Lead GrapheneOS developer was forcibly conscripted into a war
82 comments
·July 16, 2025theamk
tonyhart7
why they don't just said outright???
is that controversial??
bawolff
To me it sounds like they perhaps broadly support the war and maybe even think conscription is necessary, but also are worried about their friend, so they want to post something without creating negative press for the country (i think this would probably most fit if the country in question was Ukraine).
adastra22
There is no upside for them and their users, and lots of potential downside.
spankibalt
It also opens the door to possibly inconvenient discussions with speculations about Graphene's security (referring to both products and org) in relation to, say, Israel, its military, as well as its associated espionage and sabotage efforts (e. g. Pegasus).
The same swings the other way around, i. e. Graphene protecting its devs against any outside threats. Etc.
Hizonner
Are you OK? You don't sound OK.
wiseowise
Afraid to trigger Russian bots? Afraid of backlash in Ukraine? Afraid to “pick a side” in the conflict?
Even though the guy is obviously on the right side of history, it might be problematic for project like Graphene to acknowledge it.
DiogenesKynikos
In Ukraine, it is very dangerous to publicly say things that could be considered critical of the war. There is a real chance of arrest or disappearance by the security services.
yreg
You meant to say in Russia.
bawolff
I mean, afaik there is only one country in the world that is at war and is using conscription (as opposed to reserve forces or voluntary paid contracts)
pyuser583
There are two that come two mind, but one has fairly short terms of duty of to balance these kinds of obligations.
defrost
At least five ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Ukraine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Russia
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/11/myanmars-military-d...
bawolff
As far as i know, Russia mostly stopped using conscription for the ukraine war effort after popular discontent, and now mostly only uses conscripts internally, with most of the russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine being offered large sums of money to "volunteer".
I was initially assuming Israel was relying on reserves for the current war, which seems to be true, but it also sounds like being in the reserves is mandatory so i guess that is conscription with extra steps.
Anyways, i guess your broad point is right.
longfingers
I thought the existential question was the level of doublespeak. Does the country call it war?
wiseowise
Only one of those is fighting existential war.
colordrops
Could be the Israeli army, considering the graphene logo may be a nod to the Star of David.
k4rli
Fortunately not. They have said not Russian or Isra*li
ThePowerOfFuet
The logo is a nod to graphene.
dontleakkeys
And it was founded by a Canadian.
colordrops
No, it's exactly graphene, which could (I didn't say is) be a nod to the Star of David.
bugtodiffer
it said "defensive"
dontleakkeys
Without expressing my opinion on the war in Gaza, supporters of Israel would probably describe it as "existential and defensive."
Pretty, pretty please, let's not debate whether or not this is the case and just acknowledge we can't rule Israel out.
throwaway290
Maybe Israel or Ukraine if they keep "regular communication". On Russian side friend is able to text like once every few weeks I think because of jamming and internet shutdown at the border.
And "diverting somebody away from combat" for this kinda reason sounds not like russian army.
And they saying it is "defensive existential war" is another thing, if this turns out to be Russia GrapheneOS would be on my personal blacklist forever
other8026
This was months ago. The official announcement was in the middle of April. See this response from the official GrapheneOS X account.
> We're in communication with him and he has been diverted away from combat.
closewith
What an odd comment by the person. Why would a software developer of all people be particularly worthy of protection in wartime?
red-iron-pine
if you have an existing skillset they're not going to throw you into the infantry.
odds are the dev is in some sort of signals intelligence unit or doing dev on some sort of drone control system, etc.
ditto for if/when they draft doctors, dentists, welders, etc. -- put people with skills and experience in those fields into areas where they can be used.
doesn't mean the graphine dev ain't working 20 hour days and ain't getting targeted by drones -- just they're not line grunts.
closewith
> if you have an existing skillset they're not going to throw you into the infantry.
There are a lot of highly qualified people in the combat corps.
> ditto for if/when they draft doctors, dentists, welders, etc. -- put people with skills and experience in those fields into areas where they can be used.
Many of which will be very close to the FEBA.
But the Graphene OS commenter seems to be making a moral, not utilitarian, argument, which is both odd and somewhat reprehensible.
jeroenhd
Software development is a common skill, but software security is a niche. I imagine any army can make good use of someone who's an expert in finding (and patching) security holes and coming up with new exploitation techniques (to thwart).
