We tend to think of
an open source operating system as something that gives both smartphone vendors and end users more freedom to customize their experiences. But as
Bronte Capital’s John Hempton points out, open source software can have a dark side as well if it is changed by authoritarian governments to limit the information that end users can access. Hempton says he bought a
Samsung Desire HD off of eBay from a Middle Eastern country a couple of years ago and found that “it did not contain any access to the
Google market place (Google’s equivalent of the App store),” that “it had limited apps and no possibility of adding more” and “it contained a non-standard web browser and a non-standard email client (leaving open the possibility of the State watching what I wrote and said).”
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