[HN Gopher] Cops say criminals use a Google Pixel with GrapheneO...
___________________________________________________________________
Cops say criminals use a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS - I say
that's freedom
Author : pabs3
Score : 371 points
Date : 2025-07-23 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.androidauthority.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.androidauthority.com)
| johnisgood wrote:
| I cannot say I am surprised. You care about your privacy -> you
| are a criminal. "If you are not a criminal, you have nothing to
| hide.". _sighs_.
|
| I wish people realized that privacy and civil liberties exist
| regardless of guilt. Rights like freedom of speech, due process,
| and privacy aren't just for people doing something wrong. They're
| foundational protections that exist to prevent abuse (by cops,
| too).
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I maintain that if the NSA ever really needs to know something,
| if I somehow possess critical knowledge in a legitimate matter
| of national security, they are welcome to visit. (They'll have
| to settle for coffee, I'm not much of a tea drinker.) In this
| way, I really do have nothing to hide. But I do insist on
| knowing about it in the moment.
|
| Outside of that very narrow context, they may kindly deal with
| my communications being secured by default, because if there is
| a path they can use to decrypt my data, the criminals can also
| find, exploit, and use that same path. Rather easily, as it
| turns out. (See: various data breaches, password leaks, company
| after company getting caught with unsecured S3 buckets
| containing encryption keys, etc etc.) It's not the law I'm
| hiding from, but those individuals who would steal every one of
| my digital assets given the opportunity.
|
| In the specific context of Android, the thing I'm trying to
| dodge isn't even legal snooping or criminal activity, but
| specifically _marketing_. Google is terribly interested in my
| browsing habits, and so having my smartphone not run their
| services at all is an excellent way to reduce that flow of
| information from my device to a third party that I don 't
| particularly trust.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Don't forget supply chain attacks opening doors and windows
| all over the shop.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Not just criminals. Your own government can be co-opted and
| suddenly things like IRS records for honest taxpayers become
| weaponized deportation lists.
| simpaticoder wrote:
| Avoiding marketing surveillance is both reasonable and
| increasingly sought after; consider how many mainstream
| services now offer paid options just to reduce data
| collection by advertisers.
|
| Modern surveillance states operate on the premise that every
| individual, out of billions worldwide, could become a
| potential threat. To manage this, governments have developed
| and deployed mass surveillance technologies that far exceed
| the scope of traditional law enforcement. This environment
| results in routine circumvention--both legal and extra-legal
| --of civil liberties and privacy protections, such as the 4th
| amendment, in the name of national security.
|
| We saw this play out dramatically with the Snowden
| revelations, which exposed systemic, warrantless collection
| of communications by agencies such as the NSA. Surveillance
| is not conducted only for clear national emergencies. It is
| often routine, preemptive, and opportunistic--and the scale
| is massive, not targeted only at 'bad actors'.
|
| This reality creates a profound power imbalance. Those who
| control surveillance infrastructure possess the ability--and
| in some cases, the legal clearance--to act against
| individuals or groups for reasons ranging from strategic
| interests to petty personal motives. There have been numerous
| documented cases of abuse of surveillance powers by insiders
| seeking to settle personal scores and, internationally,
| governments using this capability to quash dissent (for
| example, China's censorship and criminalization of government
| criticism)
|
| Once the technology and precedent for ubiquitous surveillance
| are in place, the distinction between legitimate and
| illegitimate use blurs dangerously. The potential for abuse
| is inherent, especially when oversight is weak or
| accountability is lacking, which is everywhere.
|
| While companies like Google pose significant privacy concerns
| and "opting out" of their ecosystems is prudent for reducing
| commercial data exploitation, the larger threat comes from
| the normalization of universal, warrantless surveillance by
| state actors.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Modern surveillance states operate on the premise that
| every individual, out of billions worldwide, could become a
| potential threat.
|
| Because these states are so extractive of their populace
| and engage in so much evil that any given person
| constitutes a potential threat. They're worried that anyone
| could just wake up one day and decide to be the next uncle
| Ted or whatever.
| kristianc wrote:
| One of life's bizarre contradictions that it's largely down
| to Google that some of the most egregious and shady third
| party techniques for tracking and fingerprinting devices that
| dominated the 2010s no longer work.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I think what this is really about is the ability to
| manipulate elections. Panopticon surveillance means it will
| inevitably dig up dirt on a presidential or other candidate
| somewhere down the line. Then once they have a shot at
| winning, pull them aside and say "do what we say and you can
| maybe win, or we can force your loss now when the story
| breaks about how you used the n word once in 8th grade"
| osigurdson wrote:
| [flagged]
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| The course you suggest would itself damage the social fabric
| of democracy. Not really a good idea, though it might be
| cathartic.
| LocalH wrote:
| It's like the tolerance of intolerance.
| johnisgood wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| johnisgood wrote:
| I wanted to reply to him "that would definitely make me a
| criminal".
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| It's not a specifically "democratic" thing. It's a moral
| question, and good monarchies that are grounded in a strong
| moral tradition and a respect for subsidiarity can be much
| better at resisting the ebb and flow of mass sentiment
| manipulated by the media. The war on terror showed us how
| easily fear can be deployed to get the masses to hurt
| themselves, and revolutions show how envy and grievance can
| be deployed in a similar fashion.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do tropes like this here. You can make your
| substantive points without that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| The idea that privacy is only for those doing something evil is
| so brain damaged, I cannot understand how anyone took that
| seriously.
|
| No, privacy is for protecting good things from evil people. And
| frankly, it's more than that. Privacy is necessary even when no
| evil intent exists in either the observer or the observed. It
| is necessary for various relationships to flourish and for
| human beings to flourish. It isn't good for your neighbors to
| watch you making love with your wife, or for you to watch them
| doing so. Social boundaries are important. Failing to respect
| them is to claim an authority you do not have.
|
| It's similar to the principle of subsidiarity: you want the
| right people involved in the right things at the right times.
| Removing privacy smushes everything together, and I claim that
| this flattening effect is one of the reasons for the mental
| illness that's catalyzed by social media.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| If I am not a criminal you should not need to tap my phone
| 4bpp wrote:
| I would go further and say that even if these things _are_ for
| criminals, that is okay; and allowing some amount of criminal
| activity is necessitated by the basic humility of conceding
| that we might not have figured out the best set of rules for
| humanity to live under.
|
| It might be appealing to fantasise about catching _all_ the
| criminals and stopping _all_ their dastardly deeds, but where
| would we be now if our governments had this capability 30 years
| ago? ...90? ...270? Would we be happier today if the last 1000
| years had passed completely free of theft, murder, pederasty,
| and also free of blasphemy, heresy and challenges to the divine
| right of kings? Today, we are grateful for the actions of many
| a disgusting criminal that would have been condemned by any
| respectable and well-adjusted member of society (including you,
| had you lived then) at the time. Who knows which ones of today
| 's criminals we will be thanking 30 years into the future?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| This is just a continuation of "well a lot of people who commit
| crimes have dark skin, so let's profile all people with dark
| skin."
|
| But in reality, I think this is a scare piece meant to drive
| people away from using graphing OS.
| sfRattan wrote:
| > This is just a continuation of "well a lot of people who
| commit crimes have dark skin, so let's profile all people with
| dark skin."
|
| You aren't born with a GrapheneOS phone and you can't trivially
| discard or swap your skin color. _Born immutable
| characteristics of humans are a different moral category
| entirely_ , even if the statistical inferences are
| superficially similar to this case... And that's debatable.
|
| I use GrapheneOS, and I think police profiling people based on
| phone model is bad. But government profiling based on skin
| color or other effectively immutable, born traits for
| enforcement of law or policy is so much worse.
| canadiantim wrote:
| I get the feeling this is likely a better setup than the linux
| phones
| pabs3 wrote:
| GrapheneOS is based on the Linux kernel just like Android.
| BigSquelch wrote:
| It's an android fork.
| carbon3489 wrote:
| Yeah. They have a duress password feature which cleans up the
| device. Now.. if only you can use it like a linux computer and
| be able to make full system backups, it would be a lot easier
| to use that feature. The lack of proper backup facilities make
| it untenable for holding any critical data.
| fsflover wrote:
| It depends on your goals and threat model. If you consider
| dependence on Google hardware as a threat, it's not better.
| Twey wrote:
| I tried to read this article on digital privacy but after five
| minutes spent unticking boxes allowing my usage data to be sent
| to an augean list of data collectors I gave up and left.
| fmsf wrote:
| When this happens I disable JS for the website permanently and
| reload, sometimes it is not live loaded and the article is
| readable.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Bless the hearts of webmasters who allow reader mode to
| function normally.
| dotancohen wrote:
| No webmaster allows reader mode to function normally. There
| are, however, webmasters who don't try to prevent reader
| mode from functioning normally.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Potato, potato.
|
| Here, "allow" means "doesn't actively work to counter".
| gruez wrote:
| > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances--e.g.
| article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button
| breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nilamo wrote:
| An article being inaccessible or illegible counts as
| tangential?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Not to mention it's directly related to the subject of the
| article.
| gruez wrote:
| That might be true but it's been done to death because
| it's applicable basically every time commercial coverage
| of a privacy-related topic. It has the vibe of "we should
| improve society somewhat. yet you participate in it.
| curious!". Not to mention in publications with proper
| editorial independence, the "business side" (ie. the side
| that's responsible for adding the ads/trackers) is
| firewalled from the side writing the articles, so there
| isn't even really a contradiction.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's more like, "you complain that people throw sand in
| your eyes, yet you also throw sand in people's eyes,
| curious." This is not "yet you participate in society."
