17 ms·

Secure Phone Series: Device Security

31 points by emrehan 6y ago

DarthGhandi 6y ago
I'm a bit confused here, does copperhead still exist? From what I gathered everyone moved on to graphene, including the original architect. I've not seen anyone mention copperheadOS as a modern secure phone in a long time. Not trying to denigrate the post but it's somewhat strange to see them appear out of nowhere. Also, on my barely secured, out of date firmware phone, the site doesn't work because I block js :/ Truly long for the day people at least attempt to make fallback no-js sites or at least text only static pages like some 90's ftp server for us weirdos who don't need nor want interactivity. Last I looked something like 80% of Android and 50% of apple phones were end of life and yet still used.
- BloodyHorses 6y ago
  An old copperhead employee (lead dev of graphene) went hard on defaming and shutting down info about copperhead which is why you haven't heard of them since 2016 when Dan got kicked from the team. I was confused as well when a friend brought up copperhead.
  - madaidan 6y ago
    That's not what happened but leave it to a Copperhead sockpuppet to misrepresent the events: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982234
  - randomhydrosol 6y ago
    This is just misrepresenting the events that occurred. I encourage you to read https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/tree/master/Twitter%20and%20Reddit https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/tree/ma... https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597
elchin 6y ago
A while ago Graphene OS diverged from Coppperhead OS. What are their current differences?
- rapsey 6y ago
  Nowhere because to get someplace one actually needs a business model and not just idealism.
  - samoa42 6y ago
    someone probably said this to stallman and tovalds
- madaidan 6y ago
  CopperheadOS is a proprietary fork of legacy GrapheneOS code with most of the legacy hardening dropped due to lack of proper maintenance and it includes no substantial hardening. It also includes tracking in the updater to enforce their subscription fees (which is an exorbitant amount of money by the way, $150 for 3 months). It's now a scam project focused on attacking GrapheneOS and harassing developers, as evident throughout this very thread with their usage of sockpuppet accounts. https://grapheneos.org/#history https://grapheneos.org/#history https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597 https://renlord.com/posts/2020-03-25-copperheados-legal-threat/ https://renlord.com/posts/2020-03-25-copperheados-legal-thre...
  - xthreen 6y ago
    Your claims about our features are unsupported. You also literally linked a cease and desist letter from our lawyers telling another member of your group to stop this kind of crap.
  - joemazerino 6y ago
    Nice first party links. The Copperhead CEO challenged Daniel to validate the legacy/tracking claims publicly and is supposedly willing to put $50,000 to prove it https://mobile.twitter.com/_copperj/status/1321830068814045189 https://mobile.twitter.com/_copperj/status/13218300688140451...
Tepix 6y ago
David Micay, the inventor and technical lead of CopperheadOS, left the company after a breakdown in communications with his business partner. He now leads the GrapheneOS project which can be considered the Copperhead OS successor. GrapheneOS is endorsed by Edward Snowden https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1175430722733129729?s=09 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1175430722733129729?s=09
- ignoramous 6y ago
  Daniel Micay's take on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20152005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20152005
- joemazerino 6y ago
  He's a toxic individual who attacks community based projects on the regular. No wonder he got canned.
  - LMYahooTFY 6y ago
    This is an ironically caustic comment on a matter which has plenty of first hand accounting you could link to, but prefer to simply label him as toxic. And IMO, it's extremely misrepresentative, but if you could link to some displays of what you're referring to then I suppose we could debate what you mean by "toxic".
    - joemazerino 6y ago
      Daniel saying Mozilla is using 4chan posts to attack him. https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1264528965127024644 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1264528965127024644 Daniel stating he feels Brave has nefarious intentions. https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1154509303962689536 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1154509303962689536 Daniel Micay attacking the Tor Project for considering use of his hardened allocator https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2019-August/013990.html https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2019-August/0...
JacobiX 6y ago
Not a word about Secure Enclave in iPhone, it should be explicitly stated that the discussion is about Android/Linux Phones only. Otherwise, the conclusion that the most secure phone on the market today is the Pixel with CopperheadOS is not accurate (in my first read I interpreted it as it is the most secure phone not the most secure Android).
- megous 6y ago
  You mean this one? https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-claim-they-can-now-jailbreak-apples-t2-security-chip/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-claim-they-can-now-jai...
