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GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

grapheneos.org

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Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#121

Post by dahfizz »

KirinDave wrote: post #69
mbrumlow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is security, and then there is freedom. You can have the most secure system in the world -- but if there are state sponsored, or company back back doors it means nothing. In FOSS initiatives spent ages building fee and and open software, combating proprietary systems and software that they had no control over. All that would be loss just to give it up now that we have moved from PCs to phones.... I for one want…

> There is security, and then there is freedom. You can have the most secure system in the world -- but if there are state sponsored, or company back back doors it means nothing. Okay, so you're saying: "If a backdoor is present than your security prioritization doesn't matter, the result is bad." I understand, but: 1. If there is a back door in open source code that goes unnoticed (and it certainly does) because of…

Why do you assume that OSS has more bugs than proprietary software? I would probably argue the opposite.

With OSS you get more people working on a project that actually care. A proprietary business project prioritizes making money over actually creating a good product everyone loves.

You're right that this is not a perfect solution. All software has bugs and all software may have malicious back doors. I just find it much easier to trust the development that happens in the open with community involvement than the development that happens in secret where I have absolutely no way see what's going on.

If you had an inkling that someone was trying to poison you, would you rather eat the food you watched be prepared or the food that was prepared in secret? Both dishes might be poisoned, but it's reasonable to prefer the one you were able to examine.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#122

Post by [deleted] »

letstrynvm wrote: post #10

Librem seems to have the correct way forward, reject the big mess of Android and catch up to it with completely Open pieces. https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ They're making good progress and I can't wait to be able to update my handheld device with mainline pieces for as long as anyone who still uses one cares to update it. Currently my Samsung Android device is at Dec 2018 patchlevel and nothing I can do about it.

[deleted]

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#123

Post by sanxiyn »

letstrynvm wrote: post #20
yegortimoshenko wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chain of trust does protect you from evil maid attacks. And yes, there can be bugs in application layer, but at least half of all CVEs are memory corruption bugs. These practices do offer a massive reduction in attack surface. You seem to argue it doesn't matter since it doesn't eliminate attack surface completely.

No, chain-of-trust only has one trick... it can check that what you're about to run is unaltered from what was signed to some degree of probability. If that is the - shipped and validly signed - bugridden nightmare-fuel like the propreitary Qualcomm 802.11 stack or proprietary multimedia bits that are a rich and continuous source of vulnerabilities (take a look through the last months here https://source.android.com/…

Upstream Linux kernel security is hopeless at this point. You can't expect it to secure anything.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#124

Post by danvittegleo »

For anyone interested in doing their own customizable builds of AOSP for Pixel devices check out: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack. This doesn't have any of the security hardening features of GrapheneOS, but does have some of the same security properties like verified boot, OTA software updates that included updated firmware/drivers, support for remote attestation, etc.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#125

Post by supportlocal4h »

KirinDave wrote: post #69
mbrumlow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is security, and then there is freedom. You can have the most secure system in the world -- but if there are state sponsored, or company back back doors it means nothing. In FOSS initiatives spent ages building fee and and open software, combating proprietary systems and software that they had no control over. All that would be loss just to give it up now that we have moved from PCs to phones.... I for one want…

> There is security, and then there is freedom. You can have the most secure system in the world -- but if there are state sponsored, or company back back doors it means nothing. Okay, so you're saying: "If a backdoor is present than your security prioritization doesn't matter, the result is bad." I understand, but: 1. If there is a back door in open source code that goes unnoticed (and it certainly does) because of…

Bad software is bad whether it's open or not. But historically, closed software has more lock-in. If a particular open lib or component is bad, it can often be fixed by somebody who didn't create it. Or, for those who don't want to touch the scary hairball, it can often be replaced by a completely new hairball written from scratch by a completely different party. Even if there's nothing broken with the original, open software is friendlier to alternatives. It might take a bit of work, but you can replace one open part with another just because it's shinier or smaller or faster or not Oracle or whatever.

I don't trust all open source software, but I trust it by default more than I trust closed software. And I know that if something really bad gets exposed the odds of a solid fix are better in open source. I get to see the warts of OSS. There's public criticism over small details on a lot of important projects. That doesn't happen for closed stuff. Sure, a vendor may have four of the brightest devs in that field and they might hash it all out behind closed doors. The open alternative usually has another four of the top 12 minds in that field along with four pretty competent others and they have a better process for hashing it out.

Then there's that other guy who's not in the top 12 who goes it alone and comes up with something spectacular. So three of the four from the other open project jump on board because they can. And since this new project tries very hard to be backwards compatible, it just snaps in as an overnight replacement. That's part of the awesomeness of OSS.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#126

Post by beenBoutIT »

nextos wrote: post #88
groovybits wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there is a general lack of awareness of what AOSP is without Google services and add-ons on top of it. In some facets, AOSP is not a complete and working OS as is. In particular, I have personally had many issues with GPS location for the past fews years. Out-of-the-box, GPS simply does not work without additional non-free software to help it out. Additionally, many (that is, 95%) of all Android apps that y…

Have you tried a pure AOSP + F-Droid on Nexus/Pixel or Xperia? It's quite good. The only major drawback are closed drivers. But the userland is nice, open and polished. My worry with Librem and all those initiatives is that rebuilding an ecosystem like F-Droid takes a lot of effort and time.

A Pixel running stock AOSP with F-droid and Chromium is the bleeding edge of what's possible with open source. There's no better UI/UX in existence and the tragedy of it all is that outside of Android developers and software engineers most people never get to experience it at all.

The reality is that Librem is unnecessary because we have F-droid. There's nothing wrong with F-droid and as time goes on more mainstream apps will continue being brought over.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#127

Post by beenBoutIT »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #81
strcat wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe there is a general lack of awareness of what AOSP is without Google services and add-ons on top of it. That lack of awareness seems to be your own. > In particular, I have personally had many issues with GPS location for the past fews years. Out-of-the-box, GPS simply does not work without additional non-free software to help it out. GPS doesn't require Play Services, etc. Play Services provides supplemen…

You seem to be off on the state of Google Play Services from a real-world standpoint. Case in point: Microsoft's core apps like Outlook and Skype don't work without Google Play Services enabled, even if you find the APKs somewhere other than the Play Store to sideload them. Microsoft's apps are specifically an example I've given of how closed Android truly is: Even Google's competitors, which have all of the same ser…

If you're willing to make your location known in order to take advantage of location services why wouldn't you want the very best possible service? There are complicated workarounds that can be used in place of Google's location services but none of them are anywhere near as easy to implement for the app developer or as easy to use or as accurate for the end user.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#128

Post by supportlocal4h »

opencl wrote: post #107
groovybits wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there is a general lack of awareness of what AOSP is without Google services and add-ons on top of it. In some facets, AOSP is not a complete and working OS as is. In particular, I have personally had many issues with GPS location for the past fews years. Out-of-the-box, GPS simply does not work without additional non-free software to help it out. Additionally, many (that is, 95%) of all Android apps that y…

PureOS seems to have these exact same problems except way worse. Yes, a significant fraction of Android apps do not work on AOSP without Play Services. And 100% of Android apps do not work on PureOS. F-Droid alone has ~1800 apps. I do not see PureOS or PostmarketOS catching up to that level anytime soon. FOSS projects that are built out of passion, but recieve little funding or corporate support? Exact same situation…

> 100% of Android apps do not work on PureOS. F-Droid alone has ~1800 apps.

This is a fair point. It's not a huge argument for me because I'm only interested in maybe 20 categories of app and I've never been thrilled with the 30 contenders in each category. For instance, if it has only one browser and that one is Firefox, that will be ok with me to begin with. It won't bother me if there are five other choices in F-Droid. But in general, more choice is good, so I grant that this is an important consideration.

