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Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

discuss.grapheneos.org

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Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#31

Post by aka13_404 »

This is sadly not even the full extent of it. What they did is, they locked their api entirely for anything that is not play protect certified. That means, all the cool stuff that was doable via community-driven projects is now dead in the water.

The "app" they provide is 60% advertisement, 30% features, and I unironically preferred using a Home Assistant connection instead of of it for everything. Even for automations like "when to preheat the car", since that was easier and more intuitive outside of their native function.

This also means, that charge control from the cars side is not possible to automate anymore.

Sure, one could take the position "but it was never officially promised", but for some people, including me, having the api (which is paid btw) was a selling point.

Yes, I registered specifically for this comment.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#32

Post by microtonal »

ranger_danger wrote: post #3
warkdarrior wrote: post #2

Answer from VW: > Please note that the use of the Volkswagen app is only supported on iOS devices and Android devices with supported operating system versions. Is it time to mandate app developers support all operating systems for a device?

[flagged]

The app worked without issues until a few weeks ago. I used it for a year. It was not broken. GrapheneOS is just AOSP Android, optionally with Google Play Services.

My take is that they were trying to block rooted phones and/or custom ROMs of questionable origin and GrapheneOS just became collateral damage because all these companies do go the minimal route of using Play Integrity. GrapheneOS supports remote attestation through AOSP APIs, in fact, they have a page about it.

I think it's worth letting this be heard. GrapheneOS has > 400,000 users and is rapidly growing. Breaking things is not going to affect 5 people anymore, but thousands, ten thousands or hundreds of thousands, depending on what the app is.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#33

Post by Arainach »

binary132 wrote: post #25
Arainach wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a non-starter in most countries. Since the car software is tied into a number of important safety features and regulated controls, custom operating systems will never be supported. There are already massive problems with people miswiring head units to play videos while driving and updating their ECU to spew pollution into the air. You're not going to convince any significant number of people that it's a good i…

“Users shouldn’t be same to control their own engines actually” hmm well ok then

One person's "controlling their own engines" is another "spewing nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, and other pollutants into the air, giving cancer to neighbors and destroying the atmosphere". We tried the "don't regulate" path and it ended in a multitude of disasters.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#36

Post by afarah1 »

Driving a rental car in Germany almost makes me cheer for the ongoing bankruptcy of their auto industry. It really needs a full reset at this point. Sad thing is EU law mandates for a modem in the car as well as intrusive driving aids that actually make driving less safe by constantly driving your attention away from the road[1]. So there is no hope to get a minimally decent car in Europe in the near future, unless a wider reset also happens at the political and social level.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-S76WEl25k

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#37

Post by leoedin »

AJRF wrote: post #23

I don't know how large a group who will do this is - but if the UK bans VPNs I can see Graphene having a very large target on its back. - Buy Pixel, Get Graphene - Use FDroid, don't sign up for Google Play, download Tor browser - Censorship resistant access to the internet without handing over your ID. Pixel being a fairly popular phone in the UK is the interesting bit - if you had to buy some niche device I couldn't…

There must be 10s of millions of x86 PCs with unlocked bioses in the UK. The issue won't be running an open device. The problem is software - what does someone running Linux do if the government mandates online services require proprietary attestation APIs?

It's scary how quickly the banning is moving. The problem is what happens next. When they realise that banning things doesn't really work. The next logical step is severely limiting internet traffic.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#38

Post by Arainach »

watermelon0 wrote: post #22
Arainach wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You're not required to use the app. You're not even entitled to use the app. If you want to use the app, you have to play by their rules. Plenty of device manufacturers have chosen to only offer iOS apps. No one talked about mandating that apps were available on competing platforms. If you choose to use something like GrapheneOS, you are signing up for the fact that almost no one will test on your platform and pl…

The issue here is not that they didn't test on alternative distributions of Android, the issue is that they went out of their way to prevent anything but the officially blessed distributions.

[flagged]

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#40

Post by LightBug1 »

AJRF wrote: post #23

I don't know how large a group who will do this is - but if the UK bans VPNs I can see Graphene having a very large target on its back. - Buy Pixel, Get Graphene - Use FDroid, don't sign up for Google Play, download Tor browser - Censorship resistant access to the internet without handing over your ID. Pixel being a fairly popular phone in the UK is the interesting bit - if you had to buy some niche device I couldn't…

Who said the UK is going to ban VPN?

Genuine question. That's news to me and I'm here.

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