this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
783 points (99.7% liked)
Privacy
32442 readers
908 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Your options are:
Apple phone
Bloated android phone like Samsung etc.
Chinese android phone (xiami etc)
Google phone with Android
Google phone with graphene. This still looks like the best of those options.
Or no phone? I guess people are hardcore enough that will be the option.
Edit: I stand corrected.
Fairphone? Swiftphone? eOS? Linuxphone? PostmarketOS etc?
Is swiftphone its own thing or did you mean shiftphone? I kinda want the shiftphone 8 myself even if they only ship to neighboring countries of mine.
Ah sorry, you're right. I meant shiftphone.
There's always package forwarding. I'm about to find out how bad an idea that is.
All of these are insecure as hell. Linux phones especially https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux-phones.html
Fairphone also really fucked up: They signed their own OS with the publicly available (!) AOSP test signing keys. These guys really don't know that they're doing, and I would trust their hardware or software whatsoever. And no, installing a custom ROM doesn't solve this. Considering how bad their security practices are, we genuinely have to assume that there are security issues with the device firmware as well.
/e/OS is based on the already insecure LineageOS, and it weakens the security further, so it's not a good option either.
None of the options you mentioned can be compared to GrapheneOS. It's currently the best option if you value your privacy and security. You don't have to give Google money either, since you can just buy a used device, which is also cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Google also makes repairing their devices pretty easy for consumers and even works with iFixit. Here's a Mastodon post I recently saw about that: https://social.linux.pizza/@midtsveen/113630773097519792
An used Pixel, assuming I can find one in my country, still costs four (4) times what I need to shell out for a in-market Lineage compatible phone.
Theoretical security is cute, but it has to be adjusted to practical feasibility. The most secure computer in the world is useless to you if you can't boot it up.
Security-wise you're better off using whatever OS comes with your device (as long as it gets updates) than downgrading to LineageOS. At least most smartphone vendors (except for Fairphone) manage to ship their Stock OS with a locked bootloader and somewhat working Verified Boot.
So, Android 9 / 10?
I'm sure not as heck going to spend zillions on a new phone (or a hard-to-find used one) when the one I have still works perfectly.
In that case, no. I assumed we were talking about up-to-date devices.
Well, on my phone that back in stock could only do up to Android 10, Lineage gives me Android 11 (maybe 12, haven't checked) so it's still a serious win.
Now, if you insist that I shall have an up-to-date device from the official manufacturer with all the bloatware, same planned obsolescence and zero control, or even worse a 4× overpriced Pixel, maybe you are so assured of this superiority that you'd be willing to fund it?
I use cheap motorola phone with lineage OS, add that to your options
I don't think LOS has any privacy/security improvements over the stock android?
(IIRC) it's even worse than stock because you can't lock the bootloader after installation.
Though if your phone isn't getting official updates, it's probably safer with LOS.
There's also the Lineage-based DivestOS that attempts to keep up with more security updates, and relocking the bootloader in phones that support it.
https://divestos.org/
Yeah, I myself am using CalyxOS, because DivestOS doesn't support the Fairphone 5 unfortunately. CalyxOS also has relocking.
Calyx also comes with MicroG, right? So mitigates many problems with a bit more Google.
And Fairphone 4 here, partly for Divest (had it on Oneplus 6 before this and just used to it), partly because of a good deal for a barely used one.
(IMHO) CalyxOS is a good balance between security and usability. Better than LineageOS, worse than GrapheneOS (and DivestOS).
Amen to that. Everyone has their own balance point, Calyx seems to hit that for many.
Forgot to say that yes, CalyxOS does have microG, though you don't need to log into Google to download apps from Aurora. Login is only required for apps from Google (like maps, gmail etc).
I also got the Fairphone 5 because of the used price! Mine was 300€ with a slightly burned in screen (it was used as a store display model), though I only notice it when on a completely white screen and looking for it.
Physical access is game over anyway?
Not with GrapheneOS, since you can entirely disable the USB controller from the settings on a driver level, making it impossible to connect the phone to a forensic data extraction device. GrapheneOS also has a convenient auto-reboot feature, which (together with their patches to the Linux kernel and Fastboot recovery OS to include memory zeroing) erases the encryption keys from memory, putting the device in BFU state and requiring the PIN/password to unlock. This is additionally secured by the Titan M2 secure element, which makes use of the Weaver API and drastically throttles brute-force unlock attempts. https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption
Some cool features, wonder what backdoors google have put in the hardware
Those conspiracy theories often come up in discussions here on Lemmy, but the TLDR is: Google is a tiny player in the smartphone market, compared to vendors like Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and others (https://www.statista.com/chart/25463/popularity-of-google-smartphones/). They also serve a much smaller geographical region than most other manufacturers. The Pixel 9 lineup, for example, is only sold in 32 countries. Most of those are wealthy industrial nations. Google doesn't even try to assume market share in developing countries in Africa and Asia. It can also be assumed that over 97% of Google Pixel users keep the Stock Pixel OS, where Google doesn't need a hardware backdoor since they can just implement it in software. So that leaves only a tiny fraction of all users: people in some wealthy industrial nation who specifically buy a Pixel to install a custom ROM. GrapheneOS for example has about 300K users. Do you really think Google would put in the effort to create a hardware backdoor and take all the risk associated with it (negative PR, loss of sales, etc.) just to collect some data about this tiny amount of users? Google already controls EVERY Android phone on the market by forcing vendors to include Google Play Services as a system application through their contracts, licensing and monopolistic market position. Be realistic for a second, and you will realize that your backdoor theories make absolutely no sense and that no business in the world would ever take such a huge risk with such little reward.
Bare in mind the chipset is the Google Tensor G4, they already had to design and build their own hardware. We don't know everything it can do
Neither do we know this about any other CPU on the market. All chipsets on the market are proprietary. All of them. And no, despite many people (who don't know anything about what they are talking about) claiming this, RISC-V won't actually solve any of these issues. Sure, the ISA is open source, but the ISA would be the worst place for malicious actors to introduce a backdoor. I can guarantee you that despite using the RISC-V ISA, the chips themselves will still be fully proprietary and the IP will be highly protected as trade secrets. You can build a fully RISC-V conformant chip with a backdoor, there's absolutely nothing in place that could stop this, and it surely won't change for the forseeable future.
Yes
That's a problem with the phone manufacturer, not with Lineage.
LineageOS itself drastically weakens security even compared to stock AOSP, for example by exposing root access or deploying insecure SELinux policies
Yup, it's definitely worse https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html#lineageos
Xiaomi has the biggest custom ROM scene out there btw despite them trying their hardest to stop bootloader unlocking. You really don't need to have a company supporting unlocking to make ROMs for them. If they outright block it then that's an issue.
I read somewhere that on some xiaomi phones in china you need to request it, https://github.com/melontini/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame/blob/main/brands/xiaomi/README.md
My friend just got a new Xiaomi phone. He tried unlocking it a few days ago and got "try again in 168 hours". That happened in Europe. It's an absolute mess nowadays, I remember when they started blocking you from unlocking the bootloader. First you had to wait 24 hours, then 3 days, now it's an entire week. You also need to make sure you're logged into your Mi Account on both phone and PC and do even more weird fuckery to ensure the process actually go through. Meanwhile, on GOOGLE Pixel devices you just type one command after you enable oem unlocking in settings and reboot into fastboot mode. Crazy.