Cops say criminals use a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS – I say that's freedom
353 comments
·July 23, 2025patchtopic
chasil
I have never been to Spain, and I have only slight familiarity with issues in Barcelona and greater Catalonia, but this gives me pause:
"There’s a bitter irony here, too, as GrapheneOS recently pointed out in a tweet. The Spanish region of Catalonia was at the center of the massive Pegasus spyware scandal in 2019.
"Pegasus, a sophisticated surveillance tool sold exclusively to governments, was reportedly used to hack phones belonging to Members of the European Parliament and eavesdrop on their communications. Yet, police in this very region are now scrutinizing savvy Pixel and GrapheneOS users for hardening their devices against unlawful surveillance and other attack vectors."
FirmwareBurner
All this surveillance tech and law enforcement still don't know who the child abusers on the Epstein list/island were.
Something tells me domestic surveillance is only applied to peasants not the wealthy and powerful.
dennis_jeeves2
>Something tells me domestic surveillance is only applied to peasants not the wealthy and powerful.
Well not only surveillance, but also things like 'law', 'constitution', etc. applies only to the peasants.
sitkack
Oh they know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc
ars
Isn't the theory that this is because Clinton was one of them, and he was president at the time?
Even if Trump was one of them, he had no power at that time, so couldn't have done anything to stop (or bury) the surveillance, but Clinton could.
> Something tells me domestic surveillance is only applied to peasants not the wealthy and powerful.
I suspect it's applied to them even more than the rest (ordinary people are not that interesting to surveil), the question actually is what is done with the surveillance afterward.
hluska
Or maybe the democracies at the centre of the Epstein issue have constitutional protections limiting how dragnets get used.
johnisgood
And at the same time:
> GrapheneOS is not immune to exploitation, but the fearmongering done in these ongoing attacks on it is very clearly fabricated. They feel threatened enough by GrapheneOS to engage in coordinated attempts at convincing people that it's unable to protect their privacy and security.
So... they (cops and friends) are saying that GrapheneOS is for criminals, AND that it does not work at protecting anyone's privacy and is not for security. Amazing.
See: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784553445461948 and the rest.
kspacewalk2
Fridges are for criminals too. The very good ones can keep the severed body parts cold for longer, thus preventing spoilage and reports of foul odours from downstairs neighbours. Will Frigidaire and Bosch stop selling this criminal technology to criminals?
TheNewsIsHere
I think the best way to prevent the sale of crime fridges to criminals would be to have national governments integrate the entirety of data that each nation has, from every level, on every citizen. Then we can create an API which market participants like Frigidaire and Bosch can use to query whether a purchase should be permitted based on the purchaser.
/s, if not obvious. Strange times.
sharperguy
A better analogy would be a balaclava. Lots of legitimate uses but it's uncommon to see people wearing them day to day and is very popular with criminals. But we don't imagine we could ban balaclavas to prevent crime.
johnisgood
UK should have an answer to that (see: knives). :D
They really are absurd.
dessimus
Don't forget about range tops: they are used for cooking, and what is "cooked"? Methamphetamines. When will the police stop Big Appliance! /s
qualeed
I think people are misinterpreting your comment? Or I am.
What I think you are saying is:
The police are arguing both sides (in typical fashion). On one side, the police say that GrapheneOS is for criminals because of its privacy, etc. However the police are also trying to convince people that GrapheneOS is not private or secure, in an attempt to sway people from using it.
johnisgood
Yes, the police are arguing both sides, according to what I have read[1], and that they are not doing it in English but in other languages, e.g. Swedish. I am not sure why I am getting down-voted though.
[1] https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784488424006190 and so forth.
t_mahmood
It's like my bank's application, your mobile with all the latest security update is prohibited, because the bootloader is unlocked. But your 6-year-old mobile that received its last security update 3/4 years ago is fine!
NoGravitas
> “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” - Umberto Eco, Ur-Fascism
hluska
This whole thing is quite the stretch. Someone who clearly has no idea what they’re talking about acted like a know it all on a forum. I don’t see how that’s evidence of a coordinated attack. Police saying dumb things about security tech is nothing new either nor is it a smoking gun.
Occam’s razor applies even when we want to believe a cool story.
redeeman
[flagged]
qualeed
>(all) european governments are terrorist organisations
I'm all for criticizing government actions, trust me, but can we try to make thoughtful criticisms that represent reality?
Or, at the very least, if you're going to use terms as heavy as "terrorist organization", can you provide some more rationale? Like, how do you arrive at equating all EU governments to terrorists?
GordonS
When the EU literally supports terrorism, "terrorist organisation" is hard to refute. Of course they do much more than just support terrorism, meddling in democratic elections, eroding our privacy and rights, suppressing free speech and enacting mass surveillance; but still, if the cap fits...
