Security and Cell Phones

[OpenBSDOne]

As a user of OpenBSD, I highly appreciate its focus on security. It has even been called "the most secure operating system under any licensing terms" Mac and Windows have very significant holes in their systems.

My question is: What could be the most secure phone, practically? Is an old flip phone such as a Motorola V70 as secure as a hardened smartphone running a custom Linux distro? In some ways, even a very antiquated flip phone is more secure than a brand new Android or even iPhone. Why? Because of much fewer attack vectors. No Internet, no GPS, obscure operating system.

Though I realize that GSM has worries of its own. And security through obscurity is not always a sound principle.

So what is the OpenBSD of phones, so to speak?

 

[COLGeek]

There are some "secure" or "hardened" solutions out there, for example:

Secure Android - CopperheadOS - Copperhead

Secure Android built for encrypted and secure phones by a privacy focused company. Available as security-centric and privacy focused Google-free Android for the latest Pixel devices.

copperhead.co

GrapheneOS: the private and secure mobile OS

GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.

grapheneos.org

Google's Pixel 5 and Apple's encrypted IOS are also considered "secure" by some measure. None of these are 100% threat-free/invulnerable and not really in the same league of security as OpenBSD (just my humble opinion).