Technology

So "any phone" turned into "virtually any phone", and the owner needs to be alive and apprehended, and then they "most likely" can, maybe.

See, I mostly agree with what you said. But you can see how we have moved the goalpost away from "there is no phone the government cannot get into", to "the government can get into most phones", which is quite a different statement.

Unless there's an incredible amount of people "not in" on some universal secret, maths gonna maths, and physics gonna physics. Actual encryption works well in a proven way, computational power isn't as infinite as some people think, and decent software implementations exists.

Getting hold of anything properly encrypted with no access to the key still requires an incredible amount of computing power to brute force. Weak/bad implementations can leave enough info back to speed this up, malicious software can make use of an extra, undocumented encryption key, etc. but a decent implementation would not be easy to break in.

Now, this does not say anything about what Apple actually do. They claim to have proper encryption, but with anything closed source, you only have your belief to back you up. But it's not an extraordinary claim to say that this can be done competently. And Apple would have a good incentive in doing so: good PR, and no real downside for them since people happily unlock their phone to keep their software running and doing whatever it wants locally.

You can read more about lock down mode here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105120

You don't NEED tap to pay. I literally never use it, ever, unless I have a card with a bad chip (happened once).

Forgetting your wallet like a dummy doesn't mean you NEED tap to pay, it means you need to remember to bring your wallet.

Also, there is nothing you NEED the Costco app for, an org like that can't lock things behind an app to function because their customer base is too broad, they will inevitably have old people with T9 Nokia bricks still. It might have been the most convenient way to achieve it, but it's not a requirement - even if that particular sales associate didn't know how and would have to phone a friend.

All that to say I'm not trying to convince you to use gOS; I fully recognize that security is on one end of the spectrum from convenience, and we all choose where we want to be on that spectrum. But I felt the need to counter your claims.... Nobody NEEDS tap to pay smh. If you care about privacy at all you wouldn't be linking cards to apple or Google, adding yet another layer of giant data collection to some of your most intimate data.

they needed me to download the app

They wanted you to, but i get your point.

receive proper notifications. I know I know the whole app sandboxing bit

Still worth it for the sandbox

That's not by accident. Every right wing conspiracy is a ridiculous pastiche of the shit they are really getting up to, or intend to in the near future. No doubt Pizzagate was invented to make people incredulous about claims of secret cabals of kid rapists in elite circles. Every accusation a confession.