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Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

discuss.grapheneos.org

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Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#131

Post by Zak »

ryandrake wrote: post #42
ranger_danger wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> expensive to support "Support" is such an overloaded and vague word in the software industry. What does it mean for a company to "support" an app/os configuration? 1. They deliberately target that app/os configuration, QA tests it, and answer customer support requests about it. 2. They target the configuration, QA tests it, but it's offered without customer support. 3. They target the configuration, but only releas…

Proton is one of the best examples of this phenomenon. Almost all Windows games work on Linux via Proton. Sometimes they even run better than they do on Windows.

About the only time it doesn't work is when the game uses an anticheat system that intentionally blocks Linux. I can even see where the game devs are coming from when it comes to competitive games; cheating ruins the game for other players, and there's no way to prevent certain kinds of cheating without trusting the client to a degree.

I can't see any reasonable and user-respecting place VW could be coming from intentionally blocking access from open systems.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#132

Post by dmantis »

altairprime wrote: post #55
leoedin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> what does someone running Linux do if the government mandates online services require proprietary attestation APIs? One dual-boots to a reputable Linux vendor’s signed/sealed OS image with secure boot enabled in BIOS, so that the attestations are valid; financially supports said vendor; contacts them quarterly with check-ins on the status of their lockdown+attestation roadmap and uses professional journalism approa…

>signed/sealed OS image

This way we will just have unremovable age verification, spyware, online accounts to use the os, name another bs from other vendors. What's the point of Linux then? The moment big corps and the state can seal spyware into your computer, they'll happily do it.

I'd rather have a separate burn device with whatever os for state services which lives in a faraday cage most of the time and have a proper OS I control on the main device than give somebody control over it.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#133

Post by anonymousiam »

this_user wrote: post #90
moooo99 wrote: post #70

It is amazing how Volkswagen keeps messing up. I am currently in the market for a new car, an EV specifically. Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons, among them the excellent driving assist implementation. I got an offer from a dealer three weeks ago and was going to order the car, then the API for the community integration got turned off. I decided to hold back and see what comes from it. Now…

German companies, especially old school industrial ones like VW, have a very hard time understanding open platforms. The view everything through the lense of liability and compliance first. Their thinking is that if someone runs their app on a custom ROM and uses that to manipulate the app in any way, and that causes some extremely hypothetical damage, that they might be held liable for not having prevented this situ…

If they have concerns about the security of their app on some platform, they have the choice to either put "security" into the app, or to trust the platform vendor to provide the security. The correct solution is the first way. Deferring trust to the platform provider is the lazy way.

If their APIs are done correctly, they shouldn't be afraid to expose them.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#134

Post by ssl-3 »

Arainach wrote: post #107
dylan604 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can detect the car is in motion or not without talking to the engine computer. Just like my phone can tell I'm in motion without connecting to the car at all. You're trying to justify a bad design with bad reasoning

Not with the necessary precision. GPS doesn't work in tunnels or parking garages and can be wildly inaccurate in city centers with skyscrapers blocking line of sight, for instance.

The built-in, offline mapping in my Honda uses a whole host of local-only sensors to handle these situations where GPS is intermittent. It works rather well at figuring out where the car is on the map, and when it deviates from the prescribed route.

It works in tunnels. It works in cities with tall buildings. It works on Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago.

Is there some technological limitation that precludes using this data to determine whether or not a movie can be played?

(It's not like it's new tech. It's decades-old. Honda started using it over 20 years ago.)

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#135

Post by adrianN »

neya wrote: post #122
this_user wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German companies, especially old school industrial ones like VW, have a very hard time understanding open platforms. The view everything through the lense of liability and compliance first. Their thinking is that if someone runs their app on a custom ROM and uses that to manipulate the app in any way, and that causes some extremely hypothetical damage, that they might be held liable for not having prevented this situ…

Yeah sure, the company behind Dieselgate and single handedly destroyed the diesel market is worried about compliance? Give me a break.

VW is large enough that different parts of the company can have very different opinions.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#136

Post by strcat »

z3c0 wrote: post #53
aka13_404 wrote: post #31

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 automatio…

So "Play Protect" is doing all the damage to the third-party ecosystem that it'd seemed designed for. I've slowly but surely been moving away from any service provider of any type who does not allow me to use their service without their often Play Services-dependent app. Changing vehicles would be a lot harder though.

Developers have to go out of their way to implement triggering Play Integrity API checks in their app and then retrieve the results to check on their services. They're putting a lot of effort into banning anything not licensing Google Mobile Services. It's definitely not a security feature since it permits devices with no security updates for more than 8 years but not a far more secure OS than anything Google certifies. Google doesn't allow GrapheneOS to obtain certification and certification comes with highly anti-competitive rules which would be completely unacceptable. Their licensing system has been ruled illegal in South Korea and other countries should not only do the same but ban the Play Integrity API and other related anti-competitive features. These are not actual security features and that's an excuse for the actual purpose of enforcing their GMS licensing model including forcing including a bunch of Google apps with extremely privileged access and using their builds of many OS components shipped from the Play Store.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#137

Post by HybridStatAnim8 »

spogbiper wrote: post #68
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…

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-organized-crim... “Every time we see a Google Pixel, we suspect it might belong to a drug dealer,” said a police official leading the anti-drug operation in Catalonia.." Seems like some countries/areas are already targeting the Pixel (really its because of GrapheneOS)

It is far more likely that it is due to scams and grifts that pretend to be GrapheneOS, associated with GrapheneOS, or based on GrapheneOS, rather than GrapheneOS itself. Criminals tend to be not that bright.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#138

Post by stymaar »

quickthrowman wrote: post #117
stymaar wrote: post #45

I hate that cars are every day more and more crammed with software, when car manufacturers can't seem to be able to make half-working code in the first place (looking at you Nissan, who just can't even put the correct timestamp on your GPS data points…)

> when car manufacturers can't seem to be able to make half-working code in the first place (looking at you Nissan, who just can't even put the correct timestamp on your GPS data when car manufacturers can't seem to be able to make half-working code in the first place (looking at you Nissan, who just can't even put the correct timestamp on your GPS data points…) Nissan sells a ton of cars to subprime borrowers, quali…

Kia's GPS datapoints are pretty low effort (you only get a few, median distance between two points being 30km) but at least they aren't wrong!

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#139

Post by isoprophlex »

abyssin wrote: post #99
joe_mamba wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go with Dacia, though their EVs seem to have very low range.

2022 Dacia Sandero is a great car. Analog buttons, good build quality, well designed. And it’s cheap.

Possibly the single ugliest recent car though
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