* Set up a private space which will be used for google play services required apps (bank stuff, etc). Install google play and google play services in the private space. Do not install google play services on your main profile. Set the private space to lock after 5 mins of inactivity. Set up google play on a brand new google account. You'll need to provide a phone number during setup. I used my normal phone number, others who are more concerned about deanonymization could use rental phone numbers or other things. Install any apps into the private space.
* Try to install apps on your main profile, ideally open source, privacy respecting stuff. Some recent apps I've found that work great and replace google infested stuff - AntennaPod for podcasts, OrganicMaps for OSM maps, Obsidian for notetaking (google keep), KOReader for ebooks, Molly/Signal for messaging. Vanadium as the default browser works well, except it doesn't have adblock plus for youtube (it does some other ad blocking though and works fine).
Things I still don't have a great solution for:
* Android auto - I don't think it works from a private space due to auto locking. Still figuring this out
* Spotify - since it also needs to run in the background and I haven't found a better music replacement.
Overall graphene has been a far better experience and I like it much more, and feel more in control of my hardware.
fennec (firefox mobile fork) lets you install ublock origin
newpipe or tubular for youtube.
ive also been using freetube lately. its just the desktop ui ported to an android app so its not as good as newpipe, but im using syncthing to sync freetube's settings/subscriptions between desktop and mobile
comaps is better fork of organicmaps and has better people running it
the fossify apps are great for the basics, sms, phone/contacts, gallery, calculator etc
droidify is a nicer front end for the fdroid store imo
keepassdx for passwords
kde connect or localsend for one-off file transfers between devices, or syncthing for things you need to sync all the time
A note on OrganicMaps: at present you are better off using the fork CoMaps. OrganicMaps is tainted by governance issues and a lack of financial transparency:
A note on this reactionary stance: at present you are better off using OrganicMaps. CoMaps is tainted by being a reactionary fork, has less features and lags behind on bug fixes.
I've found CoMaps actually has more features, like I was able to submit a new Place to OSM which wasn't possible in Organic Maps at the time I switched over. This discrepancy may not still be the case though as I haven't checked recently.
>Set up google play on a brand new google account. You'll need to provide a phone number during setup. I used my normal phone number, others who are more concerned about deanonymization could use rental phone numbers or other things. Install any apps into the private space.
Or just use Aurora Store to install apps from the Play Store.
You have Google play services enabled only in private space outside of default profile? Just double checking because I’m interested to know if this works.
All I want is car GPS that is (not cloud connected) && (not 5 years out of date), OSMand should cover this, tho it takes quite a bit of work to get address search to work.
Music I like Finamp, but I like an iPod even better
Thing is Android Auto only interacts with google blessed devices, iirc device manufacturer has to pay license fee to support android auto. Android auto is not FOSS, I don’t think any automaker would allow their smartphone mirroring to work with rooted hardware that may not comply with safety regulations.
I haven't tried anything advanced with profiles/private spaces yet. But I did successfully get Android Auto to work with sandboxed Play Services and Google Maps just this last week on my "new" GrapheneOS Pixel 9 Pro XL.
I did try that as a first solution. I found switching profiles to be pretty unusable. Having it all in a private space so that it's accessible from main profile was much more ergonomic but does come with some privacy downsides for sure.
why not use Youtube instead of Spotify? there are certainly open source Youtube apps
btw. Spotify really doesn't work without gapps? what a crap app then, I am using phones without gapps for 10+ years and only very few apps actually don't work without (usual suspects being anyone using gmaps) them despite warning shown
For one thing, sandboxing does not prevent apps from using IPC to talk to each other, so Google Play can communicate and thus share data with other apps regardless of the user's settings.
Vanadium annoyingly has no option to automatically delete history nor always use Incognito. It's one of the reminders that the project's main focus is security, not privacy.
The workaround to drag a shortcut to the New Incognito Tab intent is clunky as it launches a new tab each time
A lot of people use Brave, which has the features "forget me when I close this site" and "clear data on exit"
One of the reasons I build my own LineageOS builds is because of terrible one-party consent recording laws (in places like California) there’s no geographic way in Android to check it on a state-by-state way. It just goes off country code and disables it for the US since quite a few states it’s illegal to do. For my state it isn’t illegal so I modified my builds to allow it.
There are other things like this too in Android disabled on per-country. Japan has a camera shutter noise that cannot be disabled but this was a request by their carriers, apparently not a law, big discussion under this review: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_...
I always assumed blocking recording because two party consent states exist was an excuse to help big companies screw over individuals. For one thing, the phone has gps, for another it could start recording if it hears the “you are being recorded” tone. Also, why is this the only scenario where they block the mic and camera? Locker rooms are apparently fine.
Anyway, how many times have you been recorded on a phone call by some faceless corporation, then wished you had a copy of the recording after they “reviewed” it then came to the opposite conclusion the recording should support?
This is something I've never understood. If consent is remaining on the line after a message "this call may be recorded (for training and quality purposes)", the simple answer is in places where you have to have consent have the phone send a similar message.
> Also, why is this the only scenario where they block the mic and camera? Locker rooms are apparently fine.
How would the phone detect that you're in a locker room? Even if it is possible, it seems very hard and likely error prone. Disabling call recording is easy.
> Japan has a camera shutter noise that cannot be disabled but this was a request by their carriers, apparently not a law
In some countries, regulation works in a way that the economy gets a chance to fix issues before the legislative needs to intervene. And with the Japanese and their massive issues with rampant sexual abuse... I get where that one came from, in addition to the two major phone brands not wanting to be associated with sexual abuse (which the last comment of the thread also references).
And personally, I do believe that this is the better way when forced with widespread ignorance of difficult to enforce laws - target the "accomplices" or "toolmakers".
I'm not making a judgement on it either way. These are things that are available to change in source. I'm just pointing it out, since others aren't aware of how things can be done.
But there are things locked out in the US I cannot get to. One of the things I've wanted to do for some years is turn on BeiDou reception, but it has a firmware geofence while inside CONUS. For Qualcomm devices there's no way that I've been able to find a way around this, it's not an opensource component. Just to preempt anyone saying it's because it's Chinese spywhere, Qualcomm/Tomtom engineers don't feel receive-only reception is a security risk (there's a report somewhere where military said the same, it's strictly a political prohibition): https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Re...
Japanese "shutter sound" requirement is peak "we regulate ourselves" outcome - completely ineffecitve nuisance that provides an illusion of effectiveness to the illiterate.
I have to wonder how this will impact their partnership with Motorola. Presumably, Motorola will have more difficulty if they're found not to be complying with relevant law...
I hope GrapheneOS isn't completely banking on their partnership succeeding. If Motorola devices ever became the only devices that GrapheneOS works on, and it's being done with Motorola's blessing, then it could be more easily legislated out of existence.
I wholeheartedly support GrapheneOS but, because of that, I very much hope they don't box themselves into a corner that's then easy to 'wall off'.
Having said that, the hardware being restricted to Pixel devices was always a tenuous proposition based on Google's design choices. If Pixels remain supported whilst adding Motorola, that's only a good thing.
Google's Pixels have been one of the most open Smartphone hardware lines though. Only a small handful of vendors support Android Verified Boot with custom keys.
But that's why they said it was tenuous. Google's Pixels have been one of the most open Smartphone hardware lines so far, but Google could change that at any time.
GrapheneOS did not wall off itself or anyone else. The lobbyists who wrote those laws walled themselves off. I think they need to pay for the damage they caused with those laws privately. That way they will stop acting as lobbyists for private entities such as Meta.
I think that's worse than reinstalling because there could be a non-persistent exploit in the secure element allowing a malicious OS to fake attestation
Why dont they just offload the legal burden onto the users with a "Enter your * or decline" and move on? Taking this half compromizing position is easier to defend i think.
Not really, thousand of sellers are selling products in places they "shouldn't", law and enforcement of law is very different (average Aliexpress seller will sell you counterfeit product and ship to the US and just wouldn't care), and some website/business owners just have balls, GrapheneOS could just relocate the company to some offshore jurisdiction and sell only through a bunch of third-parties that wouldn't care about local laws at first.
Well, it is also time to fix those laws. I don't think lobbyists should be allowed to cause us harm here and force us to surrender our data to private entities.
are you sure GrapheneOS will be preinstalled on these devices? as I understand there will be two options for these devices, own Lenovo ROM or GrapheneOS, all they have to do to avoid market restrictions is sell it officially with Lenovo ROM and let user install officially supported Graphene by themselves
In the same way Trump claimed to be the President of Peace, supposedly "left" or "progressive" politicians will push these measures forward while also pocketing money from businesses/organizations who benefit from various social/fiscal causes being ignored.
These are the legislative equivalent of the Dem leadership doing the kneel with the Kente cloth around their necks.
These politicians would never push to end qualified immunity, audit overtime usage, investigate police unions, etc. That requires actual change your donors might not like.
Same thing here, no work needs to be done determining why black/native women go missing at higher rates. That's hard, that's a deeper societal problem. It might just implicate a Sheriff or two or illuminate rape kits going unprocessed.
36% of missing person cases in the US are black women and children, even though only 13% of the population is black, but those cases get much less media attention and are treated less urgently than missing white people.
Creating a separate alert for those cases is meant to bring more attention to them.
There is a similar issue with Native Americans, who go missing at an even more disproportional rate than black women and children, and receive much less attention and resources than white cases.
The odd language is a result of sloppy back and forth fighting over the specific legislative language around scope that largely was a result the fact that the driving concern from the main group that sought the adoption of the alert (the California Tribal Families Coalition) was the incidence of both rape victimization and becoming missing affecting indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit.
"A Feather Alert is a resource available to law enforcement agencies investigating the suspicious or unexplainable disappearance of an indigenous woman or indigenous person."