| Unlike participating in society, these behaviors are
| entirely optional and they can stop any time they want,
| they just prefer not to. Editorial independency doesn't
| absolve them. It just means that they're doing the right
| thing in one area but not another.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yes
| dang wrote:
| Yes, it's tangential in the sense that we're using the word
| there: it veers in a different direction from the article.
|
| If an article is truly inaccessible or illegible, then it
| shouldn't be on HN. But if it's readable-albeit-with-
| annoyances, then it belongs here if (and only if) the
| content is sufficiently interesting, irrespective of
| annoyances. In that case we want the comments to focus on
| the interesting content.
|
| Not that annoyances aren't annoying--they are, and they
| annoy us too. But the cost of having comments about them is
| much higher than the benefit, especially because they're so
| repetitive. Annoyance comments also tend to get stuck at
| the top of the thread, accumulating upvotes and choking out
| more interesting discussion.
| viridian wrote:
| The hypocrisy in the context of the content of the article
| is, in its self, interesting. It's not tangential by any
| means.
| dmix wrote:
| Those are just placebo buttons.
| natch wrote:
| This trope of "I have nothing to hide" is really tired.
|
| People, it's _fine_ to have things to hide. You can write a blog
| post and admit you have things to hide. Everyone has things to
| hide.
|
| For one thing, you can care about hiding the private information
| that friends have shared with you. Nobody should assume that all
| their friends and contacts will be super happy about having some
| stranger at a border paw through their private emails, chats, and
| photos. Yes, you do have things to hide. It's called basic human
| privacy.
|
| Please stop saying "I have nothing to hide" unless you're some
| sort of sociopath who is willing to give up the private
| addresses, emails, phone numbers, and details of all your
| friends, family members, and contacts.
| bilekas wrote:
| You're taking it too literally, it's to signify, you're not
| doing anything illegal, you're not doing something you WANT to
| hide from law enforcement.
|
| Nothing to do with your private pictures or shopping habits.
| Those are things you want to keep private.
|
| Hiding and Privacy are not the same.
| stavros wrote:
| He isn't. It's literally used in bad faith in its literal
| sense ("if you have nothing to hide, why can't I see your
| phone?"). Of course, the same argument would never be
| accepted by the very law enforcement officer who's making it.
|
| The response to that is, yes, I do have things to hide, none
| of your business.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I have private photos on my phone, photos that I do want to
| keep private, photos that I want to keep "hidden".
| Atreiden wrote:
| > you're not doing something you WANT to hide from law
| enforcement.
|
| Why should law enforcement have the privilege to know
| arbitrary information, especially deeply personal
| information, about law-abiding individuals?
|
| It is a core requirement of democracy to be able to conceal
| information from the arm of the state. Political retribution
| and targeting of ones opponents is not just hypothetical,
| it's happening now, in America, right now.
|
| Why should law enforcement get to search my phone to find out
| that I'm critical of the administration? This is information
| about me that is completely allowed under law, but can be
| used to discriminate against me.
|
| The definition of legal also changes over time. Giving
| someone an Uber ride in Texas to an out-of-state abortion
| center is now a crime. Definitely wouldn't want information
| on my Uber ride history to be freely available to Texas
| police. Even if I've never given such a ride, my entire ride
| history, and possibly my life as a whole, is now subject to
| deep, targeted scrutiny. Facts would not protect me here, as
| even if I have done nothing wrong my life could be
| irrevocably altered. Corruption exists. People make mistakes.
| Sometimes they have hidden agendas that supersede our shared
| values of common decency.
| bilekas wrote:
| > Why should law enforcement have the privilege to know
| arbitrary information, especially deeply personal
| information, about law-abiding individuals?
|
| They don't and that's called privacy. Seems I didn't make
| my point clear that saying "I don't have anything to hide"
| is perfectly fine when applying to anything criminal.
|
| It's NOT the same as saying "I don't care about privacy".
|
| If you commit a crime and hide that, that's a crime.
|
| If you give out your address, that's not a crime and yes
| stupid to do, but you're not going to prison for it.
|
| Highlighting that people conflate hiding things with
| privacy and they're just not the same.
| natch wrote:
| Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with Venn diagrams.
| The area of overlap between the two concepts is called
| having something to hide.
|
| You can quibble with the word "hide" but it came from the
| original post, and it serves just fine. You're free to
| write your own post that doesn't use that phrasing.
| jmuguy wrote:
| I agree, its funny to see the trope from someone advocating
| GrapheneOS. Like its pretty typical to see from regular
| internet users who seemingly stopped caring a long time ago
| that FAANG has essentially their entire life in various
| databases. We all have private lives, or at least we should,
| that's just a normal part of being a human.
| Tyyps wrote:
| The anti-privacy movement in Europe is really concerning. In
| particular as general population don't really care about it, we
| are going toward some major shifts. I'm wondering though how this
| radical turn was initiated and if some lobbies are pulling the
| strings behind the scene...
| 0points wrote:
| > In particular as general population don't really care about
| it
|
| > if some lobbies are pulling the strings
|
| Sure looks like it. Many people don't understand the
| consequences of the ChatControl proposition (backdoors for
| governments into all messaging apps) [1].
|
| Politicians insists it is only about protecting kids from
| predators online, but see for example Sweden:
|
| * Police and secret police will have this access for swedish
| citizens.
|
| * Secret police have an agreement with NSA about data sharing
| (see Snowden).
|
| * NSA will end up storing all my DM:s.
|
| * Another country also have an agreement with NSA about data
| sharing.
|
| * This other country will find out about my sexual orientation
| or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their
| country.
|
| All of this will be outside of control from my country or the
| laws of my country (Sweden), that is supposed to protect my
| free speech [2] and anti discrimination laws [3].
|
| 1:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_to_Prevent_and_Comb...
|
| 2: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-
| lagar/dokument/sven...
|
| 3: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-
| lagar/dokument/sven...
|
| F*k Ylva Johansson:
|
| > Research by several newspapers led to allegations of
| questionable connections between Johansson and her staff and
| companies that would benefit financially from her proposal,
| including Thorn and WeProtect.
|
| > Johansson rejected the accusations as being untrue, true but
| not illegal and as not even being accusations.
|
| > Her claim to have given data protection organizations the
| same access as to the backers of her proposal was rejected as
| untrue by several organizations and members of the EU
| parliament. Johansson reacted to growing rejection of her
| proposal by ordering commercial advertisement on Twitter paid
| for with EU funds. The advertisement was criticized as being
| misleading and illegal according to the EU's rules for targeted
| advertisement. [4]
|
| 4:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylva_Johansson#Surveillance_of...
| edg5000 wrote:
| Agreed. Although to be the devil's advocate for a moment:
| Governments can currently easily tap email, and phone tapping
| is more feasible at scale due to machine transcription. So
| the apps gave use a temporary safe haven, which may get
| compromised by Chat Control. And before email we had mail,
| handled directly by the government, although reading mail is
| more difficult without leaving traces.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| The devil doesn't need an advocate here. "Temporary safe
| haven" is the kind of phrasing the advocates of anti-
| privacy policies use to argue that this "temporary" state
| of affairs should be destroyed.
| 0points wrote:
| > And before email we had mail, handled directly by the
| government, although reading mail is more difficult without
| leaving traces.
|
| At least in my country, there has been serious laws
| protecting the users from police opening letters (1962:700;
| Postlagens tystnadsplikt). This was changed in January 2023
| because people exploited it to send drugs thru post office
| [1].
|
| Of course without any protests in Sweden because again
| people don't realize their rights to privacy are taken away
| from them.
|
| 1: https://www.svenskhandel.se/nyheter/nyhet/lagandring-
| ger-moj...
| poly2it wrote:
| I'm increasingly annoyed by the extent at which our state
| (Sweden, EU) is willing to sacrifice our rights to hinder
| the usage of recreational drugs by a minority of the
| population. How can it be that alcohol is endorsed so
| widely, given that we know many of the drugs we are being
| sacrificed to stop are safer, less addictive and less
| potent [1]? It's perhaps cynical to ask, but are we
| protecting the citizens, or the alcohol industry?
|
| 1: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_har
| m_asse...
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Sweden is a nanny state. Can't buy booze on Sundays and
| the government shop's are only open 5 hours on Saturday.
|
| Yet I can go to certain neighborhoods in Stockholm and
| get pretty much every thing under the sun and that's open
| 24/7.
| bee_rider wrote:
| > And before email we had mail, handled directly by the
| government, although reading mail is more difficult without
| leaving traces.
|
| This is the source of some massive disconnects between
| people and their governments, I think. They had some
| permission, which we basically agreed on as a society, when
| their tampering was obvious and/or limited in scale (just
| due to practical constraints). We gave our consent to be
| governed with those constraints in mind.
|
| Nowadays they are continuing without those implicit
| constraints and they don't want to have the conversation
| about implementing new explicit constraints. This isn't the
| deal we agreed to, really, it is just what they can get
| away with without permission. You can rule over a populace
| without their permission, of course--it's just very
| different from the sort of pleasant (albeit never perfect)
| relationship that willing populations and their elected
| officials have had recently.
| jajko wrote:
| One can't rely on some sort of 'decency' of a given country
| and hope for the best, that ship has long sailed.
|
| You mention Sweden, I can easily also name Switzerland, the
| land of generally very decent, moral and polite people. Yet
| sometimes curtains falls off a bit and one can see how
| various police departments will do everything possible to
| track and follow people. Police are generally very nice but
| I've also seen some unprovoked brutality and generally less-
| than-stellar behavior by various authorities that should know
| and do better.
|
| Protect what you can, while you can. No state is your friend,
| its not normally an outright enemy but rather a party focused
| on its own interests, your rights or needs be damned.
