Basically, if you don't have a phone the cops can easily backdoor, you must be a criminal.
"What do you have to hide?" taken to it's logical conclusion.
Basically, if you don't have a phone the cops can easily backdoor, you must be a criminal.
"What do you have to hide?" taken to it's logical conclusion.
This is the best recommendation for a phone I've seen yet.
Thanks catalonian police
Be wary since as of Android 16, Google no longer provides device source for Pixel phones.
The grapheneOS team still got an android 16 release out relatively quickly
Because no new Pixel has come out yet, so they were likely able to adapt the A15 code. Once the Pixel 10 series comes out, it will be more difficult.
Google is still required to publish kernel sources, some of the higher level android code might be tricky but I'm not sure if the GOS team have said anything yet.
I'm not talking about kernel sources, but the Android device sources, which are separate.
This is a weird advertisement, but I kind of want grapheneOS now.
Been on it for ~2 years and never going back, fuck Google, fuck the government.
I've also been using it for like 2 years but I really want the hardware of something like the Fairphone. A fairphone or something similar with Graphene would be amazing
The Graphene OS people have always been talking about how they eventually intend to develop their own hardware. So, possibly they will make something good eventually.
Not develop their own hardware, but contract an established manufacturer to do it for them. Which is good, they have no business doing hardware!
Would be sick. If they also make it open enough to try out mobile Linux, I'd totally buy it and try to transition (esp. if it can dual boot).
You can technically put GrapheneOS on a Fairphone, but it's not officially supported.
Long term, the GOS team is looking to branch off from their reliance on Pixels.
Well you still bought a Google phone
True, with the intention of installing Graphene OS on it. No other options.
Strange that google is the only option for the only "secure" operating system.
Hey, do you know what is Ring Level minus One ?
Strange that google is the only option for the only "secure" operating system.
The have their reasons: https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
Hey, do you know what is Ring Level minus One ?
I know you're only trolling here and I'm feeding into it, but you nerd sniped me just right to explain why your question is stupid on multiple fronts.
First of all, "Ring -1" is the hypervisor, at least on virtualization-capable devices (which modern Pixels are), and the hypervisor will be Linux's KVM in this case, which is open source and compiled by the Graphene team as part of the kernel from source.
Secondly, Arm (which is the architecture basically all phone chips use, including Pixels) has a slightly different model of security, where apps are Exception Level 0, the OS is EL1, the hypervisor is EL2, and the "secure monitor" (or management firmware) is EL3 (and is probably what you were trying to refer to).
So yeah, I don't think you know what "Ring -1" is. At least not enough to warrant a snarky comment.
"-1" is not just hypervisors, things like Intel Management and AMD Platform Security Processor can peer into system memory. I have no doubt similar system exist on ARM, I suspect the radio transceiver can also read system memory and read secrets out of the security devices.
I don't think modern phones are trustable devices. They are opaque blackboxes, pretending to have high security but this security only really protects the spyware operators from being notices.
I don't think it's coincidence that the most "secure" and "private" operating system only operates on a very narrow model selection of phones from just one manufacturer. Probably because they have the best technology to keep the inherent backdoor invisible and implausible. A backdoor to a system nobody trusts wouldn't be very useful.
The original post is about how it's so secure the piggies can't get in. Unless the super secret backdoor is only for the shadow government to disappear dissidents with no trace, thus keeping their super secret backdoor secret.
Sounds like a good recommendation.
They're mad they can't use cellbrite to snoop on properly configured GOS phones and that they actually have to do real police work to catch drug dealers
Yes. They (cellebrite) don't mention GrapheneOS support very loudly because it's poor. They can't decrypt one that's BFU (Before First Unlock), not even by brute force if it's a 6 digit passcode apparently. Don't know if they can get data from an AFU GOS pixel. A year ago when their internal docs leaked, they also had no support for latest iOS at the time, but had brute force support for older versions as long as phone itself wasn't too new and had AFU access without brute force for even older versions.
Moral of the story: if there's a chance police might take your phone to investigate for a crime you hopefully didn't even commit, shut down your phone completely - the 5x power button trick on iOS disables biometric unlock, but the device itself stays decrypted and thus more vulnerable. Also keep your OS up to date.
If you've got a phone that's neither iOS nor GrapheneOS, it's probably pretty much Swiss cheese anyway. IOS isn't as good as GrapheneOS either, but it offers some protection against Cellebrite if up to date and BFU. But if they keep your phone for long enough (months, years), they'll get it unlocked because you can't install updates that would patch any newly discovered vulnerabilities and one day they'll find a BFU unlock for it, probably.
Grapheneos also has options to just disable data over the USB port when its locked. Or disable it outright.
Graphene OS in particular comes with a default feature enabled called Auto Reboot to protect against this. I think it's set to 18 hours by default because that's what mine is, but you can go as low as 4 hours.
If you have it set to four hours, I'd wager your phone would reset way before the pigs had enough time to try and get their way in.

iOS started doing this a year or 2 ago, but unfortunately it's 3 days and not configurable
Yeah, I have mine at 4 hours and it's pretty good. It triggers while I'm at work sometimes, but other than that, it's mostly just when I sleep.