I don't understand what is their thought process. Am I supposed to get up and start driving in hopes of finding the kid(s)? By the time I wake up in the morning, usually, they have been found.
Just set it so that it doesn't bypass do-not-disturb and it'll have the same result while not disturbing sleep. Those awake will get the notification, and for the others, they can see it in the morning.
In the US, my state had a spate of sending amber alerts at 2am, mostly for old people escaping from old people homes.
I’m sure a ton of people just turned them off. They did ridiculous damage to the system.
I thought about starting an Amber Alert Milita; so any amber alert gets a fully armed response from the kind of people who join militias. That would have probably made the cops think twice about sending stupid alerts for stupid things.
Brenda escaping the memory care center yesterday morning (!) does not mean you should warn us all to watch out for her the next morning at 2am. Unless she’s found an axe and is going door to door chopping people up. That’s the only reason to send that alert.
I bet they killed a few people with heart attacks by setting off sirens in every bedroom in the county.
There are other emergency alerts. Amber alerts are for missing people. At least AFAIK but TBH I don't really care at this point it's a poorly though out and implemented system with shitty software that I end up disabling for better or worse.
It's unfortunate because the world would presumably benefit from a properly standardized and above all globalized way of subscribing to geographically local alerts of various sorts. My local government should be able to advertise their servers via the cell towers and I should be able to add and remove subscriptions from anywhere in the world as I see fit. And above all the messages should be properly authenticated. Last I checked the system was so half baked that it was trivially vulnerable to spoofing.
Read the linked wikipedia article please. It is a proper name from back in the day, not the color amber. The alert is named after a little girl called Amber. I wasn't being pedantic. I was pointing out the circumstances in which it came to be and what it's used for.
they almost never send them where I live. Probably because the first one was sent at 2am, next morning the news reported the kid was found - safe with the parent who had legal custody the whole time.
There is a technical solution to this - make Amber alerts specifically not bypass do-not-disturb. Others can stay as-is because I want to get woken up in case of natural disaster or other catastrophe.
My phone is always on vibration, but even on do-not-disturb, Amber alerts make it vibrate on my nightstand and that is enough to wake me up (especially since I have a work phone and a personal phone triggering at the same time).
Anyway, it's definitely a first-world problem but it is one with an easy, no-downside solution.
Does GrapheneOS fix that problem as well? Because at some point sending everything at the max alert level is going to get people killed. The max alert level should be reserved only for immediately threats to your life in the nearby area, because otherwise you train people to ignore the alerts.
> Wireless alerts are completely optional since GrapheneOS adds a toggle for the otherwise mandatory presidential alert type. This is particularly useful in Canada where the government abuses the system and sends every type of alert as a presidential alert to stop users from being able to opt out of weather and amber alerts.
I wonder if GrapheneOS or someone modifying it could add a feature that would filter with keyword matching or something to determine what priority an alter should actually be.
I actually made this patch a while ago on lineageos but lost the patch. It is a very invasive change where I filtered for the world amber and the French equivalent...
"We've got some great people, phenomenal people, up there in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver... we're working with them on ideas for what it's gonna be like when I'm their President. Gonna be the best era ever in Canadian history. You're gonna see success like you wouldn't believe."
You can disable the app involved to block all wireless alerts. You'll need to use adb though. I did that too because the government here doesn't respect the on/off toggle for alerts and they constantly send alerts when it rains or storms a bit. They come through even when emergency alerts are switched off completely in settings, unless that app is removed.
Sometimes they do it even twice in the same week. They're probably worried about a repeat of the Valencia floods and getting blamed. So they're constantly covering their asses. But I'm sick of them crying wolf all the time.
We don't have this amber thing but it works the same way (prioritised cell broadcasting) so it can be blocked.
The app is com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver on Android 13 and above
But yeah I view this in the same vein as the governments wanting to hijack our phones for spying on us (chatcontrol) or forced identification (the topic of this article). I'm sick and tired of my phone taking orders from other people than me.
....You are a bot...this is a stupid NPC fad the past few days....Real People were not affected...If I see one more complaint about this, I am going to start reporting every poster as spam and bot traffic....
>One of the most annoying aspects of GrapheneOS is how its lock screen works. There is no way to display the lock screen without the phone being locked.
That guide is outdated and chock-full with misinformation.
The author should not have conflated GrapheneOS and Android, it makes it seem like problems are GOS's fault, when it applies to all Android devices. It would be more accurate to call it an iOS to Android migration guide.
You do not need to treat GOS any differently than any other Android variation, you can use all the same apps you would like, there is no rule against using privacy invasive apps on GOS. If you want the best apps, sometimes you have to go with ones made by trillion-dollar companies that vacuum up data. GOS can even let you use these apps in a privacy-preserving way, with the network toggle and sandboxing.
>It is not trivial to synchronize data across machines in a secure and decentralized way. Privacy and decentralization are difficult problems to solve, with ever-changing goal posts. Apple decided to abandon even attempting to do this, and instead went with a band-aid approach that it calls “iCloud”.
I wouldn't underestimate iCloud with advanced data protection, it is arguably the most comprehensive and affordable e2ee cloud plan available.
>No globally-consistent way to “Undo” an action (unlike Shake-to-Undo on iOS).
I don't think this is a good feature, I am glad it is not built into Android.
>Sometimes the screen cannot be turned off when on a call.
I've never experienced this.
>OS can’t handle lots of files in folders. Folders with thousands of files are very slow to load and sync. Sometimes music apps fail to load all songs.
I have a 30+ GB music library and I have not had any issues. Android has a plethora of amazing music apps compared to iOS. See Powerampapp.com.
>Poor UI guidelines cause serious problems. For example, many music or video players don’t work well with the timeline playhead because it’s too close to the edge of the phone’s screen. Attempting to scrub near the beginning or end of a song causes Android’s gesture navigation (back button) to be triggered instead, closing the app.
I find the UI on Android to be much more fluid, reactive, and functional. This may have just been the specific app. GOS or Android cannot stop someone from making a buggy app any more than Apple can. There are many more Android apps that are Free and Open Source, which has a huge host of benefits. Material 3 expressive is the newest google design guideline and it looks a lot better than liquid glass imo. Yes, this is more recent against this blog, but it is being recommended now.
>Sometimes toggle swtiches in settings are also menu items that can be clicked to access more settings. Extraordinarily confusing UI/UX.
Apple also does this, see wifi in control center. I don't think it is confusing once you use your phone for a few days.
>Essential features like text-to-speech, speech-to-text, or “look up definition” have to be manually installed and setup.
I see less system apps as a pro, although GOS is working on, or added a built in tts or stt functionality recently iirc.
>Doesn’t always recognize wired headphones when they’re plugged in the first time. Sometimes even the second time. Could be related to one of these issues.
This has not been a problem for me. The usb control is a massive security improvement and comes with a sane default. Just works in my experience.
>Max volume is rather low for wired headphones, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to increase it.
Have not had a problem with that.
>Seemingly no way to select text in photos without an Internet connection, unlike the built-in AI-based offline-first feature in iOS Photos.
Ente photos has good device-based OCR.
> the GrapheneOS community also recommend the Aurora store
Aurora store is not recommended because it weakens security with no privacy benefit.
> One of the most annoying aspects of GrapheneOS is how its lock screen works.
This is completely outdated, inaccurate and confuses the way the lockscreen works.
>No privacy-preserving Maps app at the level of quality of Apple Maps or Google Maps.
Again, not a GOS problem. You can use the apps from the companies that spend millions on their Maps apps, or you can use the perfectly functional maps based on OSM.
>App Store madness.
If you don't want to be confused, just use the play store like is stated. It is secure and consistent. You ask for more freedom, you get the more freedom. Again, more complaints about apps specifically, not even the app not working due to GOS hardening, just the app.
>Contacts, Email, Calendars
There is no reason you can't use iCloud mail, proton mail, or Gmail on android. The vast majority of even privacy concious people do not self-host mail.
>Passwords
Even more user friendly, you can use free bitwarden, which is better than Apple Passwords or others that are not cross platform.
I switched from iOS to GOS a few months ago, and I have had nothing but good experiences. Contrary to what you may hear, GOS works absolutely fine out of the box. I have never had an app that doesn't work, you can install polished closed source apps without network permission, and the UI is miles ahead of iOS. I highly recommend anyone to try it out.
We already have to trust that none of the people involved in the official images are foreign (or even domestic) intelligence agents, so it's not that different.
The author is being a bit pedantic though. Complaining about stuff that can't be fixed. For example yes aurora store sometimes doesn't work and definitely not over tor. But that's because its 'anonymous' option uses pooled Google accounts. Google tends to block them when they see thousands of users using the same account and blocking traffic to their servers over tor. Yet connecting directly to Google is the safest option here.
And Google maps does not require a Google account. I always use my android phones without any Google account and maps works fine. I think OSMAnd is way way better anyway but they don't have the public transport integration so I still use Google maps for that once in a while. For everything else OSMAnd really rocks and its maps are better than what Google and apple offer especially when you're not a car user.
But really expecting apple level polish from a free outfit it's just not fair.
Oh thanks but it doesn't seem to support the metro here in Spain :( Google always sees live data like real arrival time and line closures.
Even the transport company's own site doesn't show that very accurately. But they're very manipulative. For example if a train is coming soon the signs upstairs don't show it because they don't want people rushing. Google shows the real data though, not their lies.
> OS can’t handle lots of files in folders. Folders with thousands of files are very slow to load and sync. Sometimes music apps fail to load all songs.
> Poor UI guidelines cause serious problems
> Doesn’t always recognize wired headphones when they’re plugged in the first time. Sometimes even the second time.
