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On July 14, 2021, self-proclaimed "youngest Bitcoin millionaire" Erik Finman announced the Freedom Phone. The phone will allegedly be a free speech and privacy-focused phone with an app store that will not censor apps based on political affiliation. It will come preinstalled with applications such as DuckDuckGo, Rumble, and Minds. You can check out an archived version of the website here.
Something tells me that this tweet will no longer exist in a month or two... Good thing it's archived.
But as I combed through the website, the alarm bells went off in my head. Actual technical details were lacking; there's no way to check the code to make sure that there's nothing nefarious in the software; and the phone is a total ripoff.
Where's The Code?
On Twitter, Finman touted that FreedomOS, the OS that will power the Freedom Phone, is based on AOSP, LineageOS, and GrapheneOS. AOSP stands for the Android Open Source Project. LineageOS and GrapheneOS are both open-source operating systems whose codes are available on Github. You would think that because FreedomOS is a fork of these protocols and operating systems, its code would be available on Github, too, right? Wrong.
That was the first alarm bell that went off in my head as I sifted through the Freedom Phone website. There was no link to the FreedomOS's Github or Gitlab. I searched for FreedomOS on BRAVE Search and one of the search results was a link to the operating system's Gitlab page. For a moment, it looked like my concerns were unfounded, but I quickly learned that this is not the same "FreedomOS".
The FreedomOS on Gitlab started in 2016 on Github before development moved to the former. The author of this FreedomOS goes by the name of Antoine Gravelot. If you look at the Freedom Phone website, it says this about the OS: "We've developed the first mass-marketable mobile phone operating system based on free speech". That's one major sign that these are two entirely different FreedomOS'es.
Another hint was the logo. The one on Gitlab uses a red fist. On the other hand, the logo on the Freedom Phone website is a rectangle with a blue shield in the middle.
The Gitlab FreedomOS logo.
The Freedom Phone FreedomOS logo.
Now that we have established that the Freedom Phone's Freedom OS does not have a Github or Gitlab page, it is very likely that we're talking about a closed-source Android fork. This is makes this whole Freedom Phone project super suspicious as (1) the creator hypocritically boasted about the OS being a fork of existing open-source operating systems and (2) there is absolutely no way we can check to see if there's nothing fishy under the hood.
Oh, and it gets better.
Freedom is Apparently Made in China...
Finman also claimed that the Freedom Phone is not made in mainland China. Allegedly, he collaborated with a few people from Hong Kong to design a phone with impressive specs. However, this statement is false.
Press 'X' to doubt.
The Freedom Phone is just a rebranded version of the Umidigi A9 Pro, which is made from the Chinese company, Umidigi. You can check out the A9 Pro on AliExpress (archived) and compare it to the Freedom Phone from its website. They basically look identical outside of the logo. The camera placement is the same, and the array of cameras and lights on the back are the same, too.
And lastly, Finman is selling the Freedom Phone for a price of $500. This is a total ripoff as shown on AliExpress, the same exact phone is being sold for between $135 to $198, less than half of what Finman is asking for.
Closing Thoughts: Could This Be A Honeypot?
The "Freedom Phone" is for freedom in the same way the DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is democratic.
I don't think I have to point out the obvious, but don't get the Freedom Phone. If you are concerned about your privacy on your phone, then there are other already available options. For instance, Rob Braxman has his own store where you can purchase de-Googled phones installed with LineageOS. There are also Linux phones like the PinePhone or the Librem 5, but it does come with a lot of sacrifices.
That said, I came across this person's post and it got me thinking: could the Freedom Phone be a honeypot scheme?
Make of it of what you will, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility. The FBI is not a clean organization, with its informants having committed over 9000 crimes during Donald Trump's first 2 years in office. It also used 12 informants in the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case.
