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GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

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Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#791

Post by Aachen »

palata wrote: post #712
Aachen wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love if there were a different OS name to designate "Android phones with Google Services snooping in the background" but with the Android Open Source Project being called what it is, I fear "Android" will continue to be understood as a word for either variant

> I fear "Android" will continue to be understood as a word for either variant Well, "Android" generally means either variant. I run GrapheneOS and I call it Android. If someone asks, I say I run Android, not GrapheneOS. Actually in terms of experience, it is Android to me. But in a context where we oppose GrapheneOS to Android, then I think it's important to be clear. GrapheneOS belongs to the family of OSes that ar…

I take that point, that's a useful thing to do. Not sure that many people even in threads like these will get it unless explained (at which point you might as well word around it) but on a close forum or chat this is definitely a useful approach

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#792

Post by ryandrake »

simoncion wrote: post #786
NewsaHackO wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you use that phone?

If your employer required the use of a smartphone for essential components of your job and provided you with a smartphone and cellular data plan, would you not use that smartphone for those components of your job? I'd not use employer- or government-furnished equipment for tasks that the equipment wasn't provided to complete, but I'd definitely use it for those tasks.

Exactly. Bank needs me to have an official FruitPhone to access my account? Fine, send me the phone, I'll turn it on when I need to bank, and at all other times it sits powered-off in a drawer. Same for the government-supplied DroidPhone I need to access my Social Security statements (or whatever). Turn on, do my business, turn off.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#793

Post by saroi235409 »

nisten wrote: post #393

I switch from iPhone to a pixel 9 fold, and installed graphene after 2 weeks on stock android. Look, it's better than stock android overall, UI much more simplified even though it gives you a lot more security control, battery feels slightly longer, but there are drawbacks, i.e. twitter/x wouldn't install, neither would my bank's app. However from time to time I go to use iOS on the iphone and it just feels like bett…

ios ui is sleek but in terms of security and privacy, it doesn't hold up to grapheneos. i used ios for 10 years before switching over and quite honestly, grapheneos on my p8 runs really smoothly.

for apps that demand invasive permissions i don't wish to grant, i use web pwas, like for banking. they work like a charm.

being able to grant or revoke permissions that are of paramount importance for security like MTE, JIT, DCL etc on a granular level for each and every user-installed app, and to grant/revoke network permission alone is such a huge W using GOS.

u will not find this in any iphone, now or in the future (i would bet).

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#794

Post by Aachen »

realusername wrote: post #648
Aachen wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What advertising ID is built into the OS?

See https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... for Android and https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... for iOS

You're linking to Google Play's documentation, not Android code itself that GrapheneOS etc. are built upon

You can find hardware identifiers exposed by Linux distributions more than by Android itself. That Google adds a nice sauce on top... yeah that's a sorry state of affairs, but an optional layer if you don't use the stock OS if it ships with Google Play

edit: but I appreciate looking it up nonetheless! I wasn't completely sure that I hadn't missed that Android (AOSP) includes this now as well

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#795

Post by Aachen »

palata wrote: post #721
Aachen wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's more of a marketing claim from less secure systems that "privacy is not security I'm not sure Cyanogenmod had a marketing team that convinced me of anything when I first installed their rom in 2013 and explored my phone's capabilities with root. Accessing the sensor devices, inspecting what the different apps do, what the OS is doing, installing Xprivacy to provide fake data to tracking apps... none of…

I am not sure what you are trying to say. My point is that 1. If you care about privacy, you should care about security. If your email server is compromised and your emails leak in the public internet, then they are not private anymore. 2. GrapheneOS does care about both security and privacy. > explored my phone's capabilities with root. Accessing the sensor devices, inspecting what the different apps do, what the OS…

My phone isn't my email server though? It's not exposed to the public internet. It connects outwards but you can't simply connect inwards to the IMAP client

You can invert your logic as well: Why care about security without privacy? If your apps are leaking everything to the internet, what's there to keep secure. One could argue this is the essential dependency, not the other way around, since security depends on the threat model but, without privacy, there's no more secrets

> I think you're talking about something like "freedom", here

In part, as well as a means to an end, yes. (GrapheneOS uses this as well, since without the freedom to bring your own OS, they couldn't run on Google's devices. I would think we all enjoy having the freedom to do what we want with our own hardware.) Note also the part where it says "provide fake data to tracking apps": that's privacy which GOS doesn't offer but a user root device / any desktop OS would