> Max volume is rather low for wired headphones, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to increase it.
> No decent Photos app alternative, except Google Photos but apparently with a lot of issues (I'm paraphrasing this one, it's really long)
> Google Wallet does not support NFC payments due to restrictions that Google imposes
> App Store madness
I recognize that some of those are features and not bugs for some users, like the "App Store madness" and the lack of a Photos app alternative, but overall those seem like huge gaps that make it a non-serious alternative.
First two seem to be general Android problems. Headphone volume is something device dependent. No Photos app is a feature. Lack of contactless payments is to be expected. No google store is a feature.
Really I'm not sure why anyone who values convenience over security and privacy would even consider GrapheneOS. It's not made for normies. It's not advertised towards normies. It's an OS for schizos and tinkerers like me. It will never be a "serious alternative" to whatever manufacturers ship with their devices.
What really grinds my gears is people installing GrapheneOS and then loading google play services onto it. What's the point? Just stick with the stock OS. It works better and has all the features you want.
What really grinds my gears is people installing GrapheneOS and then loading google play services onto it. What's the point? Just stick with the stock OS. It works better and has all the features you want.
It makes a lot of sense to do that, since GrapheneOS sandboxes Google Play Services like any other app and you can revoke most of its permissions. On stock OS Play Services is privileged and has access to pretty much everything. So, using GrapheneOS with Play Services is a vast privacy/security improvement. And then we haven't even talked about rerouting location requests, etc.
Even if would use GrapheneOS and then set it up as closely as possible to Pixel OS, you still benefit from a lot of security/privacy improvements.
Plus you can install them in a separate work profile (use app "shelter"), which isolates them more.
Personally I need them for my banking app (which is a shame but here we are), but I disallow network access for Google Play Services + disable Google Play app. The bank app works nice with that.
I just don't get the point of going out of your way to install GrapheneOS which exchanges features and software support for privacy and security and then proceeding to install Alphabet spyware on that device anyway. What's the point of all of this if Google still gets to read your notifications, know your location and run their DRM and more in the background? It all feels like a convoluted half measure. A lie to make weak people feel slightly better about their crippling smartphone dependency.
I think this is a strong feature of GrapheneOS. It's much easier for people to migrate stepwise than go completely cold turkey, which is simply not possible for most people.
E.g. I need WhatsApp, because all of our daughter's school stuff, birthday parties, etc. is arranged through WhatsApp. GrapheneOS provides good middle ways. A new user could install Play Services in the owner profile and still get much better security than stock Android (because many more mitigations) and better privacy (because sandboxed Google Play). Next, they might have a separate profile for apps that require Play Services. Finally, once these apps are not needed anymore, they could get completely rid of Play Services.
A lie to make weak people feel slightly better about their crippling smartphone dependency.
It has nothing to do with weakness. People live in a world where they have social contacts and obligations (mortgage apps, banking apps, etc.) that happen to require apps that use Google Play Services. I am happy if people try to remove as many of the dependencies as they can get away with GrapheneOS.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, as this is a very valid conclusion for you to arrive at, individually.
To those downvoting, please note that this person did not say that nobody should switch, only that the information provided was a clear indication that it is not the right fit for them.
I, for one, greatly appreciated the detailed pro/con list in the post, as many of these would be genuine annoyances to me, and would have probably taken several months to encounter all of them.
I hope you are allowed to operate in Canada Freely. If I am right, there is already something called Bill C-22, which is again a censorship and state level surveillance act under the guise of Child protection. Sooner or later Canada introduce this rule too.
Carney also recently signaled that he was open to a "debate" on a child social media ban. Such a ban would likely be enforced by age verification.
You should preemptively be messaging the Liberal cabinet ministers. And make sure to explicitly demand that anything that could force age verification or age assurance on Canadians is rejected:
> Marc Miller (Heritage Minister, the minister responsible for the upcoming online harms legislation that might implement such a ban): Marc.Miller@parl.gc.ca
> Sean Fraser (Justice Minister): sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca
> Mark Carney (Prime Minister): mark.carney@parl.gc.ca
> Mélanie Joly (Minister of Industry): melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca
It may also be worth messaging:
> Gary Anandasangaree (Minister of Public Safety): gary.anand@parl.gc.ca
> Rechie Valdez (Minister of Women and Gender Equality): rechie.valdez@parl.gc.ca
Of course :^) I'm close to jumping ship to GrapheneOS, but as a Swedish resident I really need our digital id services, digital mailbox, and banking apps. I have seen their page on app support, but I am slightly afraid its not up to date / will break any time. I guess the solution is to use one banking android phone and one GrapheneOS for everyday use.
I just have an old phone for all the banking stuff. And I use degoogled phones for real stuff. I don't need my bank when I'm out anyway.
Not using grapheneos though because pixels are expensive in my country. Also, I disagree with them on some points, like rooting. I don't think me having access to root makes my phone less secure. Obviously it should be secured properly so only I can use it, but that can be done. After all even an unrooted phone still has a root account and runs stuff as root, you just can't access it as a user. That means the OS vendor (grapheneos in this case) has more access rights on my phone than me (how else are they going to install updates), to me that's not right.
I just want to be able to inspect what is going on on my phone. What apps are storing about me on their private storage, and to be able to add root CAs so I can MITM their traffic to inspect it.
I believe GrapheneOS would only be an issue if the Swedish gov decides on using the Google Play Integrity API instead of Android's hardware attestation API (and requiring their apps to whitelist GrapheneOS's keys). So their stance doesn't really change much in terms of how banking apps currently work with GrapheneOS.
The Play Integrity API even works on GrapheneOS, but will only pass basic integrity (which is enough for most, but not all banking apps). It doesn't pass strong integrity, which does remote attestation. If your bank does that, ask them to add remote attestation for GrapheneOS as well.
For most apps, yes, they won't require the MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY check in the Google Play Integrity API. But if your apps _do_ choose to use that Google Play Integrity API for a strong integrity check, then they won't be able to whitelist GrapheneOS's keys for it to pass. Unless you can convince Google to whitelist them.
Thus it's best if they use Android's hardware attestation API instead, as you can then decide to whitelist GrapheneOS to pass that strong integrity check.
Another Swedish resident here, using GOS for around 5 years.
So far all the dealbreaker stuff works (BankID, Swish, bank apps, transport apps, etc.) which is great.
That said, I also work in Denmark and need the Danish apps. And the situation in Denmark was the same as Sweden... until one day it wasn't. For example, MitID flipped a switch one day and started enforcing Play Integrity. It became impossible to activate MitID on a GOS phone. And it kinda became the new normal in government or -adjacent apps.
Therefore, I dread the day this might happen in Sweden too. Let us see what will happen with the digital wallet app that the government will launch to compete with BankID. I am afraid there is a good chance that they will tread the same path... I hope I am wrong about that.
It's not an issue, we're just spoiled. It's such an amazing convenience that anything else seems like a huge and unnecessary hassle.
There is actually more a second MFA provider that is accepted almost everywhere, including the tax authority. I forget it's name and I've never tried it, so I can't say too much, but presumably it provides similar functionality as BankID
It's called Freja.
It's also possible to get a special hardware device to do the bankID dance, which is great to have if your phone breaks, as having that device will make it possible to provision a new bankID without visiting a bank office.
He's referring mostly to BankID which is a very secure MFA solution designed for banking purposes(all banks in Sweden accept the same mfa app) the inbox app is probably kivra, which is a email inbox which uses BankID for authentication, and is used for invoices and other "official business" mails.
There's also swish, which is instant payments to both friends and businesses. Swish also uses BankID.
BankID is also used to sign documents, file taxes, etc.etc.
Swedish society is largely built around this one official MFA solution, and having a phone where you cannot run it is a real hassle
I can only speak for my bank (Nordea), but they do offer a separate 2FA device you can order if you "can't use" your smartphone for whatever reason. As a solution it sucks, but technically you're not forced to use a mobile phone to login. I'd be surprised if other banks didn't offer similar fallbacks.
You would need to lug the device with you everywhere because BankID is used for all sort of things in Sweden. I couldn't even use a vending machine here without the BankID app.
Ah, thank you for the clarification! Does not really work in all countries, e.g. here it is quite common at events to pay through a QR code and you need your banking app to do so.
so what is going to happen? Will California issue slave catcher warrants for those who violate laws? will Free Stater sheriffs dispatch citizens on long haul flights to meet their fate in the Golden State?
I hear, maybe someone can verify this, that US states not only can't enforce state laws on anyone outside state borders, but also can't even mess with post and delivery services so as to intercept (in the case of California, and far worse New York, age verification OS level tyranny) non-compliant respects-your-freedom devices as they cross the state-border.
> They will likely lose, but the goal is not to win, it's to score points with their political base and maybe bankrupt the defendants with legal fees.
Or the goal might be to lose, but to establish some precedent that will hamper states like Texas that have tried similar things with abortion providers.
But It would be nicer if they said
"If GrapheneOS devices can't be LEGALLY sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it"
keeping the door open for GrapheneOS to ensure it would still try to supply the residents of authoritarian hellholes with a secure OS, the same way that Signal has been quite open about how if they pull out of a country for legal reasons then they'll do all they can to ensure service is still avalable to users in such places.
Also: when they're partnering with manufacturers maybe they could get the manufacturers to guarantee that bootloaders on device sold everywhere (including in regions which ban freedom respecting software) will be unlocked, or if the manufactuer is banend from selling unlocked bootloader devices then make sure any bootloader locking is trivilally vulnerable to some means of easily achievable local bypass (shorting a pin or something which a user in posession of a device can do but which can't pose an atack surface for a remote adversary).
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is sufficient.
