Comment by my123
3 years ago
Note: it's not a free software baseband FW as you'd expect from that being said.
What the PinePhone does is using a low end Qualcomm SoC as the modem (which has a CPU core and all, and runs a stripped-down Android in the stock configuration).
This just replaces that part which you can already edit on your own Android phone, but doesn't touch the actual modem bits at all, which remain the provided binary.
You're right and I'm wrong!
I'm currently editing my summary to clarify.
Still, I believe having full control on the firmware of the phone modem is at least as important as having root on the phone - otherwise, the firmware can say "location off? no problem!" while continuing to get GPS position locks + transmit the position inside UDP packets that won't be visible to the CPU running the android kernel and communicating to the firmware.
EDIT: actually, you are partly wrong when you say "This just replaces that part which you can already edit on your own Android phone": many android phones use a modem module to have certification in different markets.
So you can't replace the modem firmware on most android phones I'm familiar with.
Don't be confused by the modem using adb and fastboot like the android phones: it has its own software stack, and runs its own OS a bit like Intel ME or AMD PSP on PCs.
Modern LTE/5G provides pretty accurate location out of the box without GPS so if you really wanted to hide you would really need to just shut off the entire modem. Fortunately, the PinePhone has hardware switches to do this!
> you can't replace the modem firmware
you can, but the modem would refuse to load uncertified fw.
It isn't uncommon for vendors to ship with Qualcomm Secure Boot not enforcing.