| 0points wrote:
| Yea, I started using ProtonVPN specifically because they
| are placed in Switzerland.
|
| Switzerland is not in EU, not in 12-eyes, not in any of
| that shit.
|
| I'm sure they are up to no good, too but at least the
| distance between them and NSA is farther, I hope.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > Police are generally very nice but I've also seen some
| unprovoked brutality
|
| The so-called israelization[0] of the police. Certainly you
| see that in the US. If you compare the local police, say,
| 50 years ago with their counterparts today, you definitely
| notice a strong militarization. That may be appropriate for
| special units handling dangerous cases, but it should not
| characterize the rank and file that handle petty crime or
| public disorder.
|
| > No state is your friend, its not normally an outright
| enemy but rather a party focused on its own interests
|
| The state is the only recourse of the common man against
| powerful private interests. In this case (surveillance,
| etc), private interest has been used as a way to get around
| the legal limitations of government. Companies like Google
| and Facebook can track people with greater ease than the
| government can.
|
| [0] https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-
| polic...
| octopoc wrote:
| I have in the past often advocated for more training for
| police, so I have to say this is an eye opener for sure.
| Thanks for posting this.
|
| The question I have is, why?? I assume some Israelis or
| people with ties to Israel who wanted Israel to have
| influence over the US police. (But why?)
|
| I doubt it was a big thing like "gee, you know what
| Israel can export? Police brutality!" "Hey that's a great
| idea!"
|
| But that's kind of how it comes across.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > This other country will find out about my sexual
| orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane
| to their country.
|
| That is literally going to put people's lives at risk. Crazy.
| PeppySteppy wrote:
| You are misleading by using "secret police" when what you are
| are looking for is the "security police".
|
| Secret police definition [1]
|
| > Secret police (or political police) are police,
| intelligence, or security agencies that engage in covert
| operations against a government's political, ideological, or
| social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations
| are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
|
| Security police definition [2]
|
| > In some countries, security police is the name given to the
| secret security and intelligence services charged with
| protecting the state at the highest level, including
| responsibilities such as personal protection of the head of
| state, counter-espionage, and anti-terrorism.
|
| Specific example for Swedish 'Security Police'.[3] if you
| look up any EU agency with similar roles it will be found
| that they are all security, not secret.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police
|
| 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_police
|
| 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Security_Service
| 0points wrote:
| Okay, I was not aware of this distinction. Thanks for
| correcting me!
|
| FWIW, the distinction is not as clear cut to me. In the
| 1970s, the ruling government body (social democrats) passed
| on information in order to make registers of political
| opponents in the far left and far right to SAPO.
|
| More of that part here: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%
| A4kerhetspolisen#%C3%96ve...
|
| The Nixon watergate scandal was also similar to your first
| definition there.
| 0points wrote:
| Just wanted to add an important piece about us not living
| in authoritarian states...
|
| Palantir, founded by Peter Thiel (currently funding JD
| Vance), is building a vast person database [1].
|
| I believe their biggest customer is the US government,
| and is being used by ICE [2].
|
| 1: https://beyondthefirewall.substack.com/p/palantirs-
| new-maste...
|
| 2: https://www.404media.co/leaked-palantirs-plan-to-help-
| ice-de...
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Of course lobbies are pulling the strings. That is a given.
|
| But the more nefarious issue is that countries that use to
| uphold human rights and the rights to privacy for their
| citizens up until 10 to 15 years ago have made a complete
| U-turn.
|
| And before someone says that this is due to the far-right
| getting into power, this has really nothing to do with it.
|
| It simply is blatant attempt at muzzling the population. The
| worst part is that you still have European governments who feel
| the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.
|
| I could see how Hungary would want to get this passed because
| they are well on their way to authoritarianism but this
| proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in
| the center, that makes zero sense.
| graemep wrote:
| > The worst part is that you still have European governments
| who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et
| al.
|
| They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a
| China. We look good in comparison.
|
| > this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly
| politically in the center
|
| Is it? Its the only country in the world with a
| constitutional commitment to privatisation (its in the
| treaties, which are the constitution, and came close to being
| called a constitution).
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| > Its the only country in the world
|
| The EU is not a country. It may very well be in 50 years
| from now but not presently.
|
| > > this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly
| politically in the center
|
| I said `supposedly`.
|
| > They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a
| China. We look good in comparison.
|
| Not if they go through with this proposal. You can't claim
| to be a bastion of democracy and want/need to spy on your
| citizens 24/7. These 2 notions are just not compatible.
| graemep wrote:
| > The EU is not a country. It may very well be in 50
| years from now but not presently.
|
| Semantics. its near enough to being one to compare to
| countries in terms of law, policy and constitution.
|
| > I said `supposedly`.
|
| Depends what you mean by supposedly, I suppose! Its
| intent is clearly not centrist.
|
| > Not if they go through with this proposal.
|
| Still far better than China. No prison for holding the
| wrong views, or following the wrong religion, or having
| the wrong culture. No genocide. Having elections.
|
| I am not happy with where the west is going, but
| comparing with China its still far better (against a low
| base).
| dobremeno wrote:
| Not just in Europe, in the US too - Roman Storm is on trial as
| of last week for building a privacy tool that ended up getting
| used by criminals.
|
| Not much good coverage on it out there apart from the great
| work by The Rage journalists.
| buuuuutee wrote:
| Roman Storm helped North Korea launder billions. That's a bit
| different than average person just wanting a phone detached
| from the hivemind.
| dobremeno wrote:
| That's like saying Adi Shamir helps drug cartels, Tim
| Berners-Lee helps facilitate online fraud or that Henry
| Ford helped kill millions of people on the road.
|
| All these people created tools that could be used by
| anyone. Encryption, the Internet, cars. All have legitimate
| uses cases just like Tornado Cash does.
|
| To me, not wanting to have all of your public blockchain
| transactions linked to you is actually quite similar to
| wanting a phone detached from the hivemind - all you want
| is a bit of privacy.
| omdv wrote:
| will save a google search for some: - "privacy tool" ==
| cryptocurrency mixer - "ended up getting used by criminals"
| == claimed to help launder $1b
|
| Let's just say it is in a different category than Alexandra
| Elbakyan.
| dobremeno wrote:
| It's just a neutral tool, open for everyone to use. There's
| plenty of people that used the tool for completely
| legitimate reasons, simply wanting to protect their privacy
| just like GrapheneOS users.
|
| Why is the creator of this tool being held responsible for
| how _others_ use it? That 's like dragging Henry Ford to
| court the moment a car driver runs someone over.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Also to add to this discussion, to me, it makes zero sense that
| you would deploy such a system that could be weaponized by a
| rogue government to hunt down political opponents.
|
| One could argue that they may very well think that this sort of
| thing could never happen, that the center will always prevail
| etc... but then again I remember seeing this video compilation
| of a lot of very confident people in the US saying that Trump
| would never be president a few months before the 2016 election,
| let alone be elected for a second term.
|
| So that makes me think, how can they so confident that "the
| good guys" will always be in charge?
|
| Because from where I am standing there is a massive chance that
| Reform will win in the UK and that the National Rally will win
| in France in 2027.
|
| Nobody can say that they did not know.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always
| be in charge?
|
| They implement such systems precisely to always be in charge.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I installed GrapheneOS just recently and I'm in the process of
| migrating all my various apps to it.
|
| I like my privacy and I'm also incredibly boring if anyone cares
| to track my interests and activities. I choose privacy to save
| the authorities wasting any more of their precious time and
| resources on little ol' me. And to minimise the value any
| vampiric tech company may be able to squeeze out of me.
|
| In my limited, but specific, experience, the police will latch on
| to anything that makes an individual stand out from the vanilla
| drones as "evidence enough". So be warned. If you're feeling
| rebellious though, GrapheneOS will scratch a certain itch.
| teroshan wrote:
| You also do it to protect your friend and family, by for
| example sandboxing your contacts to prevent them from being
| shared with the messaging app you need to use to keep in touch
| with a specific group.
| tantalor wrote:
| If you outlaw privacy-focused operating systems then only outlaws
| will use privacy-focused operating systems.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Proudly reading this on a Google Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS
| stavros wrote:
| Does Google Pay work? Paying with my phone is just too
| convenient.
| leumon wrote:
| No, but curve pay or paypal pay work (or any other app not
| relying on google pay)
| sksrbWgbfK wrote:
| No. It's the only feature that will never work sadly. But
| everything else is OK.
| jmm5 wrote:
| That and satellite communication.
| npteljes wrote:
| It looks like it doesn't. You might find alternative
| solutions like this user here*, but there is no guarantee any
| of it to work indefinitely on GrapheneOS. It's essentially a
| modified aftermarket firmware, and so, many security related
| features don't work out of the box, for example, the
| SafetyNet that many banking apps need.
|
| *: https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/1jujvee/final
| ly...
| Aachen wrote:
| "Many" safety features don't work? My understanding is that
| Google unsafetynet is the *only* thing that doesn't work
| because it's by-design trying to detect if the OS has been
| modified (or completely reinstalled in this case) by the
| user. It's like you would install a fresh Windows and now
| it says your device is no longer secure because you used
| your access to install something at the OS level and the
| warranty seal is broken. It's obviously bullshit but the
| impact on app support is how they keep the majority of
| people afraid of doing this. Any developer that adds
| "Google Safetynet" is imo complicit in this
|
| Conversely, there are many safety features in GrapheneOS
| that don't exist on stock, and they're not the security-
| through-obscurity type that safetynet employs. As noted in
| the docs, they often find security issues just by people
| trying to use an app with these default-enabled extra
| checks: https://grapheneos.org/usage#bugs-uncovered-by-
| security-feat...