  - hackmiester 6y ago
    No, not that one. The T2 chip isn't present in iPhones.
  - win32k 6y ago
    Even though the article you linked is not about an iPhone, I'll respond as if it was, since there have been published iPhone vulnerabilities recently. You rarely hear about Android exploits, since the devices are assumed insecure, whereas when an iPhone vulnerability comes out, that's a big deal. iPhones are miles ahead of Android, Pixel is the closest and they're still far. Case in point: You never hear about how the government couldn't open some bad guy's Android, do you?
    - aborsy 6y ago
      How do you know iPhone is so secure when you have no idea what’s in iOS? Products that are closed to some groups are not secure against the group for which the product is open (Apple, US government et al.)
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  The post is on the website of Copperhead, who maintain of CopperheadOS, an alternative Android ROM. Writing about the Secure Enclave would be pointless because it's completely unrelated to the domain the article was written for. Maybe they should add a line "oh by the way, Apple does things differently" because much more than just the security chip is done differently by Apple, but that wouldn't make much sense either. The article does have a short bit about the secure element in the phone, which serves a very similar purpose to the secure enclave, except less well-integrated because Android device manufacturers don't control all the hardware.
daneel_w 6y ago
It's not surprising that Copperhead announces their own Android product as the safest choice out there, with no mention of iOS/iPhone.
- elchin 6y ago
  Depending on your threat model, you might want to stay away from a proprietary OS controlled by Apple.
  - daneel_w 6y ago
    Android is a proprietary OS controlled by Google. Don't think otherwise.
joemazerino 6y ago
Looks like Copperhead supports the pixel 4 and 4a so they are still keeping on.
throwaway12757 6y ago
If anyone wanted more information about CopperheadOS and how the developer lead and created GrapheneOS. https://piunikaweb.com/2019/02/05/the-demise-of-copperheados-and-rise-of-its-successors/ https://piunikaweb.com/2019/02/05/the-demise-of-copperheados...
rapsey 6y ago
High security hardware/software is such an awful market. You get open source fanatics that will cut you down any chance they get. Nothing is ever good enough and god forbid you want to charge money for anything. Most actually don’t know anything and cant distinguish good products from bad. They are just paranoid. People who actually want to buy security products listen to the loud mouth fanatics so nothing can actually get made because the fanatics will ensure that only free is good. The ensure the market is dead. Copperhead tried to make a good run for it. But in the end when you try to tame a fanatic you are going to get hurt. And then there are mediocre-to-bad products that are suspiciously successful and get deals easily. It is like someone powerful makes sure they become widespread.
- gradeless 6y ago
  This is what CopperheadOS has become. Trading off the reputation they gained from before the split. When they were still publishing their sources they were often lagging months behind with basic AOSP security updates. Still not updated to Android 11 yet, 2 months since it was launched, which, as they support Pixels, means they now have 3 monthly updates worth of device specific security patches that can't of been applied. GrapheneOS moved to 11 in September, not so long after it was released by Google
- randomhydrosol 6y ago
  Copperhead is just selling a reskinned version of the open source project. They are also not secure as you can see from their website. There is no android 11 release and it's at least 3 months behind in security patches. That is not secure. If you check grapheneos it is using the most recent security patch and android version available Grapheneos has been around far longer than the commercial project. The commercial project was set up to fund the open source project however James Donaldson, the current copperhead CEO has a criminal background and tried to turn it into something completely different I encourage you to read https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/master/Twitter%20and%20Reddit/README.md https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/ma... to understand what really happened
- judeka 6y ago
  This is such a flawed argument. All of the above is based on a composition/division fallacy. You're assuming a part applies to the whole or majority, when in reality, this isn't the case. Your bias shows in the way you describe this, and your argument makes a presupposition involving the other side where their argument MUST somehow follow a sort of nirvana fallacy. The other side's argument are all invalid because they MUST be based on rejection of an idea because it isn't perfect. Again, this isn't the case, and it only applies to a minority within the open source community involving themselves in security.This isn't even taking into account you calling them fanatics as if its valid; it is on the verge of being ad hominem depending on what your intention was and wether you're aware of what you're implying in the first place. Also, what market? You mean the market that some companies try create where one of the main concerns is the open sourcing of some products so there's no need for audit requests? Is this not a valid concern to you, or does this tie into your aforementioned bias? I understand the concept you try push, but if you want to make an argument, at least make sure it's put out there in a valid way with solid points. Doing otherwise is only a disservice to your side.