While I had great success with GrapheneOS in the past, bank apps in Brazil have started blocking it, even when the profile you run it under has Google services installed. So GrapheneOS (again, even with all Google Play Services and all other dependencies installed in a given profile) is still not completely transparent to apps.
This may be a coincidence (as I don't use it every day), but I noticed blocking started just as the recent Felca Law (which introduced mandatory age verification for every software, app and OS in Brazil) came into effect.
I appreciate the principled stand, but on the other hand the CA law only requires users to self-identify when setting up accounts (and then the OS will expose age to apps), that seems fairly toothless (though wrongheaded) compared to TX and UT wanting to scan photo IDs[1]
"Toothless" unless you're an app, website or platform developer, then you're given an enormous liability burden even if you strictly adhere to age signals and censor everything accordingly:
> (3) (A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), a developer shall treat a signal received pursuant to this title as the primary indicator of a user’s age range for purposes of determining the user’s age.
> (B) If a developer has internal clear and convincing information that a user’s age is different than the age indicated by a signal received pursuant to this title, the developer shall use that information as the primary indicator of the user’s age.
Turns out the age signal is not enough. Liability-wise, you'll probably be doing face and/or ID scans, too, even if the law doesn't explicitly call for it.
Developers will just implement the strictest state's censorship and age verification schemes for everyone, which has already happened. My state has no age verification laws, yet platforms, and even Android itself, are trying to get me to scan my face and dox myself to use them. I can't even look at spicy tweets online without verifying my age with the X app, they're censored for my own protection.
> I appreciate the principled stand, but on the other hand the CA law only requires users to self-identify when setting up accounts (and then the OS will expose age to apps).
It is narrower than that. It only applies to accounts whose user is a child and is the primary user of the device.
See section 1798.500 (i) which says [1]:
(i) “User” means a child that is the primary user of the device.
If that's what they wanted there is no reason not to start with laws like the TX and UT laws. You need the boiling the frog when you are trying to push the evelope.
Wdym? The reason is that people would oppose the TX and UT laws harder in California. Everyone is calm now in CA because "oh it's just an age dropdown guys!!"
But once the infrastructure is built give it a few years it's not going to be a dropdown. And it will not be able to be bypassed in the same way you can't bypass permissions on iOS and Android today.
To be clear, the Texas law only applies to mobile app stores, not the operating system, and there is no requirement to scan photo ID, just the vague,” commercially reasonable method of verification.”
I don't want to feed my biometrics and identity into AI companies' models so they can train on them for free and then sell facial recognition systems to the government.
Except for the fact that my age is now a piece of information that any tracking pixel or web malware can access at all times to de-anonymize me, even in incognito mode. But maybe that can be solved by collapsing all ages above 18 to just 18. Not sure if that violates the wording of the law though.
That is the wording of the California law, IIRC. The age brackets are under 13, 13-16, 16-18, and over 18. It also requires the OS to provide only the minimum information necessary to comply with the law, and only when necessary to comply with the law.
What can I show to 16-18 year olds that I can't show to 13-16 year olds?
The real meat of the law is requiring websites and applications to comply with this signal. Which would be one good reason why there are so many categories of seeming little difference. This then gives them the opportunity to fine and harass developers out of business for the most minor of infractions or instances of mislabeling.
I don’t really see the need for the line at 16, it seems like they ought to be able to push that line up or down and simplify the brackets.
But, the state doesn’t actually have an incentive to fine and harass their tax base out of business. I don’t think they made it over-complicated on purpose, I think lawmakers just over-estimate our capacity to understand laws.
Keep in mind that as people age out of the 16-18 bracket, their age will be established fairly precisely. And that this information is spread by data brokers, and may follow them forever.
But the "fact" that I told the OS I was 99yr old might be the data they're getting? To anyone who's setting up their own machine, it will be effectively optional: if you just want to make sure you fall in the "adult" bracket, you will tell the OS you're 25 (even if you're 13... or 99...). For kids whose parents are setting up devices, it could be an actual headache (assuming they're honest), but in that sense it's like a lot of other nannyware solutions, probably clunky, but possibly not all bad?
Other nannyware solutions don't force apps, sites and platforms to spend money to censor themselves by law lest they be fined, or worse, which IMO, is all bad.
That's a very arrogant and hubristic statement. It'll come back to bite them in the ass when a government with a long enough arm forces them to retract such an absolute statement. Even if they genuinely believe that they will never do it, in the future it will be seen as a lie regardless.
the commitment to not requiring google play services is what makes this different from most privacy ROMs. the real question is whether the app ecosystem holds - banking apps and 2FA are always the pain point that pushes people back to stock android.
Good. It is time to get rid of those corporate lobbyists that try to sniff for user data and then write up corporate laws. I would not understand in the slightest why my computer should provide any information about myself to the outside world - so why is the law suddenly changed? Who, aside from Meta, is pushing for this? Clearly the "but but but protect the kids!" is the red herring here. The whole law could have been worded differently than it was - that was not "accidental".
On a google pixel? No thank you. Please come again when you run on jolla or some other ethical companiys hardware. I cannot buy a phone that will lead to google earning money.
You can buy a used phone that will give no money to Google. I also hope for it to come to other smartphones, but not at the cost of compromised privacy and security. The reason that GrapheneOS only runs on Pixels is that they support the specific hardware requirements of GrapheneOS, including having an unlockable and relockable bootloader which is pretty cool of Google. I am sure that the GrapheneOS team would love to move on from being tied to a specific vendor's hardware and are working with Motorola to do just that.
I did the switch to graphene on my pixel 9 pro recently and have 0 regrets. it's just a better OS than the google infected android. Here's what I did:
* Follow instructions to install graphene on their website: https://grapheneos.org/install/
* Set up a private space which will be used for google play services required apps (bank stuff, etc). Install google play and google play services in the private space. Do not install google play services on your main profile. Set the private space to lock after 5 mins of inactivity. Set up google play on a brand new google account. You'll need to provide a phone number during setup. I used my normal phone number, others who are more concerned about deanonymization could use rental phone numbers or other things. Install any apps into the private space.
* Try to install apps on your main profile, ideally open source, privacy respecting stuff. Some recent apps I've found that work great and replace google infested stuff - AntennaPod for podcasts, OrganicMaps for OSM maps, Obsidian for notetaking (google keep), KOReader for ebooks, Molly/Signal for messaging. Vanadium as the default browser works well, except it doesn't have adblock plus for youtube (it does some other ad blocking though and works fine).
Things I still don't have a great solution for:
* Android auto - I don't think it works from a private space due to auto locking. Still figuring this out
* Spotify - since it also needs to run in the background and I haven't found a better music replacement.
Overall graphene has been a far better experience and I like it much more, and feel more in control of my hardware.
Android Auto apparently should work if you follow the instructions on the GrapheneOS website[1]
[1] https://grapheneos.org/usage#android-auto
fennec (firefox mobile fork) lets you install ublock origin
newpipe or tubular for youtube. ive also been using freetube lately. its just the desktop ui ported to an android app so its not as good as newpipe, but im using syncthing to sync freetube's settings/subscriptions between desktop and mobile
comaps is better fork of organicmaps and has better people running it
the fossify apps are great for the basics, sms, phone/contacts, gallery, calculator etc
droidify is a nicer front end for the fdroid store imo
keepassdx for passwords
kde connect or localsend for one-off file transfers between devices, or syncthing for things you need to sync all the time
and hacki for hackernews!
Plain old Firefox on Android lets you install uBlock Origin too.
There's also IronFox.
What makes comaps better?
its only a fork since a year ago so there isnt a major difference between to two in terms of features. see: https://www.comaps.app/support/how-do-the-features-differ-fr...
but i mainly meant its better just because its more community based now
Better governance, hopefully:
https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/
https://lwn.net/Articles/1024387/
A note on OrganicMaps: at present you are better off using the fork CoMaps. OrganicMaps is tainted by governance issues and a lack of financial transparency:
https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/
A note on this reactionary stance: at present you are better off using OrganicMaps. CoMaps is tainted by being a reactionary fork, has less features and lags behind on bug fixes.
I've found CoMaps actually has more features, like I was able to submit a new Place to OSM which wasn't possible in Organic Maps at the time I switched over. This discrepancy may not still be the case though as I haven't checked recently.
>Set up google play on a brand new google account. You'll need to provide a phone number during setup. I used my normal phone number, others who are more concerned about deanonymization could use rental phone numbers or other things. Install any apps into the private space.
Or just use Aurora Store to install apps from the Play Store.
Which works unless the app needs Play Services, which do require logging in.
Android auto works for me. For music I just use newpipe and an mp3 player.
You have Google play services enabled only in private space outside of default profile? Just double checking because I’m interested to know if this works.
All I want is car GPS that is (not cloud connected) && (not 5 years out of date), OSMand should cover this, tho it takes quite a bit of work to get address search to work.
Music I like Finamp, but I like an iPod even better
The GrapheneOS website[1] explains how to use Android Auto with sandboxed Google Play
[1] https://grapheneos.org/usage#android-auto
You should be able to install Android Auto, Google Maps, etc. in a separate user profile with Google Play on and no autolock.
Thing is Android Auto only interacts with google blessed devices, iirc device manufacturer has to pay license fee to support android auto. Android auto is not FOSS, I don’t think any automaker would allow their smartphone mirroring to work with rooted hardware that may not comply with safety regulations.
I don't think this is true, AFAIK Android Auto works on Graphene. Google Play isn't FOSS either and also works in a sandboxed mode.
I haven't tried anything advanced with profiles/private spaces yet. But I did successfully get Android Auto to work with sandboxed Play Services and Google Maps just this last week on my "new" GrapheneOS Pixel 9 Pro XL.