| npteljes wrote:
| From the user's perspective though, however safe is
| GrapheneOS, the banking app won't work, Google Pay won't
| work, Google Play asks a good bunch of questions and
| might work only some of the time, and the bootloader
| cannot verify the OS, it will say that there is something
| unknown on the device, on every restart and powerup.
|
| I know what I'm doing so I don't mind these at all, but
| they need to be considered when planning with GrapheneOS.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| I'm unsure how paying with your phone is any more convenient.
| Sure the wallet requires you to open your wallet, but is that
| too much effort? I'd rather just pay in cash.
|
| Pocket > Phone > Double Tap pay button -> Tap
|
| Pocket > Open Wallet > Take card out -> Tap
|
| I suppose it's may be more convenient carrying just your
| phone and not your wallet but I prefer both. Or does America
| not have tappable Chip&Pin yet?
| stavros wrote:
| I don't carry a wallet and I'm not in the US, and I use NFC
| whenever I do carry a card.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Apologizes for the assumption. I have yet to find
| anywhere here in Scotland that uses NFC practically other
| than billboards.
| stavros wrote:
| Really? Even in England everything is just tap. I have an
| Android phone, so my flow is "take phone out of pocket ->
| tap" (because it's already unlocked by fingerprint by the
| time it comes out). That's basically the same as with the
| wallet, I just don't carry the wallet.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| I can't think of a single retailer in the UK that takes
| card payments, but doesn't support contactless (including
| Google Pay and Apple Pay).
|
| Ignoring very small shops that don't take cards at all.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Are the tap&pay NFC? -- I thought it was different tech
| under the hood.
|
| What I meant is that I've not seen any other use for NFC
| apart from bus station adverts?
| daveoc64 wrote:
| >Are the tap&pay NFC? -- I thought it was different tech
| under the hood.
|
| Yes, it's a form of NFC!
| whoami730 wrote:
| Cash = change/smaller denomination issues
| patchtopic wrote:
| GrapheneOS says
|
| "European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are
| misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're
| something for criminals. GrapheneOS is opposed to the mass
| surveillance police state these people want to impose on
| everyone"
|
| https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784469162979608
|
| State employees in their official capacity making inaccurate
| claims to media about GrapheneOS to smear it as being for
| criminals and as the users as largely being criminals is a state
| sponsored attack on the GrapheneOS project.
|
| https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114813613250805804
| johnisgood wrote:
| And at the same time:
|
| > GrapheneOS is not immune to exploitation, but the
| fearmongering done in these ongoing attacks on it is very
| clearly fabricated. They feel threatened enough by GrapheneOS
| to engage in coordinated attempts at convincing people that
| it's unable to protect their privacy and security.
|
| So... they (cops and friends) are saying that GrapheneOS is for
| criminals, AND that it does not work at protecting anyone's
| privacy and is not for security. Amazing.
|
| See: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784553445461948
| and the rest.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Fridges are for criminals too. The very good ones can keep
| the severed body parts cold for longer, thus preventing
| spoilage and reports of foul odours from downstairs
| neighbours. Will Frigidaire and Bosch stop selling this
| criminal technology to criminals?
| johnisgood wrote:
| UK should have an answer to that (see: knives). :D
|
| They really are absurd.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Can I take a moment to say how jealous I am that the UK's
| mass attack problem is largely about knives and not guns?
|
| Here in the land of more-guns-than-humans it feels so
| much more bleak.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, but knives have a wide range of use, whereas guns
| do not.
|
| You cannot buy a kitchen knife because people MAY use it
| cause harm.
|
| It is like forbidding the use of roads because it MAY be
| used to <insert illegal activity here>. Uses (usage?) of
| roads are even more broad than uses of knives.
|
| I think it is easier to argue in favor of knives (or
| against the prohibition of ... of knives) than guns, for
| this reason alone.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| > You cannot buy a kitchen knife because people MAY use
| it cause harm.
|
| Yes I can. I have knives I bought recently in my kitchen.
|
| How could you possibly believe that people in the UK
| can't buy knives? Do you realise how foolish that sounds?
| johnisgood wrote:
| > Do you realise how foolish that sounds?
|
| The irony.
|
| Just as foolish as these ways are to prevent violence.
|
| These criminals might switch to forks, better get your
| Government get one step ahead of them.
|
| And no, you cannot buy kitchen knives if you are under a
| certain age, it is ought to prevent a lot of crimes, I am
| sure.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| I see, so when you said "You cannot buy a kitchen knife"
| it's in the same way as if you live in the USA "You can't
| drive a car".
| johnisgood wrote:
| Not quite, because they prohibited this purchase to
| prevent "knife crime".
| subscribed wrote:
| What do you mean? I cna buy kitchen knives in IKEA or
| literally any supermarket or online shop.
|
| Care to explain?
| johnisgood wrote:
| I think you've lost the plot. I did say "under age", in
| fact, I was called out for not having been specific in my
| initial message, to which I said that the two are not
| comparable because the prohibition of selling knives for
| people underaged happened at the time they were starting
| to fight "knife crime".
| subscribed wrote:
| If you were to carry sharpened pencil and stopped by
| police claimed it's for self defense, you might get
| arrested: https://www.askthe.police.uk/faq/?id=fefeb701-3
| a75-ed11-81ac...
|
| No spray, no airgun, no folding mace, absolutely nothing
| can be used in self defense.
|
| Except for the alarm.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Criminals are not known for telling the truth, however.
| Anonbrit wrote:
| Under 16s in the UK can't buy kitchen knives, and that's
| an ok balance for me
| DrScientist wrote:
| You can buy a kitchen knife - just not if you are under
| age. Not it's perfectly legal for an adult to buy one for
| a budding cook - all the age ban does is put a
| 'responsible' adult in the loop.
|
| You also can't carry one in public without reasonable
| cause - which in the end is decided by a judge.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Chefs can typically get away with carrying their knives
| (they get very possessive over the care of their own
| knives and so won't leave them in the kitchen) if they're
| in a knife roll and in a backpack or similar.
| BirAdam wrote:
| A gun can stop an attacker whether human, ursine, or
| large feline.
|
| A gun can be used for recreational shooting.
|
| A gun can just be an historical collectors' piece.
|
| A gun can be used in researching bullet proof vests and
| other equipment for a startup looking to sell to law
| enforcement/military.
|
| There are many reasons for gun ownership. Ultimately, the
| reason should be that the individual is free to do as
| he/she chooses so long as he/she doesn't initiate a
| violent interaction.
|
| The most often cited reason for banning firearms is the
| prevention of school shootings. For some reason, everyone
| is focused on the gun and not the fact that students wish
| to do violence at schools. What is it about the modern
| educational system that students wish to perpetrate
| violence in the schools to other students and teachers?
| Why isn't the mental health of the American youth at the
| center of this conversation?
| johnisgood wrote:
| I do not disagree. It should be focusing on the fact that
| a student wanted to cause violence. It could have been
| done through a gun, a knife, a fork, and a thousand
| different items. In fact, a fist may suffice. Or an item
| that is readily available at schools. Any item. That
| said, guns are especially good at "harm as many as
| possible". Just like bombs are.
| bradleyy wrote:
| According to the CDC, guns are used to prevent at least
| 500,000 violent acts per year in the USA.
|
| Why is "wide range of use" being used as the metric
| rather than "societal good"?
|
| While there are downsides, there's more to it.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I was not arguing against guns though. I just tried to
| say that it is a bit more absurd to ban knives to prevent
| violence.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Back to the parental comment - it's been decided there
| isn't really a good reason to have most guns and so they
| are strictly controlled - I mean what's the legit reason
| for having an assault rifle?
|
| Now if the government thinks there isn't really a good
| reason to have a phone they can't hack ( because they are
| the good guys right.... and in theory need court orders
| etc - so there is legal oversight ) then they will see
| such phones in the same light and consider banning.
|
| This is at the core of the argument - and why governments
| ask for a special backdoor - as they accept a generally
| secure phone ( to stop your neighbour snooping ) is a
| good thing, but they are used to being able to tap phones
| and open letters if a judge gives them permission.
|
| Obviously the ironic thing is most phones probably
| already do have special backdoors - but only for the
| country where the makers reside - and that countries
| government doesn't want other governments to know or have
| acccess.
|
| And in the case of fridges - there is no argument there
| that they aren't legit reasons to own.
|
| In the case of knives - zombie knives don't really have
| legit use, whereas kitchen knives do.
| fifticon wrote:
| I can think of a country where they should probably ban
| windows, given how many people fall out of them.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| "Give me liberty or give me death."
|
| The ultimate point of gun ownership isn't sporting or
| even self defense, though they are useful for both. The
| real reason America is armed is so that if our government
| ever gets too tyrannical, we can do something about it.
|
| Some people may not like that today but if you go back
| and read what people wrote circa 1775 and forward, this
| is the clear rationale.
| gishglish wrote:
| > The real reason America is armed is so that if our
| government ever gets too tyrannical
|
| It's been doing that for _at least_ two decades, yet I'm
| still waiting for you people to get on with it.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I don't know who the "you people" in that comment refers
| to. I actually hope we never have another civil war.
| Historically, you're much more likely to end up with the
| French Revolution, the current situation in Syria, etc.
| than a fresh, bright future. Many would die and everyone
| would suffer. Those who long for war (foreign or
| domestic) are evil, foolish, or both.
|
| But my opinion doesn't change the rationale for the 2nd
| Amendment.
| zdragnar wrote:
| An elected official doing things you don't like isn't a
| reason to kill them.
|
| That way lies fascism and anarchotyrrany.
| 6510 wrote:
| If that were true there would never be a reason to kill
| anyone.
| graemep wrote:
| What if the elected official is a fascist? It happened in
| Germany.
| ourmandave wrote:
| Yeah, they even threw in a thing about well regulated
| militias, but left in a comma that got interpreted as
| "any toon can own as many guns as they want."
