> I don't see how -- can you explain?

There is a large amount of $$$ that goes into security of iOS and iPhone (sometimes orthogonal to privacy, sometimes not) that does not go into a dumbphone. The iPhone is also much more scrutinized and researched into than a random dumbphone, so it is plausible that you get much more exposure to exploits, etc., using a dumbphone that does not get updates etc.

On the other hand, China is known to have and use ios zero days (souce: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/09/massive_iphon...). It's likely other countries have these as well.

It seems unlikely they put the same efforts into finding a zero day for a nokia. There might be a super easy to find zero-day though, like you're saying.

If it's anything like the old days, they don't need to horde a 0 day.

There were always obscure pieces of software that would pull your forgotten pin right off the device with the right secret code, in which case you have full access to the device.

I'd also expect them to be vulnerable to much simpler attacks like just reading flash chips directly

> On the other hand, China is known to have and use ios zero days

What's your threat-model? If your adversary is a nation-state on par with China, you're probably toast unless you have a well-resourced entity supporting you (think large corporate or another nation-state)

I would argue that it’s much more likely they’d try to get a person of interest to use a compromised “burner” phone, actually.

I’m much less worry about China having my information than the local justice system.

But the majority of that security is required due to the vulnerabilities that come with the smart part of smartphones. A dumb phone has a much smaller attack surface. If I use the phone solely for texting and the occasional tethering and phone call, my exposure is automatically seriously reduced.

The dumb phone has no access to the pocket computer, after all.

Unlikely. Dumbphones aren't interesting targets and configurations are vastly more heterogeneous. Finding exploits can be a huge amount of work.

edit: In a laboratory environment, it is probably easier to break into a dumbphone vs breaking into an iPhone, yes.

A "smart" phone lets you use software with better protocols than the government approved (designed) cell network. For example, turn off your cell radio but still using a messaging app (eg Matrix/XMPP) over open wifi (rotating macaddrs of course), instead of having to connect to cell towers to receive text messages.

I can't tell you which results in better opsec today for say carrying out government-disapproved commerce. But I can tell you that the privacy benefits of having a bona fide computer that you control in your pocket will continue to grow, while the cell network is stuck being forever subservient to government/commercial surveillance.

I can't run Signal on a dumbphone, and protecting my data seems more important than my metadata.

I wouldn't be using the dumbphone for that sort of thing. I'd be using the pocket computer.

That's reasonable. A bit cumbersome, but not too bad. It's a shame the Windows client for Signal is an Electron app, which may or may not run well on a small machine.

Imagine being concerned about privacy to the point of building your own pocket computer to carry instead of a smartphone, and then installing Windows on it. I can't even stop laughing at this