specific license… and FOSS (Free Open Source Software), as governed by the GNU Public license, or are just using the blanket term out of habit (a bad one), but:
Telegram is not FOSS, or they are not adhering to the license, as it does collect privately identifiable data, unbeknownst to the user, and many other software’s many Linux users trust in error, for not knowing the difference.
And It still ilks me anytime I hear people on any FOSS distro or software forum praising Microsoft windows, any google product like chrome, and Android… IOS, even if they have some acceptable reason for using them.
Also, Sony has in the past, and is now taking another crack at making Open source (possibly FOSS) drivers and maybe an OS for their phones, and their tech is wicked good as for hardware. So instead of just wishing/hoping for it, or any other hardware MFG to do the same that is unfriendly to Linux and Open source, it would really help if as many of us privacy, security and FOSS proponents would make a concerted effort to strongly encourage them to do it, by any means possible: Write emails, call them, add it to the notes when registering products… and bombard them with poignant but friendly requests that they get in on the FOSS movement, and help make spyware and corporate abuse a thing of the past or at least much more rare, as just complaining and bad mouthing them will only strengthen their aversion to it.
Did I read somewhere that WikiLeaks had released a test to determine if you have Pegasus infection? Has anyone here done that it have more info?
It’s more that the carriers are being allowed to shut down the networks on which these older phones function. No more 3G, 2G, etc. You don’t need a baseless conspiracy theory when you can answer the question with capitalism.
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There was already a link posted to tell you if you are infected or not
Seems crazy how deeply embeded it can get. How is it possible? Even a factory refresh doesnt eliminate the spyware apparently but surely a complete OS reinstall could eliminate it.
I’m not a fan of the recommendation to just throw the phone away. That’s clearly a sign we need more open hardware.
I definitely should use more my Ubuntu phone.
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Rob Braxman covers this in his newest video
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