Fairphone software updates / security status

[jasmin87401]

Hi & thanks for your replies so far.

Regarding the secure element/trust zone functionality, I have discovered this thread:

Titan M Replacement?!

Titan M is a primary reason that Pixel phones are the top pick for security & privacy OSs. Unfortunately there are no alternatives yet that would stop bruteforce attacks on unlocking a phone. And even with filesystem encryption: if it is unlocked by bruteforce, then that is of no help. So, what we need is a FOSS Titan-M-like chip. Does it exist? Is there any talk from the Fairphone engineers on this topic? Thanks! Great work! Here is the analogous thread for PinePhone, and if any FOSS phone f…

… according to which the fairphone software/hardware-status remains unclear (at least for me): a titan M does not seem to be implemented, and it is unknown, whether there is an equivalent alternative, that can be used.

Despite Fairphone offers Android upgrades for a long period of time, this does not directly mean, that the kernel / patches / hardware drivers are maintained properly – usually this depends on the SoC vendor, which is responsible for its kernel patches and hardware drivers, which are highly security relevant. So if those vendors continue to not mainline those drivers, it is a lot of dedicated work to maintain legacy and heavily patched kernels. But perhaps fairphone also performs this type of maintenance work?

Regarding the SoC/vendor support: the security support, that is offered by google for their pixel devices, is differing for pixel 5 (3 years) and pixel 6 (5 years):

Google's five years of software support for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro has a...

So there is at least one SoC with 5 years of security support…

Furthermore it seems like the Pixel 6 SoC is based on a Exynos 2100, which is perhaps(?) also available for other smartphone vendors to use in their products:
(please see next post, because “new users are only allowed to put 2 links in their posts” )
So if google offers security support for the Pixel 6 devices, those patches might also work (to a certain/high(?) extend) on an original exynos2100 based product.

This is quite a lot of speculation, but (and if fairphone support does not include kernel maintenance) it seems to me like the only way to realize a android-based smartphone, that is really eligible for long-term use (longer than 2 or 3 years): at least with the notion, that it is not a reasonable option for users to be exposed to (kernel level) security issues, that remain unpatched after vendor SoC support ends (usually after 2 or 3 years).
Please correct me, if I am wrong… Otherwise it could make sense to contact Fairphone with such a suggestion.