I did try that as a first solution. I found switching profiles to be pretty unusable. Having it all in a private space so that it's accessible from main profile was much more ergonomic but does come with some privacy downsides for sure.
why not use Youtube instead of Spotify? there are certainly open source Youtube apps
btw. Spotify really doesn't work without gapps? what a crap app then, I am using phones without gapps for 10+ years and only very few apps actually don't work without (usual suspects being anyone using gmaps) them despite warning shown
Spotify works perfectly on GrapheneOS without Google anything installed. I use it daily.
> Set up a private space which will be used for google play services required apps (bank stuff, etc).
If all the apps (including GP+GPS) are sandboxed anyway, what's the point of doing this?
For one thing, sandboxing does not prevent apps from using IPC to talk to each other, so Google Play can communicate and thus share data with other apps regardless of the user's settings.
For me personally I want to close the space and know nothing is running, particularly gplay
Vanadium annoyingly has no option to automatically delete history nor always use Incognito. It's one of the reminders that the project's main focus is security, not privacy.
The workaround to drag a shortcut to the New Incognito Tab intent is clunky as it launches a new tab each time
A lot of people use Brave, which has the features "forget me when I close this site" and "clear data on exit"
One of the reasons I build my own LineageOS builds is because of terrible one-party consent recording laws (in places like California) there’s no geographic way in Android to check it on a state-by-state way. It just goes off country code and disables it for the US since quite a few states it’s illegal to do. For my state it isn’t illegal so I modified my builds to allow it.
There are other things like this too in Android disabled on per-country. Japan has a camera shutter noise that cannot be disabled but this was a request by their carriers, apparently not a law, big discussion under this review: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_...
I always assumed blocking recording because two party consent states exist was an excuse to help big companies screw over individuals. For one thing, the phone has gps, for another it could start recording if it hears the “you are being recorded” tone. Also, why is this the only scenario where they block the mic and camera? Locker rooms are apparently fine.
Anyway, how many times have you been recorded on a phone call by some faceless corporation, then wished you had a copy of the recording after they “reviewed” it then came to the opposite conclusion the recording should support?
This is something I've never understood. If consent is remaining on the line after a message "this call may be recorded (for training and quality purposes)", the simple answer is in places where you have to have consent have the phone send a similar message.
No need to send - if there is no expectation of privacy because one of the parties is recording, then everyone can.
(Check applicable state law, but it has been true everywhere I am aware of)
> Also, why is this the only scenario where they block the mic and camera? Locker rooms are apparently fine.
How would the phone detect that you're in a locker room? Even if it is possible, it seems very hard and likely error prone. Disabling call recording is easy.
> Japan has a camera shutter noise that cannot be disabled but this was a request by their carriers, apparently not a law
In some countries, regulation works in a way that the economy gets a chance to fix issues before the legislative needs to intervene. And with the Japanese and their massive issues with rampant sexual abuse... I get where that one came from, in addition to the two major phone brands not wanting to be associated with sexual abuse (which the last comment of the thread also references).
And personally, I do believe that this is the better way when forced with widespread ignorance of difficult to enforce laws - target the "accomplices" or "toolmakers".
I'm not making a judgement on it either way. These are things that are available to change in source. I'm just pointing it out, since others aren't aware of how things can be done.
But there are things locked out in the US I cannot get to. One of the things I've wanted to do for some years is turn on BeiDou reception, but it has a firmware geofence while inside CONUS. For Qualcomm devices there's no way that I've been able to find a way around this, it's not an opensource component. Just to preempt anyone saying it's because it's Chinese spywhere, Qualcomm/Tomtom engineers don't feel receive-only reception is a security risk (there's a report somewhere where military said the same, it's strictly a political prohibition): https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Re...
Japanese "shutter sound" requirement is peak "we regulate ourselves" outcome - completely ineffecitve nuisance that provides an illusion of effectiveness to the illiterate.
So you're saying it's exactly the same outcome as the typical reactionary law.
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I have to wonder how this will impact their partnership with Motorola. Presumably, Motorola will have more difficulty if they're found not to be complying with relevant law...
I hope GrapheneOS isn't completely banking on their partnership succeeding. If Motorola devices ever became the only devices that GrapheneOS works on, and it's being done with Motorola's blessing, then it could be more easily legislated out of existence.
I wholeheartedly support GrapheneOS but, because of that, I very much hope they don't box themselves into a corner that's then easy to 'wall off'.
Having said that, the hardware being restricted to Pixel devices was always a tenuous proposition based on Google's design choices. If Pixels remain supported whilst adding Motorola, that's only a good thing.
> based on Google's design choices
Google's Pixels have been one of the most open Smartphone hardware lines though. Only a small handful of vendors support Android Verified Boot with custom keys.
But that's why they said it was tenuous. Google's Pixels have been one of the most open Smartphone hardware lines so far, but Google could change that at any time.
What do you mean with "wall off"?
GrapheneOS did not wall off itself or anyone else. The lobbyists who wrote those laws walled themselves off. I think they need to pay for the damage they caused with those laws privately. That way they will stop acting as lobbyists for private entities such as Meta.
I'd think they just can't sell the phones preloaded with graphene in regions where these laws exist.
They could also patch their "stock" version of GrapheneOS.
I feel like Graphene wouldn't stand for that
Id also want to load GOS myself, pre-loading it seems like it defeates some of the point
GrapheneOS allows you to verify the integrity
https://grapheneos.org/install/web#hardware-based-attestatio...
I think that's worse than reinstalling because there could be a non-persistent exploit in the secure element allowing a malicious OS to fake attestation
Why dont they just offload the legal burden onto the users with a "Enter your * or decline" and move on? Taking this half compromizing position is easier to defend i think.
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Not really, thousand of sellers are selling products in places they "shouldn't", law and enforcement of law is very different (average Aliexpress seller will sell you counterfeit product and ship to the US and just wouldn't care), and some website/business owners just have balls, GrapheneOS could just relocate the company to some offshore jurisdiction and sell only through a bunch of third-parties that wouldn't care about local laws at first.
I don't believe GrapheneOS intends to discontinue Pixel support, as long as Google allows it.
GOS twitter said Motorola's devices will come with the capability to unlock the bootloader, which tracks what the hardware requirements are.
Well, it is also time to fix those laws. I don't think lobbyists should be allowed to cause us harm here and force us to surrender our data to private entities.
are you sure GrapheneOS will be preinstalled on these devices? as I understand there will be two options for these devices, own Lenovo ROM or GrapheneOS, all they have to do to avoid market restrictions is sell it officially with Lenovo ROM and let user install officially supported Graphene by themselves
Canadians not being able to disable Amber alerts sent at presidential level all the time might also be interested to be able to sleep again...
And California keeps adding these bizarre racialized versions of amber alerts
https://www.chp.ca.gov/news-alerts/alerts/Ebony-Alert/
https://www.chp.ca.gov/news-alerts/alerts/Feather-Alert/
How are those even real?! I was just telling someone about this and they couldn't believe I wasn't joking. Wowzers.
How do people supposedly trying to fight racism and sexism always manage to be the most racist and sexist?
To fight a thing, you must think about it.
The best way to avoid an -ism is to forget about it.
The fighters cannot forget, so they fall into a trap of their own making.
These are symbolic actions.
In the same way Trump claimed to be the President of Peace, supposedly "left" or "progressive" politicians will push these measures forward while also pocketing money from businesses/organizations who benefit from various social/fiscal causes being ignored.
These are the legislative equivalent of the Dem leadership doing the kneel with the Kente cloth around their necks.
These politicians would never push to end qualified immunity, audit overtime usage, investigate police unions, etc. That requires actual change your donors might not like.
Same thing here, no work needs to be done determining why black/native women go missing at higher rates. That's hard, that's a deeper societal problem. It might just implicate a Sheriff or two or illuminate rape kits going unprocessed.
Apparently they are yet to be successful - https://www.chp.ca.gov/news-alerts/Success-Stories/
Native American groups seem to think Feather alerts have been successful: https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/feather-alert-for-mmip...
Oh the other funny part about calling these new alerts by a certain color.. Amber alert was about a girl named Amber[0] -- not the color "amber".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_alert
Feather is a color?
I'm glad at least Yellow Alert isn't what I assumed it was after reading all the other ones.
What do you find bizarre about them?
36% of missing person cases in the US are black women and children, even though only 13% of the population is black, but those cases get much less media attention and are treated less urgently than missing white people.
Creating a separate alert for those cases is meant to bring more attention to them.
There is a similar issue with Native Americans, who go missing at an even more disproportional rate than black women and children, and receive much less attention and resources than white cases.
https://x.com/CHPAlerts/status/2034793526043812085
This is crazy.
I am actually floored that they called the one for Indigenous people "Feather Alert"
are they actually that bizarre...? why so?
One bizarre thing I read in both is a proposition that women aren’t people.
The odd language is a result of sloppy back and forth fighting over the specific legislative language around scope that largely was a result the fact that the driving concern from the main group that sought the adoption of the alert (the California Tribal Families Coalition) was the incidence of both rape victimization and becoming missing affecting indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit.
"A Feather Alert is a resource available to law enforcement agencies investigating the suspicious or unexplainable disappearance of an indigenous woman or indigenous person."
That is so bizarre. How embarrassing.
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WTF is wrong with the US
The same thing that is wrong with every country: they contain people (some of which are racist).
I don't understand what is their thought process. Am I supposed to get up and start driving in hopes of finding the kid(s)? By the time I wake up in the morning, usually, they have been found.
Just set it so that it doesn't bypass do-not-disturb and it'll have the same result while not disturbing sleep. Those awake will get the notification, and for the others, they can see it in the morning.
In the US, my state had a spate of sending amber alerts at 2am, mostly for old people escaping from old people homes.
