Quoting Arnt Gulbrandsen (arnt@???):

[snip a bunch of stuff I'm not going to spend time on]

> Back to the phones.
>
> If you have proper control over your phones's baseband, you're
> relying on the telco as a proprietary black box to forward your
> packets and calls. If your baseband's a blob, but you do have a
> proper DMZ between your hardware and the baseband, then you're
> relying on two black boxes. IMO: Much of a muchness.

I think you're missing that point that a baseband chipset integrated
with a smartphone has total control over anything and everything the
smartphone does, and is an intelligent, autonomous agent that infamously
is subject to subversion by both state actors and well-funded private
actors from cell towers (or cheap simulations thereof). In other words,
you do _not_ have proper control over your phone's baseband, but remote,
undetectable, hostile parties may, and are known to have done so
routinely.

A baseband chipset _not_ integrated with the smartphone is a lesser
threat, The Tor Project article describes how this (current-best) ideal
can be simulated by USB-connecting a Wifi-only tablet with a cell modem
and battery pack. This reduces the threat exposure to remote, hostile control
over the modem functions.

Maybe the planned future Puri.sm product will come close to that degree
of isolation -- or not.

Anyway, I've now explained this matter twice and provided links for
experts' assessments. If you don't agree, feel free to go argue with
them.