It honestly pains me to write this. For me, for a long time the EU seemed like a protector, enacting rules and regulations that were in the interests of regular citizens. And now, gods, I don't know how we got here.
rdm_blackhole
Maybe not all but most of them probably. May I interest you in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by the French goverment? It was codenamed: Opération Satanique, and was an act of French state terrorism.
Probably the ones we do not know about are worse.
redeeman
because they explicitly aim to terrorize people, telling them that if they do not agree to give >50% of their life to the state, they will be imprisoned and removed from their family. Laws are upheld only for the peasant population while certain classes remain completely outside of the same rules. It is an illegitimate regime that cannot reasonably be thought of in any other way. They rationalize their existence in the same way as the Mafias have done. "hey, pay protection money or we whack you", "hey, you get services for that money" (trash pickup).
Not only that, it endaevors to EXPLICITLY be unfair to people in the application of theft, HEAVILY applying its own extreme bias as to what a good citizen is, in direct opposition to promoting freedom and happyness
immibis
All of them are supporting the terrorist attack on Gaza, aren't they? I think any organization that regularly sponsors terrorist attacks is a terrorist organization - that seems like a reasonable definition to me.
csomar
All governments are authoritarian in nature. Some are just better to live in than the others.
KingOfCoders
"being criminals is a state sponsored attack on the GrapheneOS project."
Yes, I know, age of hyperbole, but a state sponsored attack on the project is mass arrests, blocking of funds etc.
Graphene does their PR, the police does their PR. Both have different views on the world.
BolexNOLA
That's a very high bar for "state sponsored attack." I'd say the various internet ID verification laws being rolled out qualify as a state sponsored attack on our privacy/individual rights writ large.
KingOfCoders
And that's a very low bar for "state sponsored attack". Essentially everything you disagree with that the state does is a "state sponsored attack." This muddies the waters and when there is a "state sponsored attack" on a group of people, everyone is numb and we're out of words.
fracus
The argument "why do you care about your privacy if you have nothing to hide" needs to be addressed. The problem with this argument is you don't decide what you need to hide or not, the authorities do, and we all know authorities can be corrupted. Just look at the US government right now for example A.
Just as an example. You are gay. You live in a gay friendly place. Until one day, a new government takes office that will incarcerate gay people. They now have access to every one's phones who previously had nothing to hide.
arcanemachiner
You don't even have to go that far. Just ask them for their banking information, passwords, and maybe some naked photos of them to top it off.
Everyone has something to hide... unless there's something utterly wrong with them.
betadeltic
Agreed, I once read someone put it like this: Saying you have nothing to hide, so you don't care about privacy is like saying you have nothing to say, so you don't care about freedom of speech. In both cases the ramifications are far reaching.
Tyyps
The anti-privacy movement in Europe is really concerning. In particular as general population don't really care about it, we are going toward some major shifts. I'm wondering though how this radical turn was initiated and if some lobbies are pulling the strings behind the scene...
dobremeno
Not just in Europe, in the US too - Roman Storm is on trial as of last week for building a privacy tool that ended up getting used by criminals.
Not much good coverage on it out there apart from the great work by The Rage journalists.
omdv
will save a google search for some: - “privacy tool” == cryptocurrency mixer - “ended up getting used by criminals” == claimed to help launder $1b
Let’s just say it is in a different category than Alexandra Elbakyan.
dobremeno
It's just a neutral tool, open for everyone to use. There's plenty of people that used the tool for completely legitimate reasons, simply wanting to protect their privacy just like GrapheneOS users.
Why is the creator of this tool being held responsible for how others use it? That's like dragging Henry Ford to court the moment a car driver runs someone over.
buuuuutee
Roman Storm helped North Korea launder billions. That’s a bit different than average person just wanting a phone detached from the hivemind.
dobremeno
That's like saying Adi Shamir helps drug cartels, Tim Berners-Lee helps facilitate online fraud or that Henry Ford helped kill millions of people on the road.
All these people created tools that could be used by anyone. Encryption, the Internet, cars. All have legitimate uses cases just like Tornado Cash does.
To me, not wanting to have all of your public blockchain transactions linked to you is actually quite similar to wanting a phone detached from the hivemind - all you want is a bit of privacy.
0points
> In particular as general population don't really care about it
> if some lobbies are pulling the strings
Sure looks like it. Many people don't understand the consequences of the ChatControl proposition (backdoors for governments into all messaging apps) [1].
Politicians insists it is only about protecting kids from predators online, but see for example Sweden:
* Police and secret police will have this access for swedish citizens.
* Secret police have an agreement with NSA about data sharing (see Snowden).
* NSA will end up storing all my DM:s.