I’m sure a ton of people just turned them off. They did ridiculous damage to the system.
I thought about starting an Amber Alert Milita; so any amber alert gets a fully armed response from the kind of people who join militias. That would have probably made the cops think twice about sending stupid alerts for stupid things.
Brenda escaping the memory care center yesterday morning (!) does not mean you should warn us all to watch out for her the next morning at 2am. Unless she’s found an axe and is going door to door chopping people up. That’s the only reason to send that alert.
I bet they killed a few people with heart attacks by setting off sirens in every bedroom in the county.
I live in another part of the world and have never heard of an amber alert being sent, I assumed they were for nuclear/missile events.
Condolences for the subjects, but it’s bonkers they’re used to spam people about vulnerable individuals who aren’t posing an active threat.
There are other emergency alerts. Amber alerts are for missing people. At least AFAIK but TBH I don't really care at this point it's a poorly though out and implemented system with shitty software that I end up disabling for better or worse.
It's unfortunate because the world would presumably benefit from a properly standardized and above all globalized way of subscribing to geographically local alerts of various sorts. My local government should be able to advertise their servers via the cell towers and I should be able to add and remove subscriptions from anywhere in the world as I see fit. And above all the messages should be properly authenticated. Last I checked the system was so half baked that it was trivially vulnerable to spoofing.
It's an upper case A, Amber.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_alert
I meant no disrespect to victims of awful crimes, but pointing out the capitalization seems awfully pedantic.
Read the linked wikipedia article please. It is a proper name from back in the day, not the color amber. The alert is named after a little girl called Amber. I wasn't being pedantic. I was pointing out the circumstances in which it came to be and what it's used for.
The idea is if you are awake.
they almost never send them where I live. Probably because the first one was sent at 2am, next morning the news reported the kid was found - safe with the parent who had legal custody the whole time.
There is a technical solution to this - make Amber alerts specifically not bypass do-not-disturb. Others can stay as-is because I want to get woken up in case of natural disaster or other catastrophe.
My phone is always on vibration, but even on do-not-disturb, Amber alerts make it vibrate on my nightstand and that is enough to wake me up (especially since I have a work phone and a personal phone triggering at the same time).
Anyway, it's definitely a first-world problem but it is one with an easy, no-downside solution.
Does GrapheneOS fix that problem as well? Because at some point sending everything at the max alert level is going to get people killed. The max alert level should be reserved only for immediately threats to your life in the nearby area, because otherwise you train people to ignore the alerts.
> Wireless alerts are completely optional since GrapheneOS adds a toggle for the otherwise mandatory presidential alert type. This is particularly useful in Canada where the government abuses the system and sends every type of alert as a presidential alert to stop users from being able to opt out of weather and amber alerts.
https://grapheneos.org/features#other-features
I wonder if GrapheneOS or someone modifying it could add a feature that would filter with keyword matching or something to determine what priority an alter should actually be.
I actually made this patch a while ago on lineageos but lost the patch. It is a very invasive change where I filtered for the world amber and the French equivalent...
Umm Canada doesn't even have a president, lol. But pretty nasty to use that feature as an override yeah.
Not yet ;)
"We've got some great people, phenomenal people, up there in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver... we're working with them on ideas for what it's gonna be like when I'm their President. Gonna be the best era ever in Canadian history. You're gonna see success like you wouldn't believe."
You can disable the app involved to block all wireless alerts. You'll need to use adb though. I did that too because the government here doesn't respect the on/off toggle for alerts and they constantly send alerts when it rains or storms a bit. They come through even when emergency alerts are switched off completely in settings, unless that app is removed.
Sometimes they do it even twice in the same week. They're probably worried about a repeat of the Valencia floods and getting blamed. So they're constantly covering their asses. But I'm sick of them crying wolf all the time.
We don't have this amber thing but it works the same way (prioritised cell broadcasting) so it can be blocked.
The app is com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver on Android 13 and above
But yeah I view this in the same vein as the governments wanting to hijack our phones for spying on us (chatcontrol) or forced identification (the topic of this article). I'm sick and tired of my phone taking orders from other people than me.
My Samsung can disable amber alerts.
....You are a bot...this is a stupid NPC fad the past few days....Real People were not affected...If I see one more complaint about this, I am going to start reporting every poster as spam and bot traffic....
I was trying to figure out what Trump did this time, only to find out you don't know Canada doesn't have a president.
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If you're considering switching to GrapheneOS from iOS, here's a guide: https://blog.okturtles.org/2024/06/the-ultimate-ios-to-graph...
>One of the most annoying aspects of GrapheneOS is how its lock screen works. There is no way to display the lock screen without the phone being locked.
This made me chuckle.
That guide is outdated and chock-full with misinformation.
The author should not have conflated GrapheneOS and Android, it makes it seem like problems are GOS's fault, when it applies to all Android devices. It would be more accurate to call it an iOS to Android migration guide.
You do not need to treat GOS any differently than any other Android variation, you can use all the same apps you would like, there is no rule against using privacy invasive apps on GOS. If you want the best apps, sometimes you have to go with ones made by trillion-dollar companies that vacuum up data. GOS can even let you use these apps in a privacy-preserving way, with the network toggle and sandboxing.
>It is not trivial to synchronize data across machines in a secure and decentralized way. Privacy and decentralization are difficult problems to solve, with ever-changing goal posts. Apple decided to abandon even attempting to do this, and instead went with a band-aid approach that it calls “iCloud”.
I wouldn't underestimate iCloud with advanced data protection, it is arguably the most comprehensive and affordable e2ee cloud plan available.
>No globally-consistent way to “Undo” an action (unlike Shake-to-Undo on iOS).
I don't think this is a good feature, I am glad it is not built into Android.
>Sometimes the screen cannot be turned off when on a call. I've never experienced this.
>OS can’t handle lots of files in folders. Folders with thousands of files are very slow to load and sync. Sometimes music apps fail to load all songs.
I have a 30+ GB music library and I have not had any issues. Android has a plethora of amazing music apps compared to iOS. See Powerampapp.com.
>Poor UI guidelines cause serious problems. For example, many music or video players don’t work well with the timeline playhead because it’s too close to the edge of the phone’s screen. Attempting to scrub near the beginning or end of a song causes Android’s gesture navigation (back button) to be triggered instead, closing the app.
I find the UI on Android to be much more fluid, reactive, and functional. This may have just been the specific app. GOS or Android cannot stop someone from making a buggy app any more than Apple can. There are many more Android apps that are Free and Open Source, which has a huge host of benefits. Material 3 expressive is the newest google design guideline and it looks a lot better than liquid glass imo. Yes, this is more recent against this blog, but it is being recommended now.
>Sometimes toggle swtiches in settings are also menu items that can be clicked to access more settings. Extraordinarily confusing UI/UX.
Apple also does this, see wifi in control center. I don't think it is confusing once you use your phone for a few days.
>Essential features like text-to-speech, speech-to-text, or “look up definition” have to be manually installed and setup. I see less system apps as a pro, although GOS is working on, or added a built in tts or stt functionality recently iirc.
>Doesn’t always recognize wired headphones when they’re plugged in the first time. Sometimes even the second time. Could be related to one of these issues.
This has not been a problem for me. The usb control is a massive security improvement and comes with a sane default. Just works in my experience.
>Max volume is rather low for wired headphones, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to increase it.
Have not had a problem with that.
>Seemingly no way to select text in photos without an Internet connection, unlike the built-in AI-based offline-first feature in iOS Photos.
Ente photos has good device-based OCR.
> the GrapheneOS community also recommend the Aurora store
Aurora store is not recommended because it weakens security with no privacy benefit.
> One of the most annoying aspects of GrapheneOS is how its lock screen works.
This is completely outdated, inaccurate and confuses the way the lockscreen works.
>No privacy-preserving Maps app at the level of quality of Apple Maps or Google Maps.
Again, not a GOS problem. You can use the apps from the companies that spend millions on their Maps apps, or you can use the perfectly functional maps based on OSM.
>App Store madness.
If you don't want to be confused, just use the play store like is stated. It is secure and consistent. You ask for more freedom, you get the more freedom. Again, more complaints about apps specifically, not even the app not working due to GOS hardening, just the app.
>Contacts, Email, Calendars
There is no reason you can't use iCloud mail, proton mail, or Gmail on android. The vast majority of even privacy concious people do not self-host mail.
>Passwords
Even more user friendly, you can use free bitwarden, which is better than Apple Passwords or others that are not cross platform.
I switched from iOS to GOS a few months ago, and I have had nothing but good experiences. Contrary to what you may hear, GOS works absolutely fine out of the box. I have never had an app that doesn't work, you can install polished closed source apps without network permission, and the UI is miles ahead of iOS. I highly recommend anyone to try it out.
The guide is not mentioning that you have to 100% trust some pseudonymous guys on the internet that build the image.
We already have to trust that none of the people involved in the official images are foreign (or even domestic) intelligence agents, so it's not that different.
No, it's extremely different. Like trusting a massive bank or a dude in an alley.
Plus, if NSA and the Mossad actively try to surveil you all bets are lost.
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Reading the pros and cons list made it very clear to me that I'll never switch to GrapheneOS.
The author is being a bit pedantic though. Complaining about stuff that can't be fixed. For example yes aurora store sometimes doesn't work and definitely not over tor. But that's because its 'anonymous' option uses pooled Google accounts. Google tends to block them when they see thousands of users using the same account and blocking traffic to their servers over tor. Yet connecting directly to Google is the safest option here.
And Google maps does not require a Google account. I always use my android phones without any Google account and maps works fine. I think OSMAnd is way way better anyway but they don't have the public transport integration so I still use Google maps for that once in a while. For everything else OSMAnd really rocks and its maps are better than what Google and apple offer especially when you're not a car user.
