GrapheneOS recommended for domestic abuse victims

In what sense is anything shady about the Android Open Source Project (AOSP)?

> WiFi and SIM card chips are compromised right out from the factory

This is an unsubstantiated claims not only lacking evidence but heavily contradicted by a large amount of available evidence. It also has nothing to do with Android.

> People are usually OK with options like postmarketOS (non-Android) or with the most popular distros like LineageOS. Some jump to things like SailFishOS (attention: russian financial hands on that one).

postmarketOS and the desktop software stack it uses is far less private and secure than AOSP.

SailfishOS isn't open source like AOSP and is far less private and secure than it. It combines many of the worst aspects of desktop operating system security with low-end Android device security.

LineageOS is another fork of AOSP but doesn't preserve all the standard updates and privacy/security protections.

None of those are a hardened OS greatly improving privacy and security compared to the baseline of AOSP. None are as private and secure as unmodified AOSP. Those aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.

> Even a cheap chinese smartphone with their "stock" Android can argue for being less shady and raise less attention to yourself than a distro which forces you into specific poisoned hardware. That is just dumb.

You aren't backing up your claims of hardware being compromised with evidence. You're also not being specific about what it is you consider to be a problem. You have an issue with us using Pixels. Does that also apply to the upcoming Motorola Mobility (Lenovo) devices too? Which specific hardware do you think would be okay to use? We need hardware meeting our requirements for updates and hardware-based security features which is why Motorola needs to improve their devices to meet our requirements. GrapheneOS also needs extensive porting work to devices due to the hardware-based security features and the need for drivers/HALs to be made compatible with the exploit protections.

but no one uses blind signatures for attestation so it can be used to fingerprint your device's serial. they do try to make it hard. but generally you should assume that if whoever you are attesting to colludes with google they will obtain your HWID - and if it's google you are attesting to you should assume they have your HWID.

GOS uses a proxy for attestation, but it does absolutely nothing for this threat model.

PS: DRM is even worse, there is no intermediary and the APIs are open to all apps. you probably need to be a well resourced intel agency to make use of it as you need to source a valid DRM license server certificate. technically, actual license servers are in violation of their agreements with google, apple, etc if they use the license request for fingerprinting. but they do retain the ability to blacklist silicon (invalidate pirate devices from pirated media watermarks).

Weren't they accepting refugees without documentation?

How would that be achieved

We could assume that a user could make their own computer "private and secure"

But if a third party, e.g., Apple, Inc., Google, LLC, GrapheneOS Foundation, etc., has RCE, e.g., "auto-updates", then how can the computer be "private and secure" against that third party and any party that they "work with", voluntarily or not, e.g., a business partner, a government, but also others that might target these third parties, such as an attacker who isn't interested in their bug bounty programs, etc.

To achieve "private and secure", would the user need to remove the RCE capability of the third party (parties)

What about data collection and surveillance by the third party (the user would have to review the source code and compile the OS themselves to be sure about data collection and surveillance)

If there is data collection and surveillance, then how could the user be sure that the data collected and surveillance capability held by the third party is "private and secure" from that third party (e.g., Apple, Google, etc.), any third parties that work with them, and others who might target these third parties

Assuming the user even knows the identities of all these third parties, what if their operations are secretive and non-transparent

What if they have a history of dishonesty

What if they make no promises to the user that could be enforced and instead they just assume "trust"

Perhaps each user might have a different concept of "private and secure"