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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • www.404media.co I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount Joseph Cox 4 - 5 minutes

    On Monday the Trump Organization announced its own mobile service plan and the “T1 Phone,” a customized all-gold mobile phone that its creators say will be made in America.

    I tried to pre-order the phone and pay the $100 downpayment, hoping to test the phone to see what apps come pre-installed, how secure it really is, and what components it includes when it comes out. The website failed, went to an error page, and then charged my credit card the wrong amount of $64.70. I received a confirmation email saying I’ll receive a confirmation when my order has been shipped, but I haven’t provided a shipping address or paid the full $499 price tag. It is the worst experience I’ve ever faced buying a consumer electronic product and I have no idea whether or how I’ll receive the phone.

    “Trump Mobile is going to change the game, we’re building on the movement to put America first, and we will deliver the highest levels of quality and service. Our company is based right here in the United States because we know it’s what our customers want and deserve,” Donald Trump Jr., EVP of the Trump Organization, and obviously one of President Trump’s sons, said in a press release announcing Trump Mobile.

    The announcement describes the T1 Phone as a “sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier.”

    💡

    Do you know anything else about this phone? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

    On the Benny Show podcast Trump Jr. said the phone is for people who want a phone made in America that without the potential of a “backdoor made into the hardware that some of our adversaries may have installed in there.” Trump Jr. also said call centers for Trump Mobile will be in St. Louis, “so we’re keeping our data on shore.”

    Various phone companies and projects have pushed the “made in America” aspect of their phones. One is the Liberty Phone from Purism. Building a device in America or ensuring the integrity of a phone’s supply chain can be exceptionally difficult for a smaller company, because many components may be made in China or other countries even if the device itself is assembled in the U.S. And ultimately, a company with no telecom or hardware experience selling a device like the T1 Phone is probably not going to have the expertise to build a more secure device than, say, Apple or Google with its own Pixel devices, which have massive teams updating the hardware and operating system and constantly hunting for threats against their devices and users.

    The mobile carrier part of Trump Mobile appears to be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which is essentially a carrier that piggybacks off the technical infrastructure of the country’s other fully-fledged carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. The Trump Organization’s announcement says that “Trump Mobile will offer 5G service through all three major cellular carriers.”

    The Trump family and organization continue to make lucrative deals based on the Trump name while President Trump is in power. Bloomberg found that since Trump’s reelection campaign, the name has powered more than $10 billion of real estate projects, $500 million in sales from one of his crypto ventures, and millions from stakes in other companies.

    The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    After maybe pre-ordering my T1 Phone, the confirmation email said I could log into TrumpMobile.com to make changes to my account. I did that, changed my password as prompted, and then hit another error page. I have not been able to log into the site.

    About the author

    Joseph is an award-winning investigative journalist focused on generating impact. His work has triggered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines, shut down tech companies, and much more.

    Joseph Cox








  • Ahh man, I’d almost missed my appointment with the psych’ recently. At least my new one is local and easy to schedule with, get along well and are happy to trial Dexies’ (been on Ritalin for ~1yr)

    Previously I could only find someone to prescribe me remotely, I’d spent ~10 months waiting for an appointment for the Psych’ to quit that clinic. Waited another 6 months and landed a script.

    For me it’s been a significant improvement to my life, just took me until I was almost 40 to get diagnosed.







  • NM has been a marketing gimmick since Intel launched their long-standing 14nm node. Actual transistor density depending on which fab you compare to is shambles.

    It’s now a title / name of a process and not representative of how small the transistors are.

    I’ve not paid for a CPU upgrade since 2020, and before that I was using a 22nm CPU from 2014. The market isn’t exciting (to me anymore), I don’t even want to talk about the GPUs.

    Back in the late 90s or early 2000s upgrades felt substantial and exciting, now it’s all same-same with some minor power efficiency gains.