* Another country also have an agreement with NSA about data sharing.
* This other country will find out about my sexual orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their country.
All of this will be outside of control from my country or the laws of my country (Sweden), that is supposed to protect my free speech [2] and anti discrimination laws [3].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_to_Prevent_and_Comb...
2: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/sven...
3: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/sven...
F*k Ylva Johansson:
> Research by several newspapers led to allegations of questionable connections between Johansson and her staff and companies that would benefit financially from her proposal, including Thorn and WeProtect.
> Johansson rejected the accusations as being untrue, true but not illegal and as not even being accusations.
> Her claim to have given data protection organizations the same access as to the backers of her proposal was rejected as untrue by several organizations and members of the EU parliament. Johansson reacted to growing rejection of her proposal by ordering commercial advertisement on Twitter paid for with EU funds. The advertisement was criticized as being misleading and illegal according to the EU's rules for targeted advertisement. [4]
4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylva_Johansson#Surveillance_of...
johnisgood
> This other country will find out about my sexual orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their country.
That is literally going to put people's lives at risk. Crazy.
edg5000
Agreed. Although to be the devil's advocate for a moment: Governments can currently easily tap email, and phone tapping is more feasible at scale due to machine transcription. So the apps gave use a temporary safe haven, which may get compromised by Chat Control. And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.
0points
> And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.
At least in my country, there has been serious laws protecting the users from police opening letters (1962:700; Postlagens tystnadsplikt). This was changed in January 2023 because people exploited it to send drugs thru post office [1].
Of course without any protests in Sweden because again people don't realize their rights to privacy are taken away from them.
1: https://www.svenskhandel.se/nyheter/nyhet/lagandring-ger-moj...
JoshTriplett
The devil doesn't need an advocate here. "Temporary safe haven" is the kind of phrasing the advocates of anti-privacy policies use to argue that this "temporary" state of affairs should be destroyed.
bee_rider
> And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.
This is the source of some massive disconnects between people and their governments, I think. They had some permission, which we basically agreed on as a society, when their tampering was obvious and/or limited in scale (just due to practical constraints). We gave our consent to be governed with those constraints in mind.
Nowadays they are continuing without those implicit constraints and they don’t want to have the conversation about implementing new explicit constraints. This isn’t the deal we agreed to, really, it is just what they can get away with without permission. You can rule over a populace without their permission, of course—it’s just very different from the sort of pleasant (albeit never perfect) relationship that willing populations and their elected officials have had recently.
jajko
One can't rely on some sort of 'decency' of a given country and hope for the best, that ship has long sailed.
You mention Sweden, I can easily also name Switzerland, the land of generally very decent, moral and polite people. Yet sometimes curtains falls off a bit and one can see how various police departments will do everything possible to track and follow people. Police are generally very nice but I've also seen some unprovoked brutality and generally less-than-stellar behavior by various authorities that should know and do better.
Protect what you can, while you can. No state is your friend, its not normally an outright enemy but rather a party focused on its own interests, your rights or needs be damned.
0points
Yea, I started using ProtonVPN specifically because they are placed in Switzerland.
Switzerland is not in EU, not in 12-eyes, not in any of that shit.
I'm sure they are up to no good, too but at least the distance between them and NSA is farther, I hope.
lo_zamoyski
> Police are generally very nice but I've also seen some unprovoked brutality
The so-called israelization[0] of the police. Certainly you see that in the US. If you compare the local police, say, 50 years ago with their counterparts today, you definitely notice a strong militarization. That may be appropriate for special units handling dangerous cases, but it should not characterize the rank and file that handle petty crime or public disorder.
> No state is your friend, its not normally an outright enemy but rather a party focused on its own interests
The state is the only recourse of the common man against powerful private interests. In this case (surveillance, etc), private interest has been used as a way to get around the legal limitations of government. Companies like Google and Facebook can track people with greater ease than the government can.
[0] https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-polic...
PeppySteppy
You are misleading by using "secret police" when what you are are looking for is the "security police".
Secret police definition [1]
> Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence, or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
Security police definition [2]
> In some countries, security police is the name given to the secret security and intelligence services charged with protecting the state at the highest level, including responsibilities such as personal protection of the head of state, counter-espionage, and anti-terrorism.
Specific example for Swedish 'Security Police'.[3] if you look up any EU agency with similar roles it will be found that they are all security, not secret.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police
NoGravitas
The distinction between "counter-espionage" and "covert operations against a government's political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents" is historically extremely permeable.
0points
Okay, I was not aware of this distinction. Thanks for correcting me!
FWIW, the distinction is not as clear cut to me. In the 1970s, the ruling government body (social democrats) passed on information in order to make registers of political opponents in the far left and far right to SÄPO.
