6 ms·

Some Android flavors, including /e/[1] and GrapheneOS,[2] don't use Google servers for the internet connectivity check by default. [1] https://gitlab.e.foundat

Some Android flavors, including /e/[1] and GrapheneOS,[2] don't use Google servers for the internet connectivity check by default. [1] https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/backlog/-/issues/268#note_18097 https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/backlog/-/issues/268#note_1809... [2] https://grapheneos.org/faq#default-connections https://grapheneos.org/faq#default-connections

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Looking through the GrapheneOS source, the servers may not be Google servers but the system is still designed to phone home. As such, have they solved the problem or is this just another case of "Dont' trust them, trust us instead." Has anyone succeeded in running multiboot on "smartphone" hardware, i.e., where the user can boot into a choice of kernel/userland. One choice might be Android, another might be GrapheneOS/LineageOS, another might be an OS that does not rely on any third parties whatsoever (no conveniences, "app stores", "connectivity checks", etc.) and is fully controlled by the user. In other words, the third choice lets the pocket-sized computer be used more like a pre-smartphone era desktop/laptop OS. Basic functionality.
- dyndos 5y ago
  Did you actually find any examples of GrapheneOS phoning home? GrapheneOS doesn't rely on any third-parties I'm aware of. The only service provided is over-the-air security updates. It doesn't even come with an app store (although you can install F-Droid). For that reason, GrapheneOS alone fits all three categories you mentioned: It is Android, it is GrapheneOS, and it is fully controllable / doesn't ship bloatware.
  - summm 5y ago
    It is not controllable at all: It still enforces any app author's will against the user's. Root is not offered, and the grapheneos maintainer seems to be personally offended by the thought that root could be helpful.
    - dyndos 5y ago
      >enforces any app author's will against the user's I'm not sure what you mean by this. All apps run in a sandbox and you can deny permissions if you like. >Root is not offered Root access on Android is a security hole.
      - summm 5y ago
        What I mean: I cannot see the app's files, I cannot edit them, I cannot backup the app locally, only by uploading data unencrypted to googles cloud. Adb backup was unreliable in the past, could be switched off by the app against my will, an is deprecated anyway. I cannot screenshot an app if the app doesn't want me to. I cannot block ads properly, only via some fake VPN app, but then I cannot use an actual VPN at the same time. I cannot firewall an app, except with a hack using another fake VPN app. I cannot disable an app into background. I cannot give a fake GPS to an app. I cannot have f-droid auto-update my apps. All of these things I should be able to do, but the anti-user "security" enforces this against me, actually hurting my security in order to make googles and shady app vendor's business models possible. And then they claim it's for my own good. A lot of the "root is bad mkay" is fueled by this more or less hidden agenda. That it helps to idiot-proof devices is a nice side effect only. Historical proof of this hypothesis is: When TCPA was first introduced it was explicitly made for DRM. People fought it a lot, so today they are introducing it disguised as security measure.
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    "The only service provided is over-the-air security updates." Connectivity check / time servers https://grapheneos.org/articles/grapheneos-servers#grapheneos.network https://grapheneos.org/articles/grapheneos-servers#grapheneo... Amongst others.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- kaba0 5y ago
  For your later linked examples, those can be changed. But as for the microG/GApps question, GrapheneOS provides a sandbox for the actual GApps, so that almost everything can run properly, with very strong control over what is seen by Google.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  Looking at the FAQ provides more details on various ways GrapheneOS phones home by default. Thankