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GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

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Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#611

Post by strcat »

palata wrote: post #344
onli wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still haven't seen what you describe, the behaviour of other projects. And I dont believe it without proof (since it was claimed so often by GOS without proof being shown, or in some cases with it obviously not existing). For the security thing: It is wrong to claim that an unlocked bootloader completely breaks the android security model. If anything, it breaks one specific aspect, one that doesn't matter for many…

> It is wrong to claim that an unlocked bootloader completely breaks the android security model. You seem knowledgeable about this, so I'll take the opportunity to ask: if I install a malicious app and it manages to escape the sandbox and alter the system, my understanding is that it will be detected next time I boot it (because the image hash won't match). Isn't that true? > Signing keys for bootloaders might just n…

> You seem knowledgeable about this, so I'll take the opportunity to ask: if I install a malicious app and it manages to escape the sandbox and alter the system, my understanding is that it will be detected next time I boot it (because the image hash won't match). Isn't that true?

They're misrepresenting what has been said by GrapheneOS and also lack a good understanding of it themselves. They're definitely not a good source of information about this.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#612

Post by ysnp »

backscratches wrote: post #443
imcritic wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about they start supporting more devices instead?

Good news they are making their own devices. But until then pixels are technically the most secure android devices and graphene would not be as robust on other devices.

Small correction, GrapheneOS are not making them. They are partnering with an existing large OEM to ensure one or a number of future flagship devices meets their security, privacy and support requirements.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#613

Post by ysnp »

imcritic wrote: post #263
backscratches wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commented elsewhere but GrapheneOS on Pixels actively siphon resources from Google and is arguably a good protest against google. They subsidize Pixel hardware (to incentivize users to adopt their spyware OS), you (buying used obviously) take their subsidized hardware and do not repay them by using their spyware, replacing it with Graphene. Only google loses. Their hardware is technically very good otherwise (in fa…

How about they start supporting more devices instead?

You should probably be asking Android OEMs why the requirements listed here https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices are unreasonable.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#615

Post by strcat »

palata wrote: post #91
ramon156 wrote: post #18

Does anyone have a good grasp of the differences between GOS and /e/OS? I'm buying a Fairphone soon and was wondering what both are like

I have been using /e/OS for 5 years, and also GOS. My take is: - If your phone is supported by GOS, you should go for GOS. - If your phone is not supported by GOS, you should look carefully and compare between /e/OS and Stock Android. I had a Fairphone 3, and after 5 years, /e/OS was outdated by 4 years w.r.t. the manufacturer updates. In other words, Stock Android coming from Fairphone was more secure than /e/OS on…

> If your phone is not supported by GOS, you should look carefully and compare between /e/OS and Stock Android.

If you have an iPhone that's still supported, you have strong privacy and security. If you have a phone that's not an iPhone and not supported by GrapheneOS then you likely have a phone with atrocious privacy and security regardless of OS choice. If people can afford to get a secure device with years of proper support remaining then they should do that rather than using an insecure device with a sidegrade for privacy and security using a problematic AOSP fork. LineageOS is far less problematic than /e/. If people want to switch the OS to something else due to the OEM abandoning it or to avoid Google Mobile Services they should use at least use LineageOS which is less of a privacy and security downgrade from OS. LineageOS does not fully maintain the privacy and security of AOSP or fully keep up with updates but it's a lot less bad than /e/. Most alternate OSes are forks of LineageOS to reuse their work on hardware support and nearly entirely make privacy and security worse, not better, so why not use the upstream project instead?

> I had a Fairphone 3, and after 5 years, /e/OS was outdated by 4 years w.r.t. the manufacturer updates. In other words, Stock Android coming from Fairphone was more secure than /e/OS on that Fairphone.

It's important to note that an alternate OS depends on the OEM for firmware and in practice much more than that including kernel and driver updates. It's theoretically possible to replace the kernel and drivers with much different ones but it's not done in practice by alternate AOSP-based operating systems. If the device is abandoned by the OEM then you aren't going to have a secure device.

/e/ lags far behind on standard privacy and security updates everywhere but misleads users with an inaccurate Android security patch level along with many inaccurate privacy and security claims. LineageOS is much better than the fork of it by /e/ and does much less to mislead users, although it still has the inaccurate Android security patch level and many people still wrongly believe they're getting patches they aren't after the OEM dropped support.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#616

Post by fsflover »

Itoldmyselfso wrote: post #598
fsflover wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a contradiction. There is nothing "minimal" about a requirement that excludes every device but one. Also some people (me) value independence from Google more than the highest degree of security (which relies on Google hardware).

You are not independent from Google if you purchase an android device from another manufacturer. You're then having your data sent to both Google and that manufacturer, resulting in far worse privacy overall than with just Google, not to mention worse security at hardware level. If you don't want to "support" Google, just buy any used Pixel 6 to 10 series.

I use Librem 5 as a daily driver. It has no dependence on Google.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#617

Post by tadfisher »

protimewaster wrote: post #574
madeforhnyo wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A collegue of mine was tech lead at a large online bank. For the mobile app, the first and foremost threat that security auditors would find was "The app runs on a rooted phone!!!". Security theater at its finest, checkboxes gotta be checked. The irony is that the devs were using rooted phones for QA and debugging.