More of that part here: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4kerhetspolisen#%C3%96ve...
The Nixon watergate scandal was also similar to your first definition there.
rdm_blackhole
Also to add to this discussion, to me, it makes zero sense that you would deploy such a system that could be weaponized by a rogue government to hunt down political opponents.
One could argue that they may very well think that this sort of thing could never happen, that the center will always prevail etc... but then again I remember seeing this video compilation of a lot of very confident people in the US saying that Trump would never be president a few months before the 2016 election, let alone be elected for a second term.
So that makes me think, how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always be in charge?
Because from where I am standing there is a massive chance that Reform will win in the UK and that the National Rally will win in France in 2027.
Nobody can say that they did not know.
heavyset_go
They don't care, what they're absolutely terrified is another Arab Spring happening at home.
The bet is that no matter who is in power, the ruling classes won't find themselves under the boot, which is a pretty good bet to make. Beats a revolution, in their eyes.
hollerith
A person doesn't need to be elite to be terrified that something like Arab Spring will happen in their own country: the Arab Spring was really terrible for ordinary people: millions violently killed, millions of refugees, over ten million made homeless. In Syria, the mass killing is still going on.
(I'm surprised anyone still calls it the Arab Spring now that we know how disastrously turned out.)
Ray20
>how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always be in charge?
They implement such systems precisely to always be in charge.
rdm_blackhole
Of course lobbies are pulling the strings. That is a given.
But the more nefarious issue is that countries that use to uphold human rights and the rights to privacy for their citizens up until 10 to 15 years ago have made a complete U-turn.
And before someone says that this is due to the far-right getting into power, this has really nothing to do with it.
It simply is blatant attempt at muzzling the population. The worst part is that you still have European governments who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.
I could see how Hungary would want to get this passed because they are well on their way to authoritarianism but this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center, that makes zero sense.
graemep
> The worst part is that you still have European governments who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.
They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a China. We look good in comparison.
> this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center
Is it? Its the only country in the world with a constitutional commitment to privatisation (its in the treaties, which are the constitution, and came close to being called a constitution).
rdm_blackhole
> Its the only country in the world
The EU is not a country. It may very well be in 50 years from now but not presently.
> > this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center
I said `supposedly`.
> They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a China. We look good in comparison.
Not if they go through with this proposal. You can't claim to be a bastion of democracy and want/need to spy on your citizens 24/7. These 2 notions are just not compatible.
silveraxe93
Everyone is commenting as if this is an attack on privacy. Read the article, I might have missed it, but I saw literally nothing on this. The main point is that police are profiling people using Pixel phones. Nothing about making it illegal, or trying to remove encryption.
Look, I literally have a Pixel phone running Mullvad. I care about privacy. But everyone here is reading the headline and arguing against a strawman.
This should be a discussion on how valid it is for police to profile people. Or maybe if it's actually true that drug dealers are using GrapheneOS. Europe _is_ attacking encryption and privacy. But this is not it.
Aurornis
> The main point is that police are profiling people using Pixel phones. Nothing about making it illegal, or trying to remove encryption.
I had to click through several links to get to this part.
It’s an off-hand comment from a single police person who was trying to make some point.
The android news sites are getting a lot of mileage out of that single comment from a single person.
whoami730
It is about running a false campaign to say using Graphene OS is the same as being a criminal.
Aurornis
The original quote was a comment from one police representative about Pixel phones being the preferred choice of narco traffickers in their region.
All of the extrapolation about people using GrapheneOS globally feels like journalists trying to squeeze as much hype as they can get out of this one sound bite from one police rep in one area.
dmix
Critiquing police for doing fishing expeditions, where they cast a broad net in hopes to catch criminals among a large batch of regular people has long been a thing.
standardUser
I'll take it even farther - this should be a discussion about what constitutes crime, and how a system that didn't criminalize common, victimless acts would have such a small pool of criminals to deal with that widespread demonization of this or that technology wouldn't be neccesary.
DrScientist
> This should be a discussion on how valid it is for police to profile people.
Exactly - though in this case I'm not sure what that means - if they 'feel more alert and suspicious' - that's just going on in their head ( pretty difficult to control that ). If on the other hand it means you are constantly getting stopped and searched that's another issue - but then you could argue that's then argument about the stop and search rules in whatever country.
ie what counts as reasonable grounds for the police to take concrete action.
constantcrying
>The main point is that police are profiling people using Pixel phones. Nothing about making it illegal, or trying to remove encryption.
How can you think that profiling people based on their phones is not harmful to privacy?