green-bottle 6y ago
The article makes an argument for why you should consider Pixel series phones that still have official support from the vendor if you are in the market for Android phones. While it may not have been the point of the article it gives no reason why you should consider CopperheadOS. This is my perspective taking the article at face value as a complete layman in Hardware and OS security who cannot provide any critic or judgement on the technical content of the article.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
BloodyHorses 6y ago
Wonderfully well written article. Should display more from these guys.
- madaidan 6y ago
  Your account was created half an hour ago and the only activity is Copperhead promotion. Obvious sockpuppet account.
- randomhydrosol 6y ago
  How does one report sockpuppets?
jmnicolas 6y ago
Fwiw the degoogled phone experience is rough: I installed GrapheneOS on my Pixel 4 XL 2 weeks ago (yes I appreciate the irony to have to use a Google phone to ... degoogle your life :) The notifications aren't working properly: this morning my alarm didn't ring and this evening a reminder didn't fire either. The Fdroid store is nice but it lacks a lot of well designed apps. I don't have access to my bank app. KeepassDX (password manager) doesn't work in the chromium forks available. The AOSP keyboard doesn't "learn" and doesn't offer suggestions for the next word I might type. I can't change the layout. I tried another keyboard from FDroid, it didn't even have auto completion. A lot of things aren't customizable like the ugly icons (looking at you Bromite! ;) So for the first time my phone isn't my enemy but it's so limited that I'm not sure it's worth continuing using it. For the first time I'm thinking going to Apple. I know their privacy stance is mostly marketing but they scare me less than Google. I don't know.
- mickotron 6y ago
  Hi, You can get access to your bank app via Aurora store, available on F-Droid. It is a front end to google play store and allows install/update of the apks. It also shows you the report on what trackers are known in each app. Note that without google services, some app functionality that relies on it may not work, like notifications. The alarm app is bundled with AOSP so should work, weird. Keepassdx works fine with Vanadium for me. Magickeyboard is amazing for auto type. That being said maybe the pixel 4 builds aren't as mature. I am running on Pixel 3a and it has been smooth sailing. A phone experience I have long been waiting for. Also the project is not as well resourced as big companies, so some bugs and rough edges are expected . Support the project financially if you want a viable open source and secure mobile os.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    Hi, I didn't install the Aurora store because if I install non open sources app I'll get tracked again. In term of privacy what does it imply to install the Aurora store? I didn't look much into it, I thought I would get everything with FDroid. The AOSP clock adds an audible notification 1.5 hour before the alarm (this was silent on my regular Google Android build). If I deactivate the notification, the alarm is still triggered but I have to go into the app to deactivate it (and I'm not sure how reliable it is). I installed the clock from SimpleMobileTools. It's reliable 80% of the times which isn't ideal for an alarm! A lot of apps on FDroid are outdated and warned me that they were made for an older version of Android. I would support the project financially if I stay on it, but the way I see it if I want to remain on GrapheneOS I'm going to have to code (or modify) all the apps I need. I have 0 knowledge in mobile dev, and frankly I'm not exactly thrilled to have to spend all of my next year free time to build what I need. I'm not exactly thrilled to go to Apple either, and at this point I think I'd rather go without a mobile phone than to go back to Google. I need to chew on this.
AngryLasagna 6y ago
The new copperhead site reads like a marketing piece. All the tech explanation looks copypasted or typed while on coke John McAfee Style. They state on their site (copperhead) that only 2 months after split with Daniel the rom got updated again. That is not true. I was affected by the split and there was no update that early, while Daniel continued development. My account has been created solely to defend Graphene here btw. But this is my usual nick I use everywhere else. I am a longtime passive reader. The Copperhead site states that they support Zero Touch Provisioning of devices. That involves Google and Vendor infra and as far as I know this cant enable installing custom roms from inside Google roms. I might be wrong there because I didnt dig that deep into MDM provisioning. But enough that it didnt seem anywhere open source friendly.
judeka 6y ago
There's honestly so many pseudo points and fallacies here. I took one look at the comment section and it served as incentive to make an account so I could dispell some of the bs.