Meanwhile, it's probably A-OK for the app to run on a phone that hasn't received security updates for 5 years. I don't get it. If they're worried about liability, why not check the security patch level and refuse to run on phones that aren't up to date? I'm guessing it's because there are a lot of phones floating around that aren't updated (probably far more than are rooted), and they're willing to pretend to be secu…

> If they're worried about liability, why not check the security patch level and refuse to run on phones that aren't up to date?

Google doesn't provide an API or data set to figure out what the current security patch level is for any particular device. Officially, OEMs can now be 4 months out-of-date, and user updates lag behind that.

Your guess is good, but misses the point. Banks are worried about a couple things with mobile clients: credential stealing and application spoofing. As a consequence, the banks want to ensure that the thing connecting to their client API is an unmodified first-party application. The only way to accomplish this with any sort of confidence is to use hardware attestation, which requires a secure chain-of-trust from the hardware TEE/TPM, to the bootloader, to the system OS, and finally to your application.

So you need a way for security people working for banks to feel confident that it's the bank's code which is operating on the user's behalf to do things like transfer money. They care less about exploits for unsupported devices, and it's inconvenient to users if they can't make payments from their five-year-old device.

And this is why Web Environment Integrity and friends should never be allowed to exist, because Android is the perfect cautionary tale of what banks will do with trusted-computing features: which is, the laziest possible thing that technically works, and keeps their support phone lines open.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#618

Post by strcat »

gnufx wrote: post #267
palata wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been using /e/OS for 5 years, and also GOS. My take is: - If your phone is supported by GOS, you should go for GOS. - If your phone is not supported by GOS, you should look carefully and compare between /e/OS and Stock Android. I had a Fairphone 3, and after 5 years, /e/OS was outdated by 4 years w.r.t. the manufacturer updates. In other words, Stock Android coming from Fairphone was more secure than /e/OS on…

> I had a Fairphone 3, and after 5 years, /e/OS was outdated by 4 years w.r.t. the manufacturer updates Mine is running /e/ and reporting Android 13, which appears to be the last one Fairphone support. /e/ said it was too difficult to support 14 with the kernel involved. It's had continual security updates apart from the Android version. Edit: Murena make it clear which phones are officially supported and which have…

> It's had continual security updates apart from the Android version.

Nope, it doesn't receive most privacy and security patches. Users are being heavily misled about what's provided. First of all, the kernel is nearly entirely not being updated which is a massive portion of the privacy and security patches. Murena's devices have poor privacy and atrocious security including due to the failure to properly provide basic privacy/security patches. Their claims about what they provide need to be distinguished from what is actually provided. /e/ updates the patch level regularly to claim they provide the security patch backports but that doesn't mean they actually provided all of them. It's an arbitrary value and they don't set it accurately.

Fairphone 3 uses the end-of-life Linux 4.9 branch, Fairphone 4 use the end-of-life Linux 4.19 branch and Fairphone 5 uses the end-of-life 5.4 branch. Each was largely not receiving the upstream LTS updates while they were still provided but now they're not provided. An OS that's not receiving basic kernel updates is definitely not receiving security patches anymore, but they were largely never providing these updates in the first place long before the kernel branch or devices were considered end-of-life.

Similar to iOS and other operating systems, Android only backports a subset of privacy and security patches to older Android branches. Only Android 16 QPR2 has the full set of Android privacy and security patches. You aren't receiving all of the standard Android privacy and security patches if you're not on Android 16 QPR2. Many of the patches are also treated as optional and deferred as being mandatory far into the future. It's also worth noting the dates are misleading. Android's March 2026 security backported have been finalized for a while and up to August 2026 are available to ship by OEMs already but a lot more will be added to June 2026. February 2026 Android security patches are the latest with a public bulletin but not the latest available to ship.

Fairphone and especially /e/ also have very incomplete patches for firmware and drivers. /e/ also has major issues patching other components including the browser engine used by the OS for the WebView.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#619

Post by jazzyjackson »

raddan wrote: post #521
abustamam wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty funny on a few levels, not in the least that they required a "secure" password like that but stored them in plain text.

I regularly conduct transactions at the branch of my local bank wherein they ask me for no credentials whatsoever. I also once forgot to bring my account number with me and the teller said "no worries, I'll look it up for you." Kind of horrifying.

It helps that it’s a jailable offense to make fraudulent transactions

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#620

Post by nazcan »

shevy-java wrote: post #236
fodmap wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's mind boggingly stupid that they lock down apps like this, when you can just open the thing in a website anyway. I can use my bank on some linux distro... Not in Spain. I can access my bank's website but I can't do anything without their bank app. Even sometimes they require to confirm my identity using their app in order to access their website. I have several linux phones but I can only do banking with their…

This should be illegal that the government forces people into apps controlled by private, commercial entities. I call such a government corrupt. Here in central Europe I can still access the bank website fine without smartphone. I need a physical device to yield a TAN though, but I can access and do online transactions fine. So I think something is wrong with the spanish government. People need to protest.

As long as it includes websites made by commercial entities. Only standardized API endpoints!
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