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > The real reason America is armed is so that if our
| government ever gets too tyrannical, we can do something
| about it.
|
| The something is killing police and soldiers. That's the
| quiet part.
|
| Unless the tyrannical government has presented itself at
| the compound in a force of plumbers and actuaries.
| subscribed wrote:
| Zombie knives yeah, but you can get into serious trouble
| for the multitool with locking blade if you forgot to
| take it our from your backpack after a camping trip.
|
| This is very much absurd.
| graemep wrote:
| So are the laws on swords. You can have a straight sword
| but not a curved one, unless its either an antique or
| craft made using traditional methods.
|
| The police quite often destroy antiques handed in by
| people who know about the bans but not the exceptions.
|
| I have a multitool I bought long before the ban, that is
| now illegal to carry routinely. I bought one with a
| significantly longer blade for my daughter which is
| perfectly legal to carry.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I mean what's the legit reason for having an assault
| rifle?
|
| If I understand the proponents correctly: Ostensibly it
| is to defend one's property and people from a tyrannical
| government.
|
| Just for an exercise, let's say _you_ believe that. And
| let 's say that day is here. The tyrannical government
| has arrived and has necessitated your use of assault
| rifles.
|
| The people you're shooting, what are they wearing?
| They're almost certainly wearing uniforms; police and/or
| military.
|
| From the proponents' standpoint, the reason to have
| assault rifles is to kill police and soldiers.
| t-3 wrote:
| > I mean what's the legit reason for having an assault
| rifle?
|
| If the government is allowed to have them, the people
| should be allowed to have them. Anything else would be
| inviting tyranny, as has been demonstrated ad nauseam by
| pretty much every government ever.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Are American people allowed to have F-35s jets and Abrams
| tanks too? _NO?!_ Then what kind of tyranny is this where
| your elected government 's military has the monopoly on
| violence?
|
| Feels unsafe man. We should look towards free and
| egalitarian countries like Congo, Sudan or Zimbabwe where
| citizens have access to the same hardware as the military
| and they use it regularly to deal justice, competing with
| the local military. Much better.
| graemep wrote:
| Even better, the US has a higher knife murder rate than
| the UK does.
|
| On the other hand IIRC it has a lower rate of at least
| some types of violent assault.
|
| One possible explanation is the healthcare system - fast
| treatment makes a big difference to the chances of
| surviving an attack (and are one reason murder rates have
| fallen over the years, and why developed countries have
| much lower murder rates). Does anything in the US system
| delay treatment significantly?
| Arch-TK wrote:
| The local police forces can start offering a service
| where they will cause a controlled leak of the
| refrigerant in your fridge to reduce its efficiency
| therefore making it less useful for refrigerating body
| parts.
|
| https://kentandmedwayvru.co.uk/project/pointless/
| johnisgood wrote:
| I like the URL, "pointless". :D
|
| I wonder if they are going to do anything about at least
| a thousand number of other items that may be used to
| cause bodily harm to a person. What about something
| related, such as forks?! Bags?
| sharperguy wrote:
| A better analogy would be a balaclava. Lots of legitimate
| uses but it's uncommon to see people wearing them day to
| day and is very popular with criminals. But we don't
| imagine we could ban balaclavas to prevent crime.
| fifticon wrote:
| It depends on what you mean by 'ban'. In the country
| where I live (Denmark), they are very much banned, unless
| you can demonstrate your legitimate current use case for
| them. In particular, you are not allowed to wear them in
| public places where people gather or gather in groups.
| And 'beating up cops anonymously' is not an approved use
| case :-) The rule as I understand it, also covers [sic]
| extreme religious dress rules for women.
|
| Here is the relevant section from our current laws:
| https://danskelove.dk/straffeloven/134b
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I used to wear one as a kid in the UK in the winter. They
| weren't invented for crime.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > They weren't invented for crime.
|
| Not literally, but there was some criminally bad warfare
| going on:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Balaclava
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Knitwear is often a cause for conflict[0]!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jersey
| johnisgood wrote:
| May I ask what it has to do with the mask?
| Y_Y wrote:
| Since the British troops weren't properly kitted out for
| the cold weather lots of them were sent over balaclavas
| which had been knitted at home.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Thanks, interesting.
| db48x wrote:
| Don't forget about the Charge of the Light Brigade,
| commanded by the Earl of Cardigan. After the war he
| became famous and people copied the knit jumper he wore,
| naming it the cardigan. That's two knit garments from the
| same battle.
|
| Canon to the right of them, canon to the left of them
| canon in front of them volleyed and thundered. Stormed at
| with shot and shell boldly they rode and well, into the
| jaws of death into the mouth of hell rode the six
| hundred.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I wear one when I ride my motorcycle. Keeps my neck warm,
| and keeps the cold air off my face. And helps keep the
| dust off my face when I'm off road. And adds an extra
| layer of protection. They are also nice when you borrow
| someone else's helmet. The GoKart places near me give
| them out to help keep rental helmets from getting nasty.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Can you wear one for fashion?
| encom wrote:
| No.
|
| https://politi.dk/lov-og-information/tildaekningsforbud
|
| (Trigger warning: danish)
| harimau777 wrote:
| Are protests considered a legitimate use? If not, then
| that seems pretty problematic.
| justacrow wrote:
| In Sweden at leasts, balaclavas and other wearables
| "preventing identification" is specifically illegal _at_
| protests. From what I remember the danish case is
| similar.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| Actually, the Irish government considered exactly that!
| I'm not sure if they moved forward with it though.
|
| And Southend in England tried to do the same (but
| failed...)
| TheNewsIsHere wrote:
| I think the best way to prevent the sale of crime fridges
| to criminals would be to have national governments
| integrate the entirety of data that each nation has, from
| every level, on every citizen. Then we can create an API
| which market participants like Frigidaire and Bosch can use
| to query whether a purchase should be permitted based on
| the purchaser.
|
| /s, if not obvious. Strange times.
| dessimus wrote:
| Don't forget about range tops: they are used for cooking,
| and what is "cooked"? Methamphetamines. When will the
| police stop Big Appliance! /s
| qualeed wrote:
| I _think_ people are misinterpreting your comment? Or I am.
|
| What I _think_ you are saying is:
|
| The police are arguing both sides (in typical fashion). On
| one side, the police say that GrapheneOS is for criminals
| because of its privacy, etc. However the police are _also_
| trying to convince people that GrapheneOS is _not_ private or
| secure, in an attempt to sway people from using it.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yes, the police are arguing both sides, according to what I
| have read[1], and that they are not doing it in English but
| in other languages, e.g. Swedish. I am not sure why I am
| getting down-voted though.
|
| [1]
| https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784488424006190
| and so forth.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _I am not sure why I am getting down-voted though._
|
| My guess is the ambiguous use of "they", interpreting
| "they" as GrapheneOS instead of the police.
|
| That makes it seem like you are criticizing GrapheneOS
| rather than the police.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I edited my comment. I thought it was obvious because it
| was the police claiming the former, and connected the two
| with an "AND". I was not criticizing GrapheneOS. Thanks!
| antonvs wrote:
| It was obvious, people just have terrible reading
| comprehension, and they also don't read to the end of a
| comment if something near the beginning triggers them.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I came to the same conclusion based on some of the
| comments addressed to me. It is like they did not even
| bother reading the comment to which I replied, or the
| last 2 comments.
| t_mahmood wrote:
| It's like my bank's application, your mobile with all the
| latest security update is prohibited, because the bootloader
| is unlocked. But your 6-year-old mobile that received its
| last security update 3/4 years ago is fine!
| hluska wrote:
| This whole thing is quite the stretch. Someone who clearly
| has no idea what they're talking about acted like a know it
| all on a forum. I don't see how that's evidence of a
| coordinated attack. Police saying dumb things about security
| tech is nothing new either nor is it a smoking gun.
|
| Occam's razor applies even when we want to believe a cool
| story.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| "being criminals is a state sponsored attack on the GrapheneOS
| project."
|
| Yes, I know, age of hyperbole, but a state sponsored attack on
| the project is mass arrests, blocking of funds etc.
|
| Graphene does their PR, the police does their PR. Both have
| different views on the world.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| That's a very high bar for "state sponsored attack." I'd say
| the various internet ID verification laws being rolled out
| qualify as a state sponsored attack on our privacy/individual
| rights writ large.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| And that's a very low bar for "state sponsored attack".
| Essentially everything you disagree with that the state
| does is a "state sponsored attack." This muddies the waters
| and when there is a "state sponsored attack" on a group of
| people, everyone is numb and we're out of words.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| "Attack" doesn't exclusively mean physical
| assault/restraining people. It's called a "DDoS attack"
| after all. You're creating a strict and narrow definition
| that most of the world does not subscribe to.
|
| If I say "stop attacking me" during a heated argument no
| one thinks you're physically assaulting me. That would be
| ridiculous.
| chasil wrote:
| I have never been to Spain, and I have only slight familiarity
| with issues in Barcelona and greater Catalonia, but this gives
| me pause:
|
| "There's a bitter irony here, too, as GrapheneOS recently
| pointed out in a tweet. The Spanish region of Catalonia was at
| the center of the massive Pegasus spyware scandal in 2019.
|
| "Pegasus, a sophisticated surveillance tool sold exclusively to
| governments, was reportedly used to hack phones belonging to
| Members of the European Parliament and eavesdrop on their
| communications. Yet, police in this very region are now
| scrutinizing savvy Pixel and GrapheneOS users for hardening
| their devices against unlawful surveillance and other attack
| vectors."