In most western countries surveillance requires prior evidence of wrongdoing, if your phone brand or phone OS can be used as evidence that you might be engaging in criminal activity, that is of course a danger to privacy. It should be normal that people use Software and Hardware that respects their privacy and desiring privacy should never, by itself, be allowed to be evidence of criminal intentions.
graemep
> In most western countries surveillance requires prior evidence of wrongdoing
Less and less so. Take a look at the way the laws are going in the UK and the EU.
pessimizer
> This should be a discussion on how valid it is for police to profile people. Or maybe if it's actually true that drug dealers are using GrapheneOS.
Why can't it be a discussion about how valid it is for police to use the desire for privacy as a basis for profiling? Is that not allowed?
Are you saying that we're required to either talk about:
1) whether the police should profile anyone at all for any reason (why not this particular reason again?), or
2) whether Spanish criminals desire privacy, and therefore more often choose GrapheneOS than other groups of people (is this controversial? Is it worth discussing? Can't we just take the Spanish police's word for such an unsurprising data point?)
Those are our only two choices? If so, than the conclusion is foregone. Police will be allowed to profile criminals and suspicious people, and criminals will attempt to refuse monitoring and searches.
I'd rather talk about whether refusing to be monitored or searched can be allowed to become official grounds for state suspicion, though. Even without your support.
pyuser583
It seems they're profiling based on specific local conditions. Not many folks are installing graphene in their area, but there are lots of criminal gangs that do.
The situation would be different in, say, Silicon Valley. But they're dealing with the world they're in.
walterbell
Is disparagement of GrapheneOS good or bad for privacy?
silveraxe93
Arguments shouldn't be soldiers[1]. In fact, this I'd say this is harmful to privacy.
If you start caring more about how it supports your side rather than the truth, you're playing politics. And in that battlefield you'll lose to eurocrats.
perihelions
This is all based off a one-line quote, by one police officer, interviewed anonymously in one newspaper in its "society" column. I don't want to go against the feeding frenzy, but, I think this one's a bit over-interpreted.
https://es.ara.cat/sociedad/sucesos/guerra-tecnologica-movil... ("Guerra tecnológica: el móvil de los narcos contra los troyanos de la policía")
or https://www.ara.cat/societat/successos/guerra-tecnologica-mo... ("Guerra tecnològica: el mòbil dels narcos contra els troians de la policia")
> "Cada vegada que veiem un Google Pixel pensem que pot ser un narcotraficant"
(You'd have to navigate through four layers of links to find this: two layers of androidauthority linking to itself, then through xatakandroid, then finally you get to the primary source, the Catalan-language daily Ara. Though, for reasons, it's linking to a Spanish-language machine translation of the Catalan original—the "es." subdomain, which says Traducción no verificada at the top. So, we're five levels removed from the primary source, which is one sentence, which has gone through two rounds of machine translation (ca -> es -> en)).
fkyoureadthedoc
Sorry I'd rather just read the title and then start arguing against my fantasy
MurkyLabs
I use grapheneOS, it's the reason I bought a pixel but not for nefarious reasons but rather I don't like how much control Google has (it's ironic I had to buy a google phone) on android phones even from other manufacturers and the targeted marketing and information that I would be giving out. I also don't like that Android implimented the feature where you couldn't access the Android>Data folder for 'security reasons' and have to plug it into a computer to access any of those sub folders, it's my phone let me do what I want with it. Graphene lets me access any of those folders without issue
theandrewbailey
> I don't like how much control Google has (it's ironic I had to buy a google phone) on android phones even from other manufacturers and the targeted marketing and information that I would be giving out.
To a normie non-tech person, buying a several hundred dollar Google phone, only to delete Google from it sounds stupid, like you've set your money on fire.
Yes, I recently bought a Pixel and immediately installed GrapheneOS.
nicman23
the fact that they refuse to consider other phones ie fairphone or nothing phones that have the bootloader relockable is the reason that i do not use graphene.
it seems like a great os but i am not giving google money to get away from google.
christophilus
Swappa is your friend. A used pixel doesn’t directly give Google money.
subscribed
Fairphone is dangerously insecure. Nothing phone is not much better.
It's not only the design of the hardware, but also patches for vulnerabilities and delivering updates for several years.
You're suggesting it's ideological (which is completely untrue), while the fact is: pixels are at the very moment the only Android hardware secure enough to even care about hardening: https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
(there's little sense in securing the OS if the hardware doesn't allow disconnecting the USB or there is no secure element throttling PIN attempts, right?)
evrimoztamur
Source on Fairphone being insecure? I'm moving to Android app development and considered it for repairability/mission factors.
StrLght
They don't refuse other manufacturers, it's quite the opposite -- GrapheneOS provides list of requirements for future device support. AFAIK Fairphone and Nothing don't fit more than a few requirements from this list.
subscribed
Oh, I forgot to add and can't edit my comment, so: they are talking with another OEM about the potential alternative hardware for the future GOS.