Does a full shutdown encrypt all contents on iOS? This is something that everyone entering the USA as I have to do annually needs to think about.
It's all encrypted in storage. The decryption key is in the secure element / TPM chip, additionally protected by your PIN / password. Shutting it down unloads all encryption keys from memory.
Beware that US customs / immigration / border control can seize your phone and refuse entry.
What happens if I turn it back on but don't unlock it? Are the encryption keys in memory?
They're not in memory until the first unlock, that's why there's the AFU vs BFU distinction for cellebrite unlocking devices incl iPhones.
But as the other person said, they can seize your phone and refuse entry. If you need to travel to the USA annually and you don't want them to see your shit, you may want to have a decoy phone that's not logged into your real accounts or have many photos on it. Just enough to make it believable it's your real phone, but not enough to help them forge anything on you.
I am a non-resident US citizen so I believe it would be more difficult for them to search and hold me without trial or legal representation. But these days anything is possible.
Yes, but customs can still compel you to unlock your phone as we have recently seen with the Norweigan tourist who was denied entry due to having a JD Vance meme on his phone.
I would recommend having a separate phone with non-important data on it to take with you to the US, or have a self hosted cloud service that you can backup your data to before wiping your device.
You essentially don't have rights at the border (or in general with the current US government).
How can they compel me?
You either unlock it or we send you back.
Can they really deport a US citizen?
Threatening to detain you indefinitely (your rights aren't the same at the border/customs as they are after entering the country), or just outright deny you entry.
I heard they can't actually hold you more than a couple days if you are a citizen./?
Reminds me of getting a notice in Middle School, decades ago, about how a pager was considered "drug paraphernalia"
There was also a big Bloomberg-Era push by the NYPD to arrest any woman carrying condoms on her person, on the grounds that a woman carrying a condom must be a sex worker.
Everything I hear about Bloomberg make me question how he ran as a democrat, and then I remember he fits the democratic party better than anyone else...
Doesn't a Google Pixel device come with its own OS image by default, independent of Graphene OS? Is there some kind of step that we're missing here?
It does, but a lot of people but the pixels specifically to put graphene on it because graphene they're compatible and graphene offers better privacy and security. What I'm getting here is drug dealers are using graphene to dodge digital narcs and it's becoming common enough that the Venn diagram skews heavily to drug dealing.
You can buy them with either stock Android, or Graphene. Meaning you don't need to re flash the device or anything.
You cant buy grapheneos preloaded on anything and doing so would be pretty foolish since it could be backdoored. GraphenOS is aimed at people who value security and privacy, you dont let some rando flash your phone if you value those things.
I think this is incorrect but I could be wrong.
You can not buy a Pixel device preloaded with GrapheneOS. They only come from Google with their standard Android and it's up to the end user to install GrapheneOS. Unless you buy a used Pixel device with GrapheneOS already installed.
If friends asked I would flash their pixel with Graphene, then set it up basically as they would use it for them.
Getting started was complex, your average user won't have a good experience getting their apps added without a power user helping.
I would like to install it someday but I'm afraid of this process
Its really not too complicated. Id recommend doing it using a other phone as the installer rather than a PC though, just goes smoother IMO. Very straightforward web installer, just push buttons alongside the instructions.
What's the complex part?
Hmm, you used to be able to buy them directly from Google, but that doesn't seem to be the case any more.
The police: 'We've encountered a difficulty with our paid spying software. Welp it must be just the criminals.'
Edit: Missed the R and hit the T on our.
pretty much. The original article says that if they have a pixel they have to ask for a warrant
This implies searching other phones don't require warrants?
Yes. Yes it does.
Or more accurately, they can't search your phone without you knowing with GrapheneOS, so they have to get a judge to force you to willing unlock it.
So they follow the laws only on GrapheneOS users. Iirc other up to date phones are also hard to crack especially if it's on first unlock
I don't really know. I operate under the assumption that my phone is always a piece of spyware and minimize what's actually on it or what it can hear.
Without? Even with paid spying software is hard, as far as data forensics go. Going with Pegasus and the likes, you never know, just reboot every 2 hours if you don't mind the hassle.
It's supposed to be kind of sort of federal(ish) (federalish enough, in theory, to keep Catalonia and Euskadi happy enough that we won't want to leave). "States" are called autonomías (autonomies) and have their own government, laws, and institutions, though they still have to obey the Spanish government and most of its laws. It isn't really working.
The article is still wrong when it uses "feds", though, because the cops doing this are the mossos d'esquadra, the Catalan autonomic police, not the "federal(ish)" policía nacional (the Spanish police proper) or guardia civil (despite the name, the military Spanish police, a relic from Franco's dictatorship, like most of the country and its institutions).
Glances at my new Pixel, Welp, I guess I ain't ever goin' to Catalonia. Not that I was planning to go there anyway.
***Tinfoil conspiracy: Maybe this a scare tactic to keep the British out of Spain.
Install Graphene
Installing Graphene doesn't lessen the danger of your Pixel bursting into flames because of the old and dangerous batteries.
become a dealer
Police are not the brightest in any society.
It's a literal job requirement. If you're smart, you're not going to blindly follow orders. Police cognitive testing literally discards candidates that perform well in intellectual tasks. This is not a conspiracy or a joke, it's how police works.
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