31 points by emrehan 6y ago

I'm a bit confused here, does copperhead still exist? From what I gathered everyone moved on to graphene, including the original architect. I've not seen anyone mention copperheadOS as a modern secure phone in a long time. Not trying to denigrate the post but it's somewhat strange to see them appear out of nowhere. Also, on my barely secured, out of date firmware phone, the site doesn't work because I block js :/ Truly long for the day people at least attempt to make fallback no-js sites or at least text only static pages like some 90's ftp server for us weirdos who don't need nor want interactivity. Last I looked something like 80% of Android and 50% of apple phones were end of life and yet still used.

BloodyHorses 6y ago
An old copperhead employee (lead dev of graphene) went hard on defaming and shutting down info about copperhead which is why you haven't heard of them since 2016 when Dan got kicked from the team. I was confused as well when a friend brought up copperhead.
- madaidan 6y ago
  That's not what happened but leave it to a Copperhead sockpuppet to misrepresent the events: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982234
- randomhydrosol 6y ago
  This is just misrepresenting the events that occurred. I encourage you to read https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/tree/master/Twitter%20and%20Reddit https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/tree/ma... https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597

elchin 6y ago

A while ago Graphene OS diverged from Coppperhead OS. What are their current differences?

rapsey 6y ago
Nowhere because to get someplace one actually needs a business model and not just idealism.
- samoa42 6y ago
  someone probably said this to stallman and tovalds
madaidan 6y ago
CopperheadOS is a proprietary fork of legacy GrapheneOS code with most of the legacy hardening dropped due to lack of proper maintenance and it includes no substantial hardening. It also includes tracking in the updater to enforce their subscription fees (which is an exorbitant amount of money by the way, $150 for 3 months). It's now a scam project focused on attacking GrapheneOS and harassing developers, as evident throughout this very thread with their usage of sockpuppet accounts. https://grapheneos.org/#history https://grapheneos.org/#history https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1171170734380654597 https://renlord.com/posts/2020-03-25-copperheados-legal-threat/ https://renlord.com/posts/2020-03-25-copperheados-legal-thre...
- xthreen 6y ago
  Your claims about our features are unsupported. You also literally linked a cease and desist letter from our lawyers telling another member of your group to stop this kind of crap.
- joemazerino 6y ago
  Nice first party links. The Copperhead CEO challenged Daniel to validate the legacy/tracking claims publicly and is supposedly willing to put $50,000 to prove it https://mobile.twitter.com/_copperj/status/1321830068814045189 https://mobile.twitter.com/_copperj/status/13218300688140451...

Tepix 6y ago

David Micay, the inventor and technical lead of CopperheadOS, left the company after a breakdown in communications with his business partner. He now leads the GrapheneOS project which can be considered the Copperhead OS successor. GrapheneOS is endorsed by Edward Snowden https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1175430722733129729?s=09 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1175430722733129729?s=09

ignoramous 6y ago
Daniel Micay's take on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20152005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20152005
joemazerino 6y ago
He's a toxic individual who attacks community based projects on the regular. No wonder he got canned.
- LMYahooTFY 6y ago
  This is an ironically caustic comment on a matter which has plenty of first hand accounting you could link to, but prefer to simply label him as toxic. And IMO, it's extremely misrepresentative, but if you could link to some displays of what you're referring to then I suppose we could debate what you mean by "toxic".
  - joemazerino 6y ago
    Daniel saying Mozilla is using 4chan posts to attack him. https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1264528965127024644 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1264528965127024644 Daniel stating he feels Brave has nefarious intentions. https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1154509303962689536 https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1154509303962689536 Daniel Micay attacking the Tor Project for considering use of his hardened allocator https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2019-August/013990.html https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2019-August/0...