This isn't so much about being worthy of protection as it is about the army dealing the most damage it can. Exploiting software vulnerabilities to disable production (like the Ukranians did for that drone production company) can save as many lives as sending someone to the front can. Breaking into networks to gather OPSEC is crucial for any military operation, offensive or defensive.
alex_duf
software is a useful skill during a war. The same way you probably wouldn't send a doctor to a fight as the doctor is more useful to help with the wounded, a software engineer with an infosec background(as I assume the lead dev of graphene would) could be extremely useful to the war.
jltsiren
Software is a common skill, especially among military-age men. Probably around 5% of those employed in that group have software-related jobs. Doctors are rarer, and they also need more training to become productive, which makes them harder to replace than software developers.
You can argue that a specific individual has specific skills and experience that make them more valuable to the country in a non-fighting role. But software developer is just another common job.
Havoc
Lots of skills are useful during war…
closewith
Many people with useful skills - even useful in wartime - are put in harm's way. Many doctors included in field facilities.
But the commenter seems to be making a moral, not utilitary, argument.
sunshine-o
> Lead GrapheneOS developer was forcibly conscripted into a war
Just this headline should really scare us.
Grapheneos is a fantastic project and we should all support them but recent headlines here on HN make me believe we are just delaying a little what is unavoidable. Meaning, soon you will need:
1/ A common spyware smartphone turned off with your digital ID and banking app or whatever.
2/ Another device you can reasonably trust and use with confidence, hopefully with Internet connectivity.
I do not know what that second device will be:
- probably a PinePhone
- or a ClockworkPi uConsole with cellular modem
- maybe one of those LilyGo T-Deck with cellular modem
The open source community have greatly contributed to the success of Android but today I would rather have the smart people of GrapheneOS working on the real escape plan rather than trying to keep us just a little bit longer in the Google trap.
I understand they are working on their own hardware which is a bold step toward this direction.
other8026
GrapheneOS isn't going anywhere. People keep getting all anxious when they see news and don't seem to understand the facts.
The lead developer was conscripted, but the rest of the development team prepared for Android 16 and the port was completed in a couple of days.
Device-specific repositories were not included by Google this time, so while the port was finished quickly, they had to work around this. And now GrapheneOS has finished the Android 16 port.
So I'm not sure why people need to freak out and start using insecure devices because they _think_ something will happen with no proof. The fact is GrapheneOS is still going strong. And you can see they've been talking about talks with a big OEM on their socials, so even if new Pixels can't be supported in the future, other OEMs are interested.
sunshine-o
To be clear I am freaking out about the Android ecosystem.
As of today I already need an 2 Android phones
1/ One Google Android phone for my banking app with Google Integrity API working
2/ One GrapheneOS phone for everything else
I could switch bank for the 3rd time, sure. But how long can I run away?
So what I meant is hopefully in the future we will have a GrapheneOS hardware device, but they might also need to fork or leave AOSP. Because trying to be in the Google Android ecosystem and out of it at the same time became impossible or too costly.
We can't spent most of our resources trying fit in instead of creating our own path.
jeroenhd
I don't think GrapheneOS supports it, but back in the day I dual-booted my Oneplus One at some point. That solution worked on Windows with DRM and anti-cheat, so it may be a partial solution on Android too. I imagine at some point a ROM might use pKVM to boot a copy of Android that passes Play Integrity checks through the necessary spoofs without altering the host OS.
The Play Integrity API is working. Banking apps rejecting GrapheneOS' hashes has nothing to do with Google Android vs AOSP and everything to do with what the banks decide is an acceptable risk.
GrapheneOS implements everything the Play Integrity API needs and is completely honest about doing so. That's unlike many custom ROMs that lie to Google and spoof a device that doesn't support hardware attestation, which makes many banking apps work.
wiseowise
Why do people jump to conclusion that he is necessarily sent right into the meat grinder?
Army is not only generals and meat waves.
pickledoyster
Indeed, as another comment linked to https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/21819-impact-of-ongoing-war... it seems pretty clear that this is not the case:
> We've used our available connections to try to keep them safe. There's no way to get them out of the conscription. However, they're an incredibly talented security researcher and engineer and it would be extraordinarily misguided to send them to front line combat. This seems to be understood now.
null
FirmwareBurner
>Why do people jump to conclusion that he is necessarily sent right into the meat grinder?
Because they used critical thinking.
>Army is not only generals and meat waves.
Non-meatgrinder related activities don't need to rely on forced conscripts to function since people run away from jobs that are a death sentence, not from those sitting behind the desk in a bunker.
wiseowise
> You can't physically force someone to fly a jet or work in intelligence behind a desk
Sure you do. It’s a job like everything else.
> Because they used critical thinking.
Jumping to conclusions isn’t critical thinking.
FirmwareBurner
>Sure you do. It’s a job like everything else.