But really expecting apple level polish from a free outfit it's just not fair.
> The author is being a bit pedantic though. Complaining about stuff that can't be fixed
I care a lot less about the stuff that CAN be fixed than about what can't be.
If you're interested in an alternative for public transport you should give Transportr a try. I've only had good experiences with it.
Oh thanks but it doesn't seem to support the metro here in Spain :( Google always sees live data like real arrival time and line closures.
Even the transport company's own site doesn't show that very accurately. But they're very manipulative. For example if a train is coming soon the signs upstairs don't show it because they don't want people rushing. Google shows the real data though, not their lies.
Which ones are the biggest show stoppers for you? I'm curious because I find most of them to be complete non issues or even a user error.
> OS can’t handle lots of files in folders. Folders with thousands of files are very slow to load and sync. Sometimes music apps fail to load all songs.
> Poor UI guidelines cause serious problems
> Doesn’t always recognize wired headphones when they’re plugged in the first time. Sometimes even the second time.
> Max volume is rather low for wired headphones, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to increase it.
> No decent Photos app alternative, except Google Photos but apparently with a lot of issues (I'm paraphrasing this one, it's really long)
> Google Wallet does not support NFC payments due to restrictions that Google imposes
> App Store madness
I recognize that some of those are features and not bugs for some users, like the "App Store madness" and the lack of a Photos app alternative, but overall those seem like huge gaps that make it a non-serious alternative.
First two seem to be general Android problems. Headphone volume is something device dependent. No Photos app is a feature. Lack of contactless payments is to be expected. No google store is a feature.
Really I'm not sure why anyone who values convenience over security and privacy would even consider GrapheneOS. It's not made for normies. It's not advertised towards normies. It's an OS for schizos and tinkerers like me. It will never be a "serious alternative" to whatever manufacturers ship with their devices.
What really grinds my gears is people installing GrapheneOS and then loading google play services onto it. What's the point? Just stick with the stock OS. It works better and has all the features you want.
What really grinds my gears is people installing GrapheneOS and then loading google play services onto it. What's the point? Just stick with the stock OS. It works better and has all the features you want.
It makes a lot of sense to do that, since GrapheneOS sandboxes Google Play Services like any other app and you can revoke most of its permissions. On stock OS Play Services is privileged and has access to pretty much everything. So, using GrapheneOS with Play Services is a vast privacy/security improvement. And then we haven't even talked about rerouting location requests, etc.
Even if would use GrapheneOS and then set it up as closely as possible to Pixel OS, you still benefit from a lot of security/privacy improvements.
Plus you can install them in a separate work profile (use app "shelter"), which isolates them more.
Personally I need them for my banking app (which is a shame but here we are), but I disallow network access for Google Play Services + disable Google Play app. The bank app works nice with that.
I just don't get the point of going out of your way to install GrapheneOS which exchanges features and software support for privacy and security and then proceeding to install Alphabet spyware on that device anyway. What's the point of all of this if Google still gets to read your notifications, know your location and run their DRM and more in the background? It all feels like a convoluted half measure. A lie to make weak people feel slightly better about their crippling smartphone dependency.
I think this is a strong feature of GrapheneOS. It's much easier for people to migrate stepwise than go completely cold turkey, which is simply not possible for most people.
E.g. I need WhatsApp, because all of our daughter's school stuff, birthday parties, etc. is arranged through WhatsApp. GrapheneOS provides good middle ways. A new user could install Play Services in the owner profile and still get much better security than stock Android (because many more mitigations) and better privacy (because sandboxed Google Play). Next, they might have a separate profile for apps that require Play Services. Finally, once these apps are not needed anymore, they could get completely rid of Play Services.
A lie to make weak people feel slightly better about their crippling smartphone dependency.
It has nothing to do with weakness. People live in a world where they have social contacts and obligations (mortgage apps, banking apps, etc.) that happen to require apps that use Google Play Services. I am happy if people try to remove as many of the dependencies as they can get away with GrapheneOS.
Don't throw away the baby with the bathwater.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, as this is a very valid conclusion for you to arrive at, individually.
To those downvoting, please note that this person did not say that nobody should switch, only that the information provided was a clear indication that it is not the right fit for them.
I, for one, greatly appreciated the detailed pro/con list in the post, as many of these would be genuine annoyances to me, and would have probably taken several months to encounter all of them.
Maybe it doesn't add anything to the conversation. How does it help anybody that this one person gave no reasons for why it won't work for them?
I hope you are allowed to operate in Canada Freely. If I am right, there is already something called Bill C-22, which is again a censorship and state level surveillance act under the guise of Child protection. Sooner or later Canada introduce this rule too.
The bill to watch on age verification is S-209 (the "S" because it originates in the Senate). Section 12(2) includes the requirements for potential verification methods. https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/S-209/first-...
Keep an eye on michaelgeist.ca. If there are petitions to sign to oppose it, you'll probably find out there.
Carney also recently signaled that he was open to a "debate" on a child social media ban. Such a ban would likely be enforced by age verification.
You should preemptively be messaging the Liberal cabinet ministers. And make sure to explicitly demand that anything that could force age verification or age assurance on Canadians is rejected:
> Marc Miller (Heritage Minister, the minister responsible for the upcoming online harms legislation that might implement such a ban): Marc.Miller@parl.gc.ca
> Sean Fraser (Justice Minister): sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca
> Mark Carney (Prime Minister): mark.carney@parl.gc.ca
> Mélanie Joly (Minister of Industry): melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca
It may also be worth messaging:
> Gary Anandasangaree (Minister of Public Safety): gary.anand@parl.gc.ca
> Rechie Valdez (Minister of Women and Gender Equality): rechie.valdez@parl.gc.ca
Of course :^) I'm close to jumping ship to GrapheneOS, but as a Swedish resident I really need our digital id services, digital mailbox, and banking apps. I have seen their page on app support, but I am slightly afraid its not up to date / will break any time. I guess the solution is to use one banking android phone and one GrapheneOS for everyday use.
I just have an old phone for all the banking stuff. And I use degoogled phones for real stuff. I don't need my bank when I'm out anyway.
Not using grapheneos though because pixels are expensive in my country. Also, I disagree with them on some points, like rooting. I don't think me having access to root makes my phone less secure. Obviously it should be secured properly so only I can use it, but that can be done. After all even an unrooted phone still has a root account and runs stuff as root, you just can't access it as a user. That means the OS vendor (grapheneos in this case) has more access rights on my phone than me (how else are they going to install updates), to me that's not right.
I just want to be able to inspect what is going on on my phone. What apps are storing about me on their private storage, and to be able to add root CAs so I can MITM their traffic to inspect it.
I believe GrapheneOS would only be an issue if the Swedish gov decides on using the Google Play Integrity API instead of Android's hardware attestation API (and requiring their apps to whitelist GrapheneOS's keys). So their stance doesn't really change much in terms of how banking apps currently work with GrapheneOS.
The Play Integrity API even works on GrapheneOS, but will only pass basic integrity (which is enough for most, but not all banking apps). It doesn't pass strong integrity, which does remote attestation. If your bank does that, ask them to add remote attestation for GrapheneOS as well.
For most apps, yes, they won't require the MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY check in the Google Play Integrity API. But if your apps _do_ choose to use that Google Play Integrity API for a strong integrity check, then they won't be able to whitelist GrapheneOS's keys for it to pass. Unless you can convince Google to whitelist them.
Thus it's best if they use Android's hardware attestation API instead, as you can then decide to whitelist GrapheneOS to pass that strong integrity check.
BankID, Swish and Swedbank's app work fine for me on GOS so I say go for it :)
Kivra, BankID, Sparbanken, ICA banken, Nordea, LF, Swish, Fortnox and more works perfectly well for me.
I still keep my old phone around with BankID just to be safe, but so far I haven't had any issues.
What do you mean here? Isn't bankID limited to only one device?
No, you can have multiple. At least with the banks I've used (currently sparbanken).
Another Swedish resident here, using GOS for around 5 years.
So far all the dealbreaker stuff works (BankID, Swish, bank apps, transport apps, etc.) which is great.
That said, I also work in Denmark and need the Danish apps. And the situation in Denmark was the same as Sweden... until one day it wasn't. For example, MitID flipped a switch one day and started enforcing Play Integrity. It became impossible to activate MitID on a GOS phone. And it kinda became the new normal in government or -adjacent apps.
Therefore, I dread the day this might happen in Sweden too. Let us see what will happen with the digital wallet app that the government will launch to compete with BankID. I am afraid there is a good chance that they will tread the same path... I hope I am wrong about that.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
So far it has only gotten better over time, so risk seems minor if your bank is listed as supported.
Likewise, my plan will be to have GrapheneOS as my "real" OS, and a cheap secondary phone for banking app and whatnot.
Exactly, works pretty well for me!
Sounds like your issue is with your government.
It's not an issue, we're just spoiled. It's such an amazing convenience that anything else seems like a huge and unnecessary hassle.
There is actually more a second MFA provider that is accepted almost everywhere, including the tax authority. I forget it's name and I've never tried it, so I can't say too much, but presumably it provides similar functionality as BankID
It's called Freja. It's also possible to get a special hardware device to do the bankID dance, which is great to have if your phone breaks, as having that device will make it possible to provision a new bankID without visiting a bank office.
Do the banking apps have features that the (mobile?) websites do not? Genuine question, I have no frame of reference for Swedish banks
He's referring mostly to BankID which is a very secure MFA solution designed for banking purposes(all banks in Sweden accept the same mfa app) the inbox app is probably kivra, which is a email inbox which uses BankID for authentication, and is used for invoices and other "official business" mails.