I hope it's something good. But in reality it's probably Samsung which is the only other vendor bothered enough to add a basic secure element. Maybe they will upgrade it?
umbra07
Do you have a source for this?
beeforpork
> One could say the same thing about matchboxes being used for arson and cash being used for money laundering, but no one’s calling on regulators to outlaw either.
Matchboxes -- OK. But cash is certainly a target. It is also relatively easy to push, as using a card is so much easier! Look at Sweden and presumably other countries where cash is basically gone. And no (loud) protests from privacy advocates that it is even hard to get cash today. I will just use an app to lend you 10 EUR for the beer.
Also throughout the world, using cash is only possible legally up to a given amount (a few thousand EURs ATM, but still) -- because large sums of cash are suspicious. Of course large amounts of money are suspicious because only criminals would even want to pay large amounts of money, right? Like, pay for a car or a vacation, or pay rent or taxes.
Speaking of which, in many countries, it is basically impossible to pay taxes in cash, although technically, it should be allowed. Like in Germany. Or pay for a bus ticket in cash. But some poor souls don't have a bank account. Hmm...
Some countries deanonymize cash by embedding RFID chips (e.g., Australia).
Of course it is not done for surveillance, but only for good goals.
BLKNSLVR
I installed GrapheneOS just recently and I'm in the process of migrating all my various apps to it.
I like my privacy and I'm also incredibly boring if anyone cares to track my interests and activities. I choose privacy to save the authorities wasting any more of their precious time and resources on little ol' me. And to minimise the value any vampiric tech company may be able to squeeze out of me.
In my limited, but specific, experience, the police will latch on to anything that makes an individual stand out from the vanilla drones as "evidence enough". So be warned. If you're feeling rebellious though, GrapheneOS will scratch a certain itch.
teroshan
You also do it to protect your friend and family, by for example sandboxing your contacts to prevent them from being shared with the messaging app you need to use to keep in touch with a specific group.
johnisgood
I cannot say I am surprised. You care about your privacy -> you are a criminal. "If you are not a criminal, you have nothing to hide.". sighs.
I wish people realized that privacy and civil liberties exist regardless of guilt. Rights like freedom of speech, due process, and privacy aren't just for people doing something wrong. They're foundational protections that exist to prevent abuse (by cops, too).
zeta0134
I maintain that if the NSA ever really needs to know something, if I somehow possess critical knowledge in a legitimate matter of national security, they are welcome to visit. (They'll have to settle for coffee, I'm not much of a tea drinker.) In this way, I really do have nothing to hide. But I do insist on knowing about it in the moment.
Outside of that very narrow context, they may kindly deal with my communications being secured by default, because if there is a path they can use to decrypt my data, the criminals can also find, exploit, and use that same path. Rather easily, as it turns out. (See: various data breaches, password leaks, company after company getting caught with unsecured S3 buckets containing encryption keys, etc etc.) It's not the law I'm hiding from, but those individuals who would steal every one of my digital assets given the opportunity.
In the specific context of Android, the thing I'm trying to dodge isn't even legal snooping or criminal activity, but specifically marketing. Google is terribly interested in my browsing habits, and so having my smartphone not run their services at all is an excellent way to reduce that flow of information from my device to a third party that I don't particularly trust.
simpaticoder
Avoiding marketing surveillance is both reasonable and increasingly sought after; consider how many mainstream services now offer paid options just to reduce data collection by advertisers.
Modern surveillance states operate on the premise that every individual, out of billions worldwide, could become a potential threat. To manage this, governments have developed and deployed mass surveillance technologies that far exceed the scope of traditional law enforcement. This environment results in routine circumvention—both legal and extra-legal—of civil liberties and privacy protections, such as the 4th amendment, in the name of national security.
We saw this play out dramatically with the Snowden revelations, which exposed systemic, warrantless collection of communications by agencies such as the NSA. Surveillance is not conducted only for clear national emergencies. It is often routine, preemptive, and opportunistic—and the scale is massive, not targeted only at 'bad actors'.
This reality creates a profound power imbalance. Those who control surveillance infrastructure possess the ability—and in some cases, the legal clearance—to act against individuals or groups for reasons ranging from strategic interests to petty personal motives. There have been numerous documented cases of abuse of surveillance powers by insiders seeking to settle personal scores and, internationally, governments using this capability to quash dissent (for example, China’s censorship and criminalization of government criticism)
Once the technology and precedent for ubiquitous surveillance are in place, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate use blurs dangerously. The potential for abuse is inherent, especially when oversight is weak or accountability is lacking, which is everywhere.