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#796

Post by jamesfinlayson »

virtue3 wrote: post #509
zobzu wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ive seen: -"but ios can be jailbroken and it doesnt have an AV!" while the MDM does not allow jailbroken devices, and they also allowed sudo on linux. auditors are clueless parasites as far as im concerned. the whole thing is always a charade where the compliance team, who barely knows any better tries to lie to yhe auditor, and the auditor pick random items they dont understand anyway. waste of time, money and human…

at best it's "cover your ass security" so when you do get pwned you can say you went through an "accrediting auditor" - blah blah blah. Agreed on everything you said. Just wish there was a more efficient way to do things :/

Yep, some stakeholder wants a pen-test or an audit so you do it and address the findings to keep them happy. Going through it now at work - bunch of silly findings because the pen testers know they don't get paid to send back an empty report and tell you everything is fine.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#797

Post by Aachen »

ysnp wrote: post #684
Aachen wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also not involved with any mobile privacy/security project, unless OpenStreetMap data and self-hosting can be said to be such > GOS does care a lot about security, has a higher quality in that regard than anything else, and tends to be blunt about "inferior" projects communicating about security. Two remarks: - There's a difference between "blunt" and hostile or misleading. GOS (owners) are often the latter two f…

>Not everyone is running from an intelligence agency or cellebrite border checkpoints OK, but would it be such a bad thing if most people's personal devices were pretty damn resilient to mercenary spyware by default? I really don't think the standards GrapheneOS are aspiring to are the problem with this picture.

Certainly not, but there's more goals than singular security from government agents at all cost

With the current mobile OS landscape, getting away from ubiquitous overseas dependencies, constant tracking, and closed-source mandatory apps is, to me, much more direct-impact than protecting against this extremely remote chance of having an exploit, customised to my software stack, finding its way onto my device somehow. I'd much rather have the freedom to do with my hardware what I wish

Some people will prefer one thing, and other people another. Neither is a bad choice if it fits your goals and you know the risks of each one. So what I'm saying (and seem to be repeating over and over and over in any graphene fanboy thread) is that it's a choice, not a one-size-fits-all, and not a foregone conclusion (as GOS authors pretend it is, which this subthread started with)

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#798

Post by saroi235409 »

m00dy wrote: post #288

If you are using social media, you might get a shadowban, just because you needed to unlock your bootloader to install this OS. the OS is great, but too risky in certain situations.

i use social media and have never gotten a shadowban. to the contrary grapheneos actually is very effective against apps like reddit shadowbanning you - if you get banned outright on reddit, for example, you can create a new profile in private space and reddit will not be able to detect that you're ban evading.

if you get banned from the profile u use in the app in private space, again, if you just delete private space and recreate it, download the reddit app again, it will be unable to detect that you're evading the ban. i previously tried doing this on other os's and reddit detected the ban evasion.

don't ask me how i know. (just correcting this misinfo)

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#799

Post by quicklime »

drnick1 wrote: post #709
gwillem wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, you pay 2.7% for that convenience

The consumer does not typically pay this directly. It may be passed onto the consumer indirectly through higher prices, but those apply to anyone regardless of payment method. On the contrary, I get cash back on purchases and other rewards.

Pretty cool that you have a system where poor people pay for your fraud protection, cash back and rewards!

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#800

Post by Aachen »

backscratches wrote: post #716
Aachen wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen those prices? I don't think the devices need subsidising at all. How else could competitors, who aren't selling off your data, offer it for cheaper?

competitors also sell off your data, via uninstallable google spyware in most cases!

That depends on (1) which one you pick and (2) whether you keep the stock OS

Given that there exist vendors like Fairphone/Murena that sell lower-performant hardware at much lower price points, it seems to me that the expensive but decent hardware (like Google's flagship) might be priced appropriately as well

Other competitors (that do track you, like Samsung) have similar price points for their high-end hardware and are again much cheaper for slower hardware. If selling data is so essential, they wouldn't allow removing the tracking. (Samsung may be a bad example because they removed it last summer, but root popularity has been diminishing since early android days anyway so I can't imagine it's a big factor for them)

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