Over the last couple of days Firefox has become almost impossible to use with wordpress, at least on my machines. This is not related to distributions in linux: one machine is based on Arch, (Manjaro) and the server (which I am now using) is based on Xubuntu. In part this is a test post using opera, to see if the problem is the server: Which is unlikely, the entire blogspace (three blogs and email) on the server is only 4.2 G, and the rafiifc ardound 14G a month. Not that big: this place is fairly obscure.

Onto other things. I’ve used Android phones basically since the first google phone came out. The code can be seen, and that is good. But the apps… well they can subvert everything.

Is the Blackphone totally secure? No. “There’s no such thing as 100-percent secure,” explains Janke, “and there’s no such thing as an NSA-secure phone. If you have a phone it can always be hacked.” People will try to break Silent Circle’s security, and the company says it’s “not so arrogant” as to think they won’t succeed. The company will open source the vast majority of its code for the phone in order for third parties to properly audit its techniques, find holes, and ultimately help to improve the product.

The majority of security and privacy issues with Android smartphone don’t come from your calls, texts, or from the operating system itself. They come through apps. The Blackphone, security apps aside, is still an Android phone, and although it will only install Google services like the Play Store if you ask it to, the third-party apps it runs are no different to those on a Galaxy S4 or HTC One. Silent Circle’s answer to the Android app problem is a Security Center that gives granular control over what apps can do.

I use my cellphone heavily. It runs all my fitness apps, I blog off it at times, it is connected to three email servers and instagram — in short, it is the terminal to the internet I have with me at all times. But is that reasonable.

There are some alternatives coming out. One is Jolla, which is a resurrection of MeeGo, another linux-based phone OS, that was used on a very expensive phone (the Nokia N9 — now about $300 on ebay if you like retrophoning) that never made it to New Zealand. The first phone is now on sale in Europe. Then there is the Ubuntu phones — which now exist, but are not on sale yet. Both these environments are designed to be rich, allow apps, and be functional.

The alternative is to go light. If you are really paranoid, buy a granny phone. But if you need some functionality — and I do, I want email and calendar at least — then there is the Firefox phone. These are now being sold in Europe and South America and in ebay — one of them the ZTE is about $80 US — but no one will send them the NZ. I’ve tried. The phone would be perfect for son one… who uses these things as a tool, and wants a minimal set of functions. The version in the video, BTW, has sold out.

The idea of a pure html5 phone (because that is what Firefox OS is) is intruging. And the cloud is one of those things that can be useful: when phones brick (and they do) all your contacts are in the cloud. You don’t lose data. But… that data will be hacked. As the original Chrome book ad suggests.

I think that multiple options are a fairly good idea: and I use google docs for collaboration. I back up fairly regularly. But… I am not a crytography genius. Almost anything you can do can be tracked. To paraphrase Charles Stross, the only secure computer is encased in concrete, in a safe, in the bottom of a mineshaft, guarded by elite troops, disconnected from the internet and switched off.

Oh, and on the test: the darn publish button does not work well in Opera, either. WordPress needs to fix this ASAP.