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| All this surveillance tech and law enforcement still don't
| know who the child abusers on the Epstein list/island were.
|
| Something tells me domestic surveillance is only applied to
| peasants not the wealthy and powerful.
| sitkack wrote:
| Oh they know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc
| hluska wrote:
| Or maybe the democracies at the centre of the Epstein issue
| have constitutional protections limiting how dragnets get
| used.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >Something tells me domestic surveillance is only applied
| to peasants not the wealthy and powerful.
|
| Well not only surveillance, but also things like 'law',
| 'constitution', etc. applies only to the peasants.
| krunck wrote:
| In a true democracy where government _serves_ the people, the
| people would be opaque to the government and the government would
| be transparent(nothing to hide) to the people. As we can 't
| impose transparency on government, we can at least obtain opacity
| for ourselves.
| lokar wrote:
| Throughout history one of the most popular things people want
| government to do is oppress and police other people.
| jraph wrote:
| I do like that the government has entities that thwart attacks,
| and I'm not sure full transparency for these entities works
| well for everything.
|
| Of course, I don't want this to be used as an argument to mass
| spy on the people.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Agreed. It's wild to realize that the current US administration
| campaigned on the promise that they would provide transparency
| regarding certain matters. Yet now they're doing everything
| they can to combat transparency for those same matters.
| zetanor wrote:
| If the will of the people is to be trampled, then the people is
| to be trampled. True democracy is not mass democracy.
| account-5 wrote:
| I like my privacy. I'm not using grapheneOS yet because I've not
| bought one of the limited number of devices it can run on.
|
| But honestly, of course criminals are gonna use these devices
| with grapheneOS, for the same reasons any one interested in their
| privacy would. And if the police notice a trend towards it why
| wouldn't they state so and look to use that as an indicator. Why
| is there a probkem with this?
| allthedatas wrote:
| Cops say low speed limits and speeding tickets are for your
| safety and not just another tax.
|
| Cops say guns are only for bad guys.
|
| Cops say 3d printers and bitcoin are for terrorists
|
| Cops say a lot of dumb things because they are generally (and
| necessarily) not that bright, but also because they are lazy and
| frequently corrupt.
| MurkyLabs wrote:
| I use grapheneOS, it's the reason I bought a pixel but not for
| nefarious reasons but rather I don't like how much control Google
| has (it's ironic I had to buy a google phone) on android phones
| even from other manufacturers and the targeted marketing and
| information that I would be giving out. I also don't like that
| Android implimented the feature where you couldn't access the
| Android>Data folder for 'security reasons' and have to plug it
| into a computer to access any of those sub folders, it's my phone
| let me do what I want with it. Graphene lets me access any of
| those folders without issue
| nicman23 wrote:
| the fact that they refuse to consider other phones ie fairphone
| or nothing phones that have the bootloader relockable is the
| reason that i do not use graphene.
|
| it seems like a great os but i am not giving google money to
| get away from google.
| dmix wrote:
| You're welcome to donate money to them so they can hire
| developers who can support multiple phones.
| nicman23 wrote:
| they flat out said they would not
| StrLght wrote:
| They don't refuse other manufacturers, it's quite the
| opposite -- GrapheneOS provides list of requirements for
| future device support. AFAIK Fairphone and Nothing don't fit
| more than a few requirements from this list.
|
| https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
| subscribed wrote:
| Fairphone is dangerously insecure. Nothing phone is not much
| better.
|
| It's not only the _design_ of the hardware, but also patches
| for vulnerabilities and delivering updates for several years.
|
| You're suggesting it's ideological (which is completely
| untrue), while the fact is: pixels are at the very moment the
| only Android hardware secure enough to even care about
| hardening: https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
|
| (there's little sense in securing the OS if the hardware
| doesn't allow disconnecting the USB or there is no secure
| element throttling PIN attempts, right?)
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| Source on Fairphone being insecure? I'm moving to Android
| app development and considered it for repairability/mission
| factors.
| subscribed wrote:
| Oh, I forgot to add and can't edit my comment, so: they are
| talking with another OEM about the potential alternative
| hardware for the future GOS.
|
| I hope it's something good. But in reality it's probably
| Samsung which is the only other vendor bothered enough to add
| a basic secure element. Maybe they will upgrade it?
| umbra07 wrote:
| Do you have a source for this?
| silveraxe93 wrote:
| Everyone is commenting as if this is an attack on privacy. Read
| the article, I might have missed it, but I saw literally nothing
| on this. The main point is that police are profiling people using
| Pixel phones. Nothing about making it illegal, or trying to
| remove encryption.
|
| Look, I literally have a Pixel phone running Mullvad. I care
| about privacy. But everyone here is reading the headline and
| arguing against a strawman.
|
| This should be a discussion on how valid it is for police to
| profile people. Or maybe if it's actually true that drug dealers
| are using GrapheneOS. Europe _is_ attacking encryption and
| privacy. But this is not it.
| whoami730 wrote:
| It is about running a false campaign to say using Graphene OS
| is the same as being a criminal.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The original quote was a comment from one police
| representative about Pixel phones being the preferred choice
| of narco traffickers in their region.
|
| All of the extrapolation about people using GrapheneOS
| globally feels like journalists trying to squeeze as much
| hype as they can get out of this one sound bite from one
| police rep in one area.
| dmix wrote:
| Critiquing police for doing fishing expeditions, where they
| cast a broad net in hopes to catch criminals among a large
| batch of regular people has long been a thing.
| walterbell wrote:
| Is disparagement of GrapheneOS good or bad for privacy?
| silveraxe93 wrote:
| Arguments shouldn't be soldiers[1]. In fact, this I'd say
| this is harmful to privacy.
|
| If you start caring more about how it supports your side
| rather than the truth, you're playing politics. And in that
| battlefield you'll lose to eurocrats.
|
| - [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/w/arguments-as-soldiers
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The main point is that police are profiling people using
| Pixel phones. Nothing about making it illegal, or trying to
| remove encryption.
|
| I had to click through several links to get to this part.
|
| It's an off-hand comment from a single police person who was
| trying to make some point.
|
| The android news sites are getting a lot of mileage out of that
| single comment from a single person.
| DrScientist wrote:
| > This should be a discussion on how valid it is for police to
| profile people.
|
| Exactly - though in this case I'm not sure what that means - if
| they 'feel more alert and suspicious' - that's just going on in
| their head ( pretty difficult to control that ). If on the
| other hand it means you are constantly getting stopped and
| searched that's another issue - but then you could argue that's
| then argument about the stop and search rules in whatever
| country.
|
| ie what counts as reasonable grounds for the police to take
| concrete action.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >The main point is that police are profiling people using Pixel
| phones. Nothing about making it illegal, or trying to remove
| encryption.
|
| How can you think that profiling people based on their phones
| is not harmful to privacy?
|
| In most western countries surveillance requires prior evidence
| of wrongdoing, if your phone brand or phone OS can be used as
| evidence that you might be engaging in criminal activity, that
| is of course a danger to privacy. It _should_ be normal that
| people use Software and Hardware that respects their privacy
| and desiring privacy should never, by itself, be allowed to be
| evidence of criminal intentions.
| graemep wrote:
| > In most western countries surveillance requires prior
| evidence of wrongdoing
|
| Less and less so. Take a look at the way the laws are going
| in the UK and the EU.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > This should be a discussion on how valid it is for police to
| profile people. Or maybe if it's actually true that drug
| dealers are using GrapheneOS.
|
| Why can't it be a discussion about how valid it is for police
| to use the desire for privacy as a basis for profiling? Is that
| not allowed?
|
| Are you saying that we're required to either talk about:
|
| 1) whether the police should profile anyone at all for any
| reason ( _why not this particular reason again?_ ), or
|
| 2) whether Spanish criminals desire privacy, and therefore more
| often choose GrapheneOS than other groups of people ( _is this
| controversial? Is it worth discussing? Can 't we just take the
| Spanish police's word for such an unsurprising data point?_)
|
| Those are our only two choices? If so, than the conclusion is
| foregone. Police will be allowed to profile criminals and
| suspicious people, and criminals will attempt to refuse
| monitoring and searches.
|
| I'd rather talk about whether refusing to be monitored or
| searched can be allowed to become official grounds for state
| suspicion, though. Even without your support.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| It seems they're profiling based on specific local conditions.
| Not many folks are installing graphene in their area, but there
| are lots of criminal gangs that do.
|
| The situation would be different in, say, Silicon Valley. But
| they're dealing with the world they're in.
| standardUser wrote:
| I'll take it even farther - this should be a discussion about
| what constitutes crime, and how a system that didn't
| criminalize common, victimless acts would have such a small
| pool of criminals to deal with that widespread demonization of
| this or that technology wouldn't be neccesary.
| nelblu wrote:
| Happy GrapheneOS user here since 3+ years now. What's next now?
| People can't fucking use Linux because Microsoft or Apple can't
| spy on it?
| Aachen wrote:
| Next, as countries are requiring more and more age verification
| online, the EU accidentally outlaws GrapheneOS by introducing
| an age verification system that requires an OS certified by
| Google or Apple. https://chaos.social/@luc/114860815364169550
|
| You're free to run GrapheneOS or Windows or whatever, so long
| as you _also_ have a device that is attested to be untampered
| by Google Play or Apple 's equivalent
|
| Graphene replied in that thread (just ctrl+f for them), saying
| "Unfortunately, the EU is adopting the Play Integrity API
| enforcing having a Google Mobile Services device instead. We've
| repeatedly raised this issue with the EU Commission and many
| apps including ones tied to this specific project. We've never
| been given reasoning why they can't use the hardware
| attestation API instead."