JacobiX 6y ago

Not a word about Secure Enclave in iPhone, it should be explicitly stated that the discussion is about Android/Linux Phones only. Otherwise, the conclusion that the most secure phone on the market today is the Pixel with CopperheadOS is not accurate (in my first read I interpreted it as it is the most secure phone not the most secure Android).

megous 6y ago
You mean this one? https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-claim-they-can-now-jailbreak-apples-t2-security-chip/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-claim-they-can-now-jai...
- hackmiester 6y ago
  No, not that one. The T2 chip isn't present in iPhones.
- win32k 6y ago
  Even though the article you linked is not about an iPhone, I'll respond as if it was, since there have been published iPhone vulnerabilities recently. You rarely hear about Android exploits, since the devices are assumed insecure, whereas when an iPhone vulnerability comes out, that's a big deal. iPhones are miles ahead of Android, Pixel is the closest and they're still far. Case in point: You never hear about how the government couldn't open some bad guy's Android, do you?
  - aborsy 6y ago
    How do you know iPhone is so secure when you have no idea what’s in iOS? Products that are closed to some groups are not secure against the group for which the product is open (Apple, US government et al.)
jeroenhd 6y ago
The post is on the website of Copperhead, who maintain of CopperheadOS, an alternative Android ROM. Writing about the Secure Enclave would be pointless because it's completely unrelated to the domain the article was written for. Maybe they should add a line "oh by the way, Apple does things differently" because much more than just the security chip is done differently by Apple, but that wouldn't make much sense either. The article does have a short bit about the secure element in the phone, which serves a very similar purpose to the secure enclave, except less well-integrated because Android device manufacturers don't control all the hardware.

daneel_w 6y ago

It's not surprising that Copperhead announces their own Android product as the safest choice out there, with no mention of iOS/iPhone.

elchin 6y ago
Depending on your threat model, you might want to stay away from a proprietary OS controlled by Apple.
- daneel_w 6y ago
  Android is a proprietary OS controlled by Google. Don't think otherwise.

joemazerino 6y ago

Looks like Copperhead supports the pixel 4 and 4a so they are still keeping on.

throwaway12757 6y ago

If anyone wanted more information about CopperheadOS and how the developer lead and created GrapheneOS. https://piunikaweb.com/2019/02/05/the-demise-of-copperheados-and-rise-of-its-successors/ https://piunikaweb.com/2019/02/05/the-demise-of-copperheados...

rapsey 6y ago

High security hardware/software is such an awful market. You get open source fanatics that will cut you down any chance they get. Nothing is ever good enough and god forbid you want to charge money for anything. Most actually don’t know anything and cant distinguish good products from bad. They are just paranoid. People who actually want to buy security products listen to the loud mouth fanatics so nothing can actually get made because the fanatics will ensure that only free is good. The ensure the market is dead. Copperhead tried to make a good run for it. But in the end when you try to tame a fanatic you are going to get hurt. And then there are mediocre-to-bad products that are suspiciously successful and get deals easily. It is like someone powerful makes sure they become widespread.

gradeless 6y ago
This is what CopperheadOS has become. Trading off the reputation they gained from before the split. When they were still publishing their sources they were often lagging months behind with basic AOSP security updates. Still not updated to Android 11 yet, 2 months since it was launched, which, as they support Pixels, means they now have 3 monthly updates worth of device specific security patches that can't of been applied. GrapheneOS moved to 11 in September, not so long after it was released by Google
randomhydrosol 6y ago
Copperhead is just selling a reskinned version of the open source project. They are also not secure as you can see from their website. There is no android 11 release and it's at least 3 months behind in security patches. That is not secure. If you check grapheneos it is using the most recent security patch and android version available Grapheneos has been around far longer than the commercial project. The commercial project was set up to fund the open source project however James Donaldson, the current copperhead CEO has a criminal background and tried to turn it into something completely different I encourage you to read https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/master/Twitter%20and%20Reddit/README.md https://github.com/Peter-Easton/GrapheneOS-Knowledge/blob/ma... to understand what really happened
judeka 6y ago
This is such a flawed argument. All of the above is based on a composition/division fallacy. You're assuming a part applies to the whole or majority, when in reality, this isn't the case. Your bias shows in the way you describe this, and your argument makes a presupposition involving the other side where their argument MUST somehow follow a sort of nirvana fallacy. The other side's argument are all invalid because they MUST be based on rejection of an idea because it isn't perfect. Again, this isn't the case, and it only applies to a minority within the open source community involving themselves in security.This isn't even taking into account you calling them fanatics as if its valid; it is on the verge of being ad hominem depending on what your intention was and wether you're aware of what you're implying in the first place. Also, what market? You mean the market that some companies try create where one of the main concerns is the open sourcing of some products so there's no need for audit requests? Is this not a valid concern to you, or does this tie into your aforementioned bias? I understand the concept you try push, but if you want to make an argument, at least make sure it's put out there in a valid way with solid points. Doing otherwise is only a disservice to your side.

