1. Any given system has a finite number of findable vulnerabilities.

2. All findable vulnerabilities are fixable (if not in software then with a new hardware revision).

3. Fixing a vulnerability while keeping the same intended functionality introduces on average less than 1 other findable vulnerability.

4. It is possible to cease adding new features to a system and from that point forward only focus on fixing vulnerabilities.

If all 4 are true, then perfect security seems possible, in some sense. I think some vulnerabilities might not be fixable, if you include things like the idea that users can be tricked into revealing their passwords. If you restrict the definition of vulnerability to some narrower meaning that still captures most of what people mean when they say computer vulnerability, then I think those 4 statements are probably true.

Perfect security might be near impossible in practice because vulnerabilities will get more difficult to find and fix over time, but I think we should expect the discovery of vulnerabilities to eventually become arbitrarily slow in a hypothetical system that prioritized security above all else.

Would you be willing to license this code as GPL-3.0-or-later, or some other free license? I'd like to include a JavaScript derivative of this for Haketilo (a userscript manager). I would add it to a collection of scripts that aim to replace proprietary JavaScript here: https://codeberg.org/JacobK/unfinished-site-fixes/

I carry a laptop almost everywhere, and I even use JMP.chat for sending SMS messages, so it's functionally similar to a mobile phone, just bigger and heavier. It doesn't connect to the cell network but Wi-Fi works fine.

I think there's more to a mobile phone than SMS but I'm stuggling to think of what since I don't use it. I have GPS in my car, instead of using GPS in a mobile phone. I don't take pictures very often but when I really needed to I could use my laptop webcam (built-in or USB attached), and recently I bought a camera at a garage sale that seems higher-quality than the webcam and is much more convenient.

The ability to call 911 from anywhere is the main thing I think about that I'm missing, which is also one of the reasons I'd like to get a mobile phone working at some point, but it's difficult to gauge how important that is (since the need is rare). My friends might worry about this more than I do.

Before college, I did use a mobile phone (but mostly for gaming and taking pictures), and I am only recently out of college, so maybe I will feel more pressure to get a mobile phone in the future, and since I'm not opposed to getting one working at some point, I probably will. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

I've never actually commented on Hacker News as far as I remember, but I'm the same JacobK as <https://codeberg.org/jacobk> and as jacobk on Libera.Chat. I'm not a bot.