|
| I'm personally not so keen on that lesser DRM requirement
| either, since it's just another level of gatekeeping: ok now
| it's not only Google/Apple but also a few OSes that meet ?some?
| requirements, but e.g. GrapheneOS also doesn't unilaterally let
| _me_ access data on _my_ device, maintaining that full access
| is dangerous and cannot be allowed -- yeah, I 'll agree data is
| safer when I can't even access it myself, seeing how much
| malware goes around for NT/Linux distributions where you can
| have root, but I'd still much rather live in a world where I'm
| the root on my systems. But anyway, that's maybe another
| discussion, the broader point is that even GrapheneOS can't
| talk sense into the EU with their lesser-but-still-DRM option
| subscribed wrote:
| You can fairly easily build and flash a rooted version of GOS
| yourself.
|
| They just don't support it because it's an immense risk (in
| my opinion as well).
|
| The other thing, reliable backup is slowly in the making. As
| I understand there's not enough devs to work on it right now.
| Aachen wrote:
| > You can fairly easily build and flash a rooted version of
| GOS yourself.
|
| This won't be signed with the right attestation key because
| I'm not them.
|
| My understanding is that attestation is tied to the
| distribution's private key, so this government software
| wouldn't trust my version of the OS, assuming the govt
| could be made to understand Android's attestation framework
| is a vendor-neutral way to achieve the same goal (whatever
| goal that may be). With a rooted GOS, I'd still need
| another device, tied to my government identity, of which I
| can't verify what it's doing, much less control it
| metalman wrote:
| each and every technology has and will be used in the commision
| of the very worst possible crimes. anything can and is bieng
| weaponised. any rational society would simply use our vast data
| sets to determine which specific preventable harm is effecting
| the most humans and can be elliminated for the lowest cost and
| effort.....do that, and then start working on the now new
| greatest harm ellimination. but in spite of asking and trying to
| figure this out myself, I can find no effort to actualy just
| gather that data and work from there .....everything is just
| another "cause".....for debate
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I don't trust Graphene but I want to. Who are the devs and who
| are their sponsors? I worry about supply chain attacks. Why
| should I trust their supply chain and anon devs?
| kytazo wrote:
| You don't trust the devs, you trust the public code
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Unless you build it yourself you _do_ trust the devs. You
| aren 't running public code on your phone you're running
| compiled binaries. Compiled by who? How securely? Who has
| keys?
|
| It's also a leap of faith to assume that public code is any
| safer.
| Aachen wrote:
| You're not wrong that one needs to have some trust in the
| devs of open source code, but if you are this level of
| paranoid then having the code available is essential to
| your threat model because it allows you to build it
| yourself so you know what you're running. Nobody can audit
| everything, but if enough people are involved in the
| development, they would all have to collude (or the
| malicious one has to hope they get lucky) since each one of
| them has a chance to spot when one of the developers were
| to be malicious
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| My point is if I don't trust Google why should I trust
| anons and anime characters more?
|
| I was hoping someone could give me more than "it's
| public."
| Aachen wrote:
| Sorry, it is what it is
| busterarm wrote:
| Well, the prior lead dev of the project did have some
| very strong personality quirks and odd behavior in
| conflicts with a lot of people. So much so that he was
| encouraged to leave the project and did so.
|
| That incident and a few prior ones of his had me remove
| GrapheneOS from my phone. There's clearly a new lead
| contributor to the project from the git repo, but the
| leadership of the project is completely opaque and thus
| not something that I want to run on my phone.
|
| I just fixed my habits so that I don't really do anything
| much with my phone. I mostly receive calls and text and
| do OTP. I use Aegis for that and back that up in the
| cloud. I wipe my phone basically monthly and I'm back up
| and running with all my apps/contacts/configs inside of 5
| minutes.
| kytazo wrote:
| Graphene builds are verifiable, go build them yourself if
| you feel like.
|
| Public code is definitely safer than binary blobs.
| duxup wrote:
| The claim seems plausible as far as capable criminals go.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related context:
|
| _Cops in [Spain] think everyone using a Google Pixel must be a
| drug dealer_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44473694
| immibis wrote:
| This is the best possible advertisement in these computer-savvy
| circles. I guess my next phone will be a Pixel with Graphene. I
| won't do anything illegal on it. If even the police hate it, it
| must be very safe from hackers.
| throaway920181 wrote:
| This is ridiculous ignorance and akin to Canada's near ban on the
| Flipper Zero. We might as well ban cars because they can be used
| to transport drugs and dead bodies.
|
| I have run Graphene on my phone for some time. I'm not doing
| anything illegal with my phone or using it for nefarious
| purposes. I'm just not comfortable with Google (or any entity)
| having so much data about me.
| perihelions wrote:
| This is all based off a one-line quote, by one police officer,
| interviewed anonymously in one newspaper in its "society" column.
| I don't want to go against the feeding frenzy, but, I think this
| one's a bit over-interpreted.
|
| https://es.ara.cat/sociedad/sucesos/guerra-tecnologica-movil... (
| _" Guerra tecnologica: el movil de los narcos contra los troyanos
| de la policia"_)
|
| or https://www.ara.cat/societat/successos/guerra-tecnologica-
| mo... ( _" Guerra tecnologica: el mobil dels narcos contra els
| troians de la policia"_)
|
| > _" Cada vegada que veiem un Google Pixel pensem que pot ser un
| narcotraficant"_
|
| (You'd have to navigate through four layers of links to find
| this: two layers of _androidauthority_ linking to itself, then
| through _xatakandroid_ , then finally you get to the primary
| source, the Catalan-language daily _Ara_. Though, for reasons, it
| 's linking to a Spanish-language machine translation of the
| Catalan original--the "es." subdomain, which says _Traduccion no
| verificada_ at the top. So, we 're five levels removed from the
| primary source, which is one sentence, which has gone through two
| rounds of machine translation (ca -> es -> en)).
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Sorry I'd rather just read the title and then start arguing
| against my fantasy
| beeforpork wrote:
| > One could say the same thing about matchboxes being used for
| arson and cash being used for money laundering, but no one's
| calling on regulators to outlaw either.
|
| Matchboxes -- OK. But cash is certainly a target. It is also
| relatively easy to push, as using a card is so much easier! Look
| at Sweden and presumably other countries where cash is basically
| gone. And no (loud) protests from privacy advocates that it is
| even hard to get cash today. I will just use an app to lend you
| 10 EUR for the beer.
|
| Also throughout the world, using cash is only possible legally up
| to a given amount (a few thousand EURs ATM, but still) -- because
| large sums of cash are suspicious. Of course large amounts of
| money are suspicious because only criminals would even want to
| pay large amounts of money, right? Like, pay for a car or a
| vacation, or pay rent or taxes.
|
| Speaking of which, in many countries, it is basically impossible
| to pay taxes in cash, although technically, it should be allowed.
| Like in Germany. Or pay for a bus ticket in cash. But some poor
| souls don't have a bank account. Hmm...
|
| Some countries deanonymize cash by embedding RFID chips (e.g.,
| Australia).
|
| Of course it is not done for surveillance, but only for good
| goals.
| nyc_data_geek1 wrote:
| Good enough for protecting the privacy of criminals, good enough
| for the rest of us. Seems like a solid ad campaign for
| Pixel+Graphene
| Havoc wrote:
| The core issue here is that privacy concerned looks the same to
| police regardless of motivations - criminal or principled.
|
| That does sweep up innocents in the net. But at same time if
| police see a strong correlation with criminals then focus on it
| from their side seems logical too. Forcing them to intentionally
| be blind to that sort of correlation seems insane too.
|
| Tricky
| AgentMatrixAI wrote:
| So they are profiling people using Pixel phones with
| GrapheneOS....because its good at what it does? Am I reading this
| right?
| gchamonlive wrote:
| That got me interested in it for the privacy claims, but
| unfortunately it only supports Pixel phones. The reasons are
| technical and fair. It's just unfortunate that Pixel isn't sold
| or supported in many countries in the world. I live in Brazil and
| even in Mercado Libre where it's supposed to support the entire
| Mercosul market, I can't find a single Pixel 8 for purchase. It's
| sad we're excluded from accessing this amazing project.
| chasil wrote:
| I _think_ that you could get similar privacy capability with
| LineageOS if you do not install Google Play (via MindTheGapps).
|
| This will reduce functionality of the device. You will not get
| Graphene's fine-grained permission control, and you will also
| not have Google Play Services (so many apps will not run).
| raron wrote:
| AFAIK Nitrokey sells Pixel phones with GrapheneOS preinstalled
| worldwide.
| gchamonlive wrote:
| It's not a matter of just purchasing. I can very well import
| from Amazon or AliExpress. Problem is support post sale and
| finding accessories like screen covers and cases. It's a lot
| of hassle for a device less feature-packed than you regular
| Samsung phones.
| can16358p wrote:
| Criminals use knives to stab people.
|
| By the same logic, anyone who has a knife in their kitchen is a
| suspect.
| throw0101b wrote:
| "A policeman's job is only easy in a police state."
|
| * _Touch of Evil_ ,
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052311/quotes/?item=qt0321627
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Evil
| colechristensen wrote:
| Impressions from grapheneOS users? Alternatives? I have an old
| but essentially never used Pixel 3a I'd like to set up with
| something as a backup.
|
| EDIT: sad, Pixel 3a no longer supported, too old
| subscribed wrote:
| I'd say Pixel 7 if you want patches and releases for a couple
| more years.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Thanks, but my motivations were more "what should I do with
| this perfectly good old phone" LineageOS has been ok during a
| quick try
| potato3732842 wrote:
| They spew assertions like this not so that people believe them
| but so that they can reference them when establishing probably
| cause, applying for warrants, etc.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| And I say cops are criminals, and we are both right, and both
| wrong, at the same time.