Source? What's the on the job performance of those being forced to do something non-meatgrinder related? You're probably not gonna get someone to be an efficient fighter pilot by beating them up, throwing them in a van with a gun to their head. But you can give them a rifle and order them to march since it doesn't take much skill or willingness to fight in order to be an effective bullet sponge.
Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
>Jumping to conclusions isn’t critical thinking.
Correct, which is why I used critical thinking instead of jumping to conclusions.
denkmoon
I wonder how many mess cooks and mechanics are conscripted.
readthenotes1
What makes you think that? Denmark has forced conscription and there's zero trench warfare going on.
dijit
Is Denmark at war? I wasn’t aware.
nudgeOrnurture
> You can't physically force someone to fly a jet or work in intelligence.
Yes, you can. Physical force is rarely necessary, though. It's enough to threaten their family, and show an example, first, like how some specific nerve agent spreads in Uncle Theo's body or what not only the Nazis used to do when they annihilated sex hormone production via Estrogen overload or anti-androgen agents. Want this done to your kids? Bam, jet in the air. I guess it's physical force by proxy.
closewith
In most cases, countries don't even need to do those. Social pressure keeps conscripts in line.
h4kunamata
The "system" hates what they cannot control. GrapheneOS, Proton, all are victim of such direct attack.
I checked the guy GOS mentioned: Robert Braxman. One single photo gives you all the vibes from the guy.
It is the same as "Stop Killing Games" movement with Pirate Software totally against it while spreading misinformation. Bad for him tho, the internet uncovered all the lies and bs, that guy's life is finished lmao
For GOS, they need some serious security analysts to review Robert's doing and exposed everything, just like "Stop Killing Games" heroes did.
Not that we don't trust GOS but the position they are in, make it easy to be judged as "bias" by the media, only them Robert and cia will stop this bs.
graphenecheck
The GrapheneOS author frequently claims to be targeted by many actors, governments, other open source projects...
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS
> GrapheneOS has only ever posted about Braxman in response to his misinformation about us. In his latest video attacking us, he engages in clear libel towards our team.
> GrapheneOS is currently under a state sponsored attack attempting to misrepresent it as being for criminals
> Due to F-Droid deliberately causing friction and annoyances for GrapheneOS users
> There's currently an example of one of these attacks on the project ongoing across Swedish forums and social media.
other8026
Isn't it strange how graphenecheck, draftendirekt, and dontleakkeys were all made less than 6 hours ago and are the only three participating in this discussion? Anyway...
The response to Braxman was after he posted a video calling GrapheneOS's founder crazy and made up a whole bunch of lies about the state of GrapheneOS, then plugged his own product. Clearly trying to damage GrapheneOS while helping himself at the same time. https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114824444524603470
The thread about a state sponsored attack came after a sudden flurry of news articles about GrapheneOS being used by criminals and claims that devices running GrapheneOS have been exploited with 0 evidence https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784469162979608
F-Droid's approach is incorrect. GrapheneOS adds the sensors permission the same way that upstream AOSP adds and splits permissions, so F-Droid blaming GrapheneOS for an issue with their app is incorrect. People should read https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114790171247296048 for more info.
draftendirekt
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draftendirekt
[flagged]
other8026
That's not at all correct. Members of GrapheneOS readily admit when there are things that can be improved, but will call out misinformation when needed.
The fact that you're bringing up the Rossmann video after saying that is very telling. There's a huge difference between technical discussion and what was very clearly an attack by Rossmann. He clearly knew what he was doing. The video was made shortly after GrapheneOS's founder was swatted. He was understandably upset about that and with Rossmann and Rossmann recorded a private conversation and used that to attack not only GrapheneOS, but also its founder in an attempt to harm GrapheneOS's reputation. Louis didn't actually stop using GrapheneOS, so that part was a lie. It's clear that he was still using GrapheneOS in his later videos.
It's pretty low to bring that video up here. If you have a real technical issue with GrapheneOS, then you could bring that up instead.
draftendirekt
[dead]
dontleakkeys
Looks like Micay stepped down as leader of the project in 2023?
giingyui
That’s some damn bad bus factor.
xyzal
[flagged]
wahern
Technically anyone, but it might constitute treason for citizens of at least one country.
triyambakam
The country isn't specified. How do you know?
related post from few months ago: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/21819-impact-of-ongoing-war...
"We avoided specifying the country or war to avoid involving GrapheneOS in a debate on forced conscription in an existential defensive war."
I will follow their wishes and not specify the specific war or side, but this comment gives me all the information to figure it out.