While companies like Google pose significant privacy concerns and “opting out” of their ecosystems is prudent for reducing commercial data exploitation, the larger threat comes from the normalization of universal, warrantless surveillance by state actors.
potato3732842
>Modern surveillance states operate on the premise that every individual, out of billions worldwide, could become a potential threat.
Because these states are so extractive of their populace and engage in so much evil that any given person constitutes a potential threat. They're worried that anyone could just wake up one day and decide to be the next uncle Ted or whatever.
kristianc
One of life's bizarre contradictions that it's largely down to Google that some of the most egregious and shady third party techniques for tracking and fingerprinting devices that dominated the 2010s no longer work.
soulofmischief
Not just criminals. Your own government can be co-opted and suddenly things like IRS records for honest taxpayers become weaponized deportation lists.
BLKNSLVR
Don't forget supply chain attacks opening doors and windows all over the shop.
gosub100
I think what this is really about is the ability to manipulate elections. Panopticon surveillance means it will inevitably dig up dirt on a presidential or other candidate somewhere down the line. Then once they have a shot at winning, pull them aside and say "do what we say and you can maybe win, or we can force your loss now when the story breaks about how you used the n word once in 8th grade"
4bpp
I would go further and say that even if these things are for criminals, that is okay; and allowing some amount of criminal activity is necessitated by the basic humility of conceding that we might not have figured out the best set of rules for humanity to live under.
It might be appealing to fantasise about catching all the criminals and stopping all their dastardly deeds, but where would we be now if our governments had this capability 30 years ago? ...90? ...270? Would we be happier today if the last 1000 years had passed completely free of theft, murder, pederasty, and also free of blasphemy, heresy and challenges to the divine right of kings? Today, we are grateful for the actions of many a disgusting criminal that would have been condemned by any respectable and well-adjusted member of society (including you, had you lived then) at the time. Who knows which ones of today's criminals we will be thanking 30 years into the future?
FergusArgyll
If I am not a criminal you should not need to tap my phone
lo_zamoyski
The idea that privacy is only for those doing something evil is so brain damaged, I cannot understand how anyone took that seriously.
No, privacy is for protecting good things from evil people. And frankly, it's more than that. Privacy is necessary even when no evil intent exists in either the observer or the observed. It is necessary for various relationships to flourish and for human beings to flourish. It isn't good for your neighbors to watch you making love with your wife, or for you to watch them doing so. Social boundaries are important. Failing to respect them is to claim an authority you do not have.
It's similar to the principle of subsidiarity: you want the right people involved in the right things at the right times. Removing privacy smushes everything together, and I claim that this flattening effect is one of the reasons for the mental illness that's catalyzed by social media.
osigurdson
[flagged]
dang
Please don't do tropes like this here. You can make your substantive points without that.
bigstrat2003
The course you suggest would itself damage the social fabric of democracy. Not really a good idea, though it might be cathartic.
LocalH
It's like the tolerance of intolerance.
johnisgood
I wanted to reply to him "that would definitely make me a criminal".
lo_zamoyski
It's not a specifically "democratic" thing. It's a moral question, and good monarchies that are grounded in a strong moral tradition and a respect for subsidiarity can be much better at resisting the ebb and flow of mass sentiment manipulated by the media. The war on terror showed us how easily fear can be deployed to get the masses to hurt themselves, and revolutions show how envy and grievance can be deployed in a similar fashion.
ponorin
GrapheneOS lost me on PR. For every updates they post on their social media there's guaranteed to be a rant about how other projects are doing things Wrong. They talk down on any and every security- and privacy-related projects (or open-source projects in general) if they align even slightly out of line according to their idea of security and privacy, regardless of their own merit. Dig even deeper they also like throwing around the word "slander" and "attack" without backing it up. In fact I am certain I will be greeted with a friendly wall of text by somebody from GOS in this very thread sooner rather than later.
GrapheneOS is the most secure, arguably most private, hell the most feature-complete, user-friendly custom ROM (but they also hate the word "custom ROM") out there. I've imported a Pixel, because it wasn't available in my country, just to use GOS. So it is deeply frustrating that they are doing things the way they do. Hubris is their longest-standing, "wontfix"-labelled vulnerability.
craftkiller
FWIW I think its good to elaborate on how other projects are doing things incorrectly (though I agree the GOS people could use some diplomacy and decorum). For example, with the fairphones for the longest time the only answer you could get on why grapheneos doesn't support it is that the phone is not secure. That answer doesn't leave me informed, all it leaves me with is "someone on the internet told me it wasn't secure". For the newest fairphone 6 they actually elaborated and covered things like the lack of a secure element. That leaves me informed, so now I can look up what a secure element is, why I want it, and then make an informed decision for my next cellphone purchase.
subscribed
I looked it up (as in spent a last few weeks going through the forum and PRs) and when they say "slander", it's backed up.