| tempodox wrote:
| Criminals also go to department stores. And to hairdressers. And
| they drink water. There is no end to deeply suspect activities
| criminals engage in!
| tzs wrote:
| Do criminals do those things much more frequently than non-
| criminals?
|
| In Spain 86% of phone buyers buy from the top 5 brands. Pixel
| is not among those. Only 1.7% buy Pixel phones. Police say that
| they have observed that among criminals the percent with Pixels
| is much higher.
|
| Suppose police have a dead store clerk and only 3 people who
| could have possibly done it, and those people are 1 Pixel
| owner, 1 Samsung Galaxy owner, and 1 Apple iPhone owner. Given
| that criminals are buying Pixels at a rate higher than the
| general population does, and assuming they are not buying
| Galaxies and iPhones at a higher rate, can the police use that
| in statistically valid way to help their investigation?
|
| The answer is yes.
|
| Let (c) = the probability that a random phone owner in Spain is
| a criminal.
|
| Let (p) = the probability that a random phone owner owns a
| pixel, which is 0.017 in Spain.
|
| Let (p|c) = the probability that someone owns a Pixel given
| that they are a phone owning criminal. Police say that this is
| higher than 0.017, but they do not give a number. I'd expect
| they wouldn't really notice if it was only a little higher. I'd
| guess it would need to be at least 0.05 for them to notice, so
| let's go with that. If someone finds a better number it is easy
| to adjust in the following calculations.
|
| Let (c|p) = the probability that someone is a criminal given
| they have a Pixel.
|
| Bayes' Theorem tells us that (p|c)(c) = (c|p)(p).
|
| Rearrange that to get (c|p) = (p|c) (c) / (p). Plugging in 0.05
| for (p|c) and 0.017 for (p) gives:
|
| (c|p) = 2.9 (c)
|
| In our case with 3 people to investigate, one with a Pixel and
| two without, if we are sure that one of them must be the
| criminal the probability that it will be the Pixel owner is
| 59.2%. It is 20.4% for the Galaxy owner and 20.4% for the
| iPhone owner [1]. If the police don't have the resources to
| investigate all 3 in parallel they should check out the Pixel
| owner first.
|
| [1] Actually, I don't think that is quite right. I think that
| because I added the condition that we are sure it must be one
| of them the distribution will change slightly. It still should
| be close though.
| numitus wrote:
| Please read about Bayes' theorem. If 50% of criminals use the
| os, and 1% of population it is goodnpoint to check any the OS
| owner. The same way Police Will check your id if you Wear
| robbery mask, or sell small packets on the Street.
| ponorin wrote:
| GrapheneOS lost me on PR. For every updates they post on their
| social media there's guaranteed to be a rant about how other
| projects are doing things Wrong. They talk down on any and every
| security- and privacy-related projects (or open-source projects
| in general) if they align even slightly out of line according to
| their idea of security and privacy, regardless of their own
| merit. Dig even deeper they also like throwing around the word
| "slander" and "attack" without backing it up. In fact I am
| certain I will be greeted with a friendly wall of text by
| somebody from GOS in this very thread sooner rather than later.
|
| GrapheneOS is the most secure, arguably most private, hell the
| most feature-complete, user-friendly custom ROM (but they also
| hate the word "custom ROM") out there. I've imported a Pixel,
| because it wasn't available in my country, just to use GOS. So it
| is deeply frustrating that they are doing things the way they do.
| Hubris is their longest-standing, "wontfix"-labelled
| vulnerability.
| craftkiller wrote:
| FWIW I think its good to elaborate on how other projects are
| doing things incorrectly (though I agree the GOS people could
| use some diplomacy and decorum). For example, with the
| fairphones for the longest time the only answer you could get
| on why grapheneos doesn't support it is that the phone is not
| secure. That answer doesn't leave me informed, all it leaves me
| with is "someone on the internet told me it wasn't secure". For
| the newest fairphone 6 they actually elaborated and covered
| things like the lack of a secure element. That leaves me
| informed, so now I can look up what a secure element is, why I
| want it, and then make an informed decision for my next
| cellphone purchase.
| subscribed wrote:
| I looked it up (as in spent a last few weeks going through the
| forum and PRs) and when they say "slander", it's backed up.
|
| When they say other projects are insecure, this is for example
| because of the claims /e/OS based on the utterly insecure
| hardware and two major versions of AOSP, unpatched, is touting
| itself as a leading project in the privacy landscape.
|
| I don't think they talk down any security - related project and
| I've never seen the generalised "they talk down on (...) open-
| source projects in general" - this is what I would myself call
| slander, because tbh it's dogs bollocks.
|
| "Slander" or "attack" is said when there are baseless
| accusations (like above about attacking, quote, "any and every
| security-- and privacy-related project") because they don't
| have outlets or big money behind them which would simply state
| the facts and call out the accusations.
|
| If you have examples of theese words "thrown" without basis (ie
| without sustained prior attacks on GOS), I'm sure every
| interested person would like to see it. If you wanted to show
| the examples of the innumerable privacy- or security-related
| projects that are _attacked_ by GOS, please share examples.
|
| There are multiple so-called privacy and security related
| projects which are known for the sustained and baseless bad
| messages, and these don't get a pass, because it's clear it's
| intentional and in the bad faith.
|
| Valuable projects and services are promoted and recommended
| based on merit and not favours (eg: they can argue based on
| facts why installing apps from accrescent or Google play store
| is generally safer than from the F-droid).
|
| They don't hate the "custom ROM", they explain why it's a
| misnomer - and you using it here after saying they hate it (and
| either not knowing or not caring why it's wrong) is clearly an
| act in the bad faith :)
|
| I struggle to see an attempt in the factual reporting in your
| post. The only thing I could connect over is their attitude in
| certain situations, but..... the rest of your post is just....
| incorrect?
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| says a lot about android in general
|
| they literally planted an backdoor that federal agency can force
| google to give out information
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Why do we keep using a thing that exists to subvert the interests
| of the average person?
| akomtu wrote:
| Governments are a lot like abusive parents: they see people as
| difficult kids that must be managed. They believe that what they
| do helps them become good adults, but in reality they just love
| to control and abuse people. Rejecting this abusive parenting or
| simply setting personal boundaries makes them really angry and
| suspicious, and get you labelled a criminal. In the future, when
| thought-reading brain implants will be a thing, you will be
| labelled a criminal for not having one, for hiding your thoughts
| or even for refusing to have your thoughts managed by that
| device.
| skhameneh wrote:
| When I see articles like this, I'm conflicted with a number of
| thoughts. There's a strong factor of engagement baiting and
| engaging with it spreads the messaging.
|
| GrapheneOS is a great project that allows people to have some
| control over their devices. This is important for receiving
| patches when manufacturers have abandoned them for whatever
| reasons. I've used GrapheneOS to revitalize old devices with some
| success. Additionally, having the option for privacy is
| fundamental to security and I would argue is important to help
| maintain democracy. I do not like seeing these attacks on those
| trying to maintain control of their own devices. There are
| processes for checking areas of concern and when a cellular
| device is connected to a network, it's up to those external
| parties to follow the proper procedures in place.
|
| I suppose as a write my comment my level of tolerance for
| bullshit continues to be pressed. Because there is too much
| bullshit to adequately deconstruct here.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| Just saying "Catalunian" or even "Spanish" instead of only "cops"
| may get the article less clicks but it would've gone a long way
| at least pretending to be a worthwhile read. This is a very
| narrow case in point for basically advocating for a specific
| product not a class of products. That smells like a sales pitch
| to me.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Criminals also drink water and breathe air. Quick, ban those.
| CommanderData wrote:
| As long as the baseband is closed source, GrapheneOS is just a
| false sense of security.
| ndkap wrote:
| With this news, I am inclined towards buying Pixel and install
| GrapheneOS in the future just to stick to the pro-mass
| surveillance police state. However, I am concerned about the
| warranty. Does anyone know if installing Graphene on Pixel
| eliminate the hardware warranty?
|
| Also, what do these cops and government officials say about
| iPhones? iPhones, according to what I've heard, also have good
| privacy, is that not true? Is it not private enough for
| criminals?
| contact9879 wrote:
| installing third-party OSes on pixels does not void its
| warranty. It's one of the biggest reasons why GrapheneOS only
| supports Pixels and not e.g. Samsung's Galaxy lines.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Heard this in Sweden too. Normals dont know what it is and dont
| question it.
|
| "encrypted phone" = criminal
| nine_k wrote:
| This is an old, tired lesson: technology is morally neutral. It
| can serve equally well both good and bad purposes, and there's no
| way to coax technology make moral decisions for you.
|
| Banning a technology in an attempt to limit its bad uses still
| dispropotrinally affects it good uses: legitimate, law-abiding
| users are less prone to breaking the rules than criminals, who
| break the rules by definition.
|
| We have seen this happening again and again, from hi-tech things
| like encryption and DRM to basic stuff like knives. But fear and
| moral panic very often overcome the voice of reason, of which we
| are seeing another case.
| fracus wrote:
| The argument "why do you care about your privacy if you have
| nothing to hide" needs to be addressed. The problem with this
| argument is you don't decide what you need to hide or not, the
| authorities do, and we all know authorities can be corrupted.
| Just look at the US government right now for example A.
|
| Just as an example. You are gay. You live in a gay friendly
| place. Until one day, a new fascist government takes office that
| will incarcerate gay people. They now have access to every one's
| phones who previously had nothing to hide.
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