I do have an old Chromecast and I use CastSponsorSkip, which runs on a raspberry pi on the same network. When there is an ad on YouTube, it mutes the sound and auto presses the skip button when it appears. There are still ads, but it makes them much more bearable. https://github.com/gabe565/CastSponsorSkip

This one: https://tildes.net/

afaik, they still develop and sell QNX, their in-house OS. They’re a far cry of what the once were though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX

This video, where Veritaseum hacks LinusTechTips’ phone, gives a good overview of how it’s possible to track cellphones or hack sms, even without asking a carrier or having physical access to the device: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wVyu7NB7W6Y

TLDW: cellphone networks rely on old, unsecure infrastructure