When they say other projects are insecure, this is for example because of the claims /e/OS based on the utterly insecure hardware and two major versions of AOSP, unpatched, is touting itself as a leading project in the privacy landscape.
I don't think they talk down any security - related project and I've never seen the generalised "they talk down on (...) open-source projects in general" - this is what I would myself call slander, because tbh it's dogs bollocks.
"Slander" or "attack" is said when there are baseless accusations (like above about attacking, quote, "any and every security-- and privacy-related project") because they don't have outlets or big money behind them which would simply state the facts and call out the accusations.
If you have examples of theese words "thrown" without basis (ie without sustained prior attacks on GOS), I'm sure every interested person would like to see it. If you wanted to show the examples of the innumerable privacy- or security-related projects that are _attacked_ by GOS, please share examples.
There are multiple so-called privacy and security related projects which are known for the sustained and baseless bad messages, and these don't get a pass, because it's clear it's intentional and in the bad faith.
Valuable projects and services are promoted and recommended based on merit and not favours (eg: they can argue based on facts why installing apps from accrescent or Google play store is generally safer than from the F-droid).
They don't hate the "custom ROM", they explain why it's a misnomer - and you using it here after saying they hate it (and either not knowing or not caring why it's wrong) is clearly an act in the bad faith :)
I struggle to see an attempt in the factual reporting in your post. The only thing I could connect over is their attitude in certain situations, but..... the rest of your post is just.... incorrect?
1shooner
I don't need PR from my free mobile OS developer. I just need regular secure updates, which they seem to do a good job providing.
nelblu
Happy GrapheneOS user here since 3+ years now. What's next now? People can't fucking use Linux because Microsoft or Apple can't spy on it?
Aachen
Next, as countries are requiring more and more age verification online, the EU accidentally outlaws GrapheneOS by introducing an age verification system that requires an OS certified by Google or Apple. https://chaos.social/@luc/114860815364169550
You're free to run GrapheneOS or Windows or whatever, so long as you also have a device that is attested to be untampered by Google Play or Apple's equivalent
Graphene replied in that thread (just ctrl+f for them), saying "Unfortunately, the EU is adopting the Play Integrity API enforcing having a Google Mobile Services device instead. We've repeatedly raised this issue with the EU Commission and many apps including ones tied to this specific project. We've never been given reasoning why they can't use the hardware attestation API instead."
I'm personally not so keen on that lesser DRM requirement either, since it's just another level of gatekeeping: ok now it's not only Google/Apple but also a few OSes that meet ?some? requirements, but e.g. GrapheneOS also doesn't unilaterally let me access data on my device, maintaining that full access is dangerous and cannot be allowed -- yeah, I'll agree data is safer when I can't even access it myself, seeing how much malware goes around for NT/Linux distributions where you can have root, but I'd still much rather live in a world where I'm the root on my systems. But anyway, that's maybe another discussion, the broader point is that even GrapheneOS can't talk sense into the EU with their lesser-but-still-DRM option
subscribed
You can fairly easily build and flash a rooted version of GOS yourself.
They just don't support it because it's an immense risk (in my opinion as well).
The other thing, reliable backup is slowly in the making. As I understand there's not enough devs to work on it right now.
Aachen
> You can fairly easily build and flash a rooted version of GOS yourself.
This won't be signed with the right attestation key because I'm not them.
My understanding is that attestation is tied to the distribution's private key, so this government software wouldn't trust my version of the OS, assuming the govt could be made to understand Android's attestation framework is a vendor-neutral way to achieve the same goal (whatever goal that may be). With a rooted GOS, I'd still need another device, tied to my government identity, of which I can't verify what it's doing, much less control it
krunck
In a true democracy where government serves the people, the people would be opaque to the government and the government would be transparent(nothing to hide) to the people. As we can't impose transparency on government, we can at least obtain opacity for ourselves.
jraph
I do like that the government has entities that thwart attacks, and I'm not sure full transparency for these entities works well for everything.
Of course, I don't want this to be used as an argument to mass spy on the people.
lokar
Throughout history one of the most popular things people want government to do is oppress and police other people.
zetanor
If the will of the people is to be trampled, then the people is to be trampled. True democracy is not mass democracy.
hollywood_court
Agreed. It's wild to realize that the current US administration campaigned on the promise that they would provide transparency regarding certain matters. Yet now they're doing everything they can to combat transparency for those same matters.
GrapheneOS says
"European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're something for criminals. GrapheneOS is opposed to the mass surveillance police state these people want to impose on everyone"
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784469162979608
State employees in their official capacity making inaccurate claims to media about GrapheneOS to smear it as being for criminals and as the users as largely being criminals is a state sponsored attack on the GrapheneOS project.
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114813613250805804