green-bottle 6y ago

The article makes an argument for why you should consider Pixel series phones that still have official support from the vendor if you are in the market for Android phones. While it may not have been the point of the article it gives no reason why you should consider CopperheadOS. This is my perspective taking the article at face value as a complete layman in Hardware and OS security who cannot provide any critic or judgement on the technical content of the article.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

BloodyHorses 6y ago

Wonderfully well written article. Should display more from these guys.

madaidan 6y ago
Your account was created half an hour ago and the only activity is Copperhead promotion. Obvious sockpuppet account.
randomhydrosol 6y ago
How does one report sockpuppets?

jmnicolas 6y ago

Fwiw the degoogled phone experience is rough: I installed GrapheneOS on my Pixel 4 XL 2 weeks ago (yes I appreciate the irony to have to use a Google phone to ... degoogle your life :) The notifications aren't working properly: this morning my alarm didn't ring and this evening a reminder didn't fire either. The Fdroid store is nice but it lacks a lot of well designed apps. I don't have access to my bank app. KeepassDX (password manager) doesn't work in the chromium forks available. The AOSP keyboard doesn't "learn" and doesn't offer suggestions for the next word I might type. I can't change the layout. I tried another keyboard from FDroid, it didn't even have auto completion. A lot of things aren't customizable like the ugly icons (looking at you Bromite! ;) So for the first time my phone isn't my enemy but it's so limited that I'm not sure it's worth continuing using it. For the first time I'm thinking going to Apple. I know their privacy stance is mostly marketing but they scare me less than Google. I don't know.

mickotron 6y ago
Hi, You can get access to your bank app via Aurora store, available on F-Droid. It is a front end to google play store and allows install/update of the apks. It also shows you the report on what trackers are known in each app. Note that without google services, some app functionality that relies on it may not work, like notifications. The alarm app is bundled with AOSP so should work, weird. Keepassdx works fine with Vanadium for me. Magickeyboard is amazing for auto type. That being said maybe the pixel 4 builds aren't as mature. I am running on Pixel 3a and it has been smooth sailing. A phone experience I have long been waiting for. Also the project is not as well resourced as big companies, so some bugs and rough edges are expected . Support the project financially if you want a viable open source and secure mobile os.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  Hi, I didn't install the Aurora store because if I install non open sources app I'll get tracked again. In term of privacy what does it imply to install the Aurora store? I didn't look much into it, I thought I would get everything with FDroid. The AOSP clock adds an audible notification 1.5 hour before the alarm (this was silent on my regular Google Android build). If I deactivate the notification, the alarm is still triggered but I have to go into the app to deactivate it (and I'm not sure how reliable it is). I installed the clock from SimpleMobileTools. It's reliable 80% of the times which isn't ideal for an alarm! A lot of apps on FDroid are outdated and warned me that they were made for an older version of Android. I would support the project financially if I stay on it, but the way I see it if I want to remain on GrapheneOS I'm going to have to code (or modify) all the apps I need. I have 0 knowledge in mobile dev, and frankly I'm not exactly thrilled to have to spend all of my next year free time to build what I need. I'm not exactly thrilled to go to Apple either, and at this point I think I'd rather go without a mobile phone than to go back to Google. I need to chew on this.

AngryLasagna 6y ago

The new copperhead site reads like a marketing piece. All the tech explanation looks copypasted or typed while on coke John McAfee Style. They state on their site (copperhead) that only 2 months after split with Daniel the rom got updated again. That is not true. I was affected by the split and there was no update that early, while Daniel continued development. My account has been created solely to defend Graphene here btw. But this is my usual nick I use everywhere else. I am a longtime passive reader. The Copperhead site states that they support Zero Touch Provisioning of devices. That involves Google and Vendor infra and as far as I know this cant enable installing custom roms from inside Google roms. I might be wrong there because I didnt dig that deep into MDM provisioning. But enough that it didnt seem anywhere open source friendly.

judeka 6y ago

There's honestly so many pseudo points and fallacies here. I took one look at the comment section and it served as incentive to make an account so I could dispell some of the bs.