I use an old 2G dumbphone. I would like to switch and begin carrying a unix computer with me, but two things bother me: 1. When cellular device is added to computer, and integrated in a deep way (as it is in an android phone) there seem to me a lot of instances where the computer is subservient to the cellular partsof the phone. I am thinking about things like carrier published updates to applications and carrier updates to SIM data, etc. - I want to participate on the mobile phone network, but I do not want the carrier to have any access to my unix computer. It seems to me that they have a lot of access, though, when I use something like an android phone. 2. Exploits ... baseband exploits, mobie network exploits, forced dialing, speaker/mic toggling, root exploits like I saw described from rogue cellsites at defcon 2 years ago ... I want nothing to do with this. So my current thought is to not buy a phone at all, but instead buy a unix computer - perhaps the samsung galaxy player ? It is a near-clone of Samsung i9000, but without any phone hrdware (but it does have speaker and mic, so you could use it as a very nice SIP device). And my idea is that when I do not have WIFI access, I could connect a USB GSM modem to this unix computer and use the GSM modem ONLY for data, and connect SIP calls that way. My questions: 1. Am I correct that embedding the mobile components into the computer (like in a mobile phone) give my carrier many more vectors for accessing the computer side of things, and ive "mallory" many more vectors for attack ? I spoke very generally above about those methods - what are the actual names for these behaviors ? 2. Am I correct that if I connect a external GSM modem to my unix computer, I am nullifying most of these, and I am not giving my carrier any abiity to update/examine/alter/access my unix computer .... and am also avoiding things like secretly enabling the microphone, baseband exploits, etc. ? Any additional thoughts on using a computer instead of a phone, and then adding a GSM modem when that is the only way to get SIP connectivity ? Thanks.