> Are the Snapchats and Instagrams of the world going to port their apps over to this entirely new platform when they can't even be bothered to make versions of their Android apps that work without Google's services?

Android without Google's services is a tiny fraction of Android and a smaller fraction of the whole market. PureOS or anything else with even smaller share can expect to be similarly ignored. But Android sans G seems even less likely to go viral than something else.

For one thing, it's too fractured. There is no AOSP brand. There's a bunch of little no-names that happen to offer AOSP under some name that isn't "AOSP" and has no recognition at all. If two or three lower-tier makers offer "Brand C" phones, it could spark. Maybe not in your neighborhood. But if it catches on in India or Malaysia or Brazil, it might be enough to attract Instagram or Twitter. Remember that those companies don't want to depend on Google. They very much want Google out of the picture.

So a handful of apps can legitimize a new platform that is attracting a million or ten users anyway. Then it becomes perilous not to be on that platform. WhatsApp can't afford to let some up and comer get a foothold just because WhatsApp wasn't available on the viral new platform.

Ahhhhhh. Ok I'm going to quit dreaming for now and get back to work. I'm not holding my breath, but I do think it can happen. It just takes the right lucky timing. There have been so many helps lately that I think if there was something ready to take advantage of these incidents, the timing is right.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#129

Post by ocdtrekkie »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #127
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be off on the state of Google Play Services from a real-world standpoint. Case in point: Microsoft's core apps like Outlook and Skype don't work without Google Play Services enabled, even if you find the APKs somewhere other than the Play Store to sideload them. Microsoft's apps are specifically an example I've given of how closed Android truly is: Even Google's competitors, which have all of the same ser…

If you're willing to make your location known in order to take advantage of location services why wouldn't you want the very best possible service? There are complicated workarounds that can be used in place of Google's location services but none of them are anywhere near as easy to implement for the app developer or as easy to use or as accurate for the end user.

GPS doesn't make your location known at all, it's receiving only. It sends information about your location to nobody, it triangulates your position from publicly broadcast signals.

And, I would much rather "make my location known" to about fifty other companies before I would want Google to have it.

Re: GrapheneOS – A privacy and security-focused mobile OS with Android compatibility

#130

Post by cyphar »

strcat wrote: post #105
letstrynvm wrote: post #10

Librem seems to have the correct way forward, reject the big mess of Android and catch up to it with completely Open pieces. https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ They're making good progress and I can't wait to be able to update my handheld device with mainline pieces for as long as anyone who still uses one cares to update it. Currently my Samsung Android device is at Dec 2018 patchlevel and nothing I can do about it.

> with completely Open pieces AOSP is completely open source. Hardware and firmware is a much different story, but that applies to the device you're promoting just as much... > They're making good progress and I can't wait to be able to update my handheld device with mainline pieces for as long as anyone who still uses one cares to update it. Currently my Samsung Android device is at Dec 2018 patchlevel and nothing I…

> AOSP is completely open source.

This is only true in the most technical way possible. Yes, AOSP is open source -- but none of the standard applications on any stock version of Android use AOSP anymore. The calendar and other applications are all proprietary. The AOSP versions feel like they stopped being developed in 2010 -- which coincidentally is when Google started developing proprietary replacements.

I use LineageOS (and have for a while), which is mostly AOSP, and the applications from AOSP today feel older than the ones I used on Google's Android ~5 years ago. As a simple example, Google's Calendar application can create very complicated recurring events while the AOSP one is much dumber.

> Hardware and firmware is a much different story, but that applies to the device you're promoting just as much...

The Librem 5 hardware was specifically chosen so that it contains no firmware blobs and all the firmware is free software and upstream in Linux. There is a caveat for the baseband, but that's because it's not legal in most countries to sell or use baseband hardware that is free software (unless the user is licensed and even then it's non-trivial).

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