There's also swish, which is instant payments to both friends and businesses. Swish also uses BankID.
BankID is also used to sign documents, file taxes, etc.etc.
Swedish society is largely built around this one official MFA solution, and having a phone where you cannot run it is a real hassle
Same in Norway.
The less free states are starting to require remote attestation to send payments at all.
You can't login to those without app as a 2FA.
I can only speak for my bank (Nordea), but they do offer a separate 2FA device you can order if you "can't use" your smartphone for whatever reason. As a solution it sucks, but technically you're not forced to use a mobile phone to login. I'd be surprised if other banks didn't offer similar fallbacks.
You can have these apps on a separate device that lives in a drawer like paper documents would. We need to separate state from private life.
You would need to lug the device with you everywhere because BankID is used for all sort of things in Sweden. I couldn't even use a vending machine here without the BankID app.
Why do you need MFA to use a vending machine? I thought the US was off its collective rocker but WTF is going on in Sweden?
I am baffled that anyone on HN doesn't have an MFA device in their drawer.
Many European banks do not replace them anymore once they break or run out of battery. Smartphones have become the default for MFA.
Yes that's what I meant. An old smartphone is my device in my drawer.
Ah, thank you for the clarification! Does not really work in all countries, e.g. here it is quite common at events to pay through a QR code and you need your banking app to do so.
Always the best way - radio off and inside a faraday pouch
so what is going to happen? Will California issue slave catcher warrants for those who violate laws? will Free Stater sheriffs dispatch citizens on long haul flights to meet their fate in the Golden State?
I hear, maybe someone can verify this, that US states not only can't enforce state laws on anyone outside state borders, but also can't even mess with post and delivery services so as to intercept (in the case of California, and far worse New York, age verification OS level tyranny) non-compliant respects-your-freedom devices as they cross the state-border.
Let me introduce you to California's way of doing things: https://guncad.substack.com/p/special-issue-state-of-califor...
They're suing Florida residents with no ties to California for linking to pictures of guns on the internet.
They will likely lose, but the goal is not to win, it's to score points with their political base and maybe bankrupt the defendants with legal fees.
> They will likely lose, but the goal is not to win, it's to score points with their political base and maybe bankrupt the defendants with legal fees.
Or the goal might be to lose, but to establish some precedent that will hamper states like Texas that have tried similar things with abortion providers.
Related and also on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479183
Isn't there already another HN thread about this?
I'll rephrase here what I said there:
Well done GrapheneOS.
But It would be nicer if they said "If GrapheneOS devices can't be LEGALLY sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it" keeping the door open for GrapheneOS to ensure it would still try to supply the residents of authoritarian hellholes with a secure OS, the same way that Signal has been quite open about how if they pull out of a country for legal reasons then they'll do all they can to ensure service is still avalable to users in such places.
Also: when they're partnering with manufacturers maybe they could get the manufacturers to guarantee that bootloaders on device sold everywhere (including in regions which ban freedom respecting software) will be unlocked, or if the manufactuer is banend from selling unlocked bootloader devices then make sure any bootloader locking is trivilally vulnerable to some means of easily achievable local bypass (shorting a pin or something which a user in posession of a device can do but which can't pose an atack surface for a remote adversary).
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is sufficient.
While I had great success with GrapheneOS in the past, bank apps in Brazil have started blocking it, even when the profile you run it under has Google services installed. So GrapheneOS (again, even with all Google Play Services and all other dependencies installed in a given profile) is still not completely transparent to apps.
This may be a coincidence (as I don't use it every day), but I noticed blocking started just as the recent Felca Law (which introduced mandatory age verification for every software, app and OS in Brazil) came into effect.
Bank is saying it doesn't want your money, correct?
I appreciate the principled stand, but on the other hand the CA law only requires users to self-identify when setting up accounts (and then the OS will expose age to apps), that seems fairly toothless (though wrongheaded) compared to TX and UT wanting to scan photo IDs[1]
1: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/cali...
"Toothless" unless you're an app, website or platform developer, then you're given an enormous liability burden even if you strictly adhere to age signals and censor everything accordingly:
> (3) (A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), a developer shall treat a signal received pursuant to this title as the primary indicator of a user’s age range for purposes of determining the user’s age.
> (B) If a developer has internal clear and convincing information that a user’s age is different than the age indicated by a signal received pursuant to this title, the developer shall use that information as the primary indicator of the user’s age.
Turns out the age signal is not enough. Liability-wise, you'll probably be doing face and/or ID scans, too, even if the law doesn't explicitly call for it.
Developers will just implement the strictest state's censorship and age verification schemes for everyone, which has already happened. My state has no age verification laws, yet platforms, and even Android itself, are trying to get me to scan my face and dox myself to use them. I can't even look at spicy tweets online without verifying my age with the X app, they're censored for my own protection.
Why should we be ok with laws just because they won't accomplish anything?
Oh boy, California will love you.
I left California 5 years ago :)
> I appreciate the principled stand, but on the other hand the CA law only requires users to self-identify when setting up accounts (and then the OS will expose age to apps).
It is narrower than that. It only applies to accounts whose user is a child and is the primary user of the device.
See section 1798.500 (i) which says [1]:
[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-civ/division-3/...Until CA matches the TX and UT laws. Boiling the frog
If that's what they wanted there is no reason not to start with laws like the TX and UT laws. You need the boiling the frog when you are trying to push the evelope.
Wdym? The reason is that people would oppose the TX and UT laws harder in California. Everyone is calm now in CA because "oh it's just an age dropdown guys!!"
But once the infrastructure is built give it a few years it's not going to be a dropdown. And it will not be able to be bypassed in the same way you can't bypass permissions on iOS and Android today.
But somehow in the opposite (yet same?) way.
To be clear, the Texas law only applies to mobile app stores, not the operating system, and there is no requirement to scan photo ID, just the vague,” commercially reasonable method of verification.”
"Commercially reasonable" would be something cheap, like ask a chatbot for an opinion.
I don't want to feed my biometrics and identity into AI companies' models so they can train on them for free and then sell facial recognition systems to the government.
Except for the fact that my age is now a piece of information that any tracking pixel or web malware can access at all times to de-anonymize me, even in incognito mode. But maybe that can be solved by collapsing all ages above 18 to just 18. Not sure if that violates the wording of the law though.
That is the wording of the California law, IIRC. The age brackets are under 13, 13-16, 16-18, and over 18. It also requires the OS to provide only the minimum information necessary to comply with the law, and only when necessary to comply with the law.
What can I show to 16-18 year olds that I can't show to 13-16 year olds?
The real meat of the law is requiring websites and applications to comply with this signal. Which would be one good reason why there are so many categories of seeming little difference. This then gives them the opportunity to fine and harass developers out of business for the most minor of infractions or instances of mislabeling.
Under CCPA, users over 16yo only need to be given an opt-out for data sharing, while users under 16yo have to provide affirmative opt-in.
Which if you think about it, is completely bonkers. Recognising the harm that data tracking causes, but ignoring the harm for the majority of people.
I don’t really see the need for the line at 16, it seems like they ought to be able to push that line up or down and simplify the brackets.
But, the state doesn’t actually have an incentive to fine and harass their tax base out of business. I don’t think they made it over-complicated on purpose, I think lawmakers just over-estimate our capacity to understand laws.
Keep in mind that as people age out of the 16-18 bracket, their age will be established fairly precisely. And that this information is spread by data brokers, and may follow them forever.
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But the "fact" that I told the OS I was 99yr old might be the data they're getting? To anyone who's setting up their own machine, it will be effectively optional: if you just want to make sure you fall in the "adult" bracket, you will tell the OS you're 25 (even if you're 13... or 99...). For kids whose parents are setting up devices, it could be an actual headache (assuming they're honest), but in that sense it's like a lot of other nannyware solutions, probably clunky, but possibly not all bad?
Other nannyware solutions don't force apps, sites and platforms to spend money to censor themselves by law lest they be fined, or worse, which IMO, is all bad.
That's a very arrogant and hubristic statement. It'll come back to bite them in the ass when a government with a long enough arm forces them to retract such an absolute statement. Even if they genuinely believe that they will never do it, in the future it will be seen as a lie regardless.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479183
the commitment to not requiring google play services is what makes this different from most privacy ROMs. the real question is whether the app ecosystem holds - banking apps and 2FA are always the pain point that pushes people back to stock android.
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479183
Good. It is time to get rid of those corporate lobbyists that try to sniff for user data and then write up corporate laws. I would not understand in the slightest why my computer should provide any information about myself to the outside world - so why is the law suddenly changed? Who, aside from Meta, is pushing for this? Clearly the "but but but protect the kids!" is the red herring here. The whole law could have been worded differently than it was - that was not "accidental".
This is for mass surveillance by the US government.
If Motorola releases a phone with flagship specs that runs LineageOS, I am buying.
They have a Graphene partnership, not a LineageOS one. The latter is entirely up to volunteers to port it.
I am sorry, I meant Graphene!
Fuck yeah! I was wondering about this.
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On a google pixel? No thank you. Please come again when you run on jolla or some other ethical companiys hardware. I cannot buy a phone that will lead to google earning money.
You can buy a used phone that will give no money to Google. I also hope for it to come to other smartphones, but not at the cost of compromised privacy and security. The reason that GrapheneOS only runs on Pixels is that they support the specific hardware requirements of GrapheneOS, including having an unlockable and relockable bootloader which is pretty cool of Google. I am sure that the GrapheneOS team would love to move on from being tied to a specific vendor's hardware and are working with Motorola to do just that.
Soon GrapheneOS will support Motorola phone(s).
https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at...
If you bought used, the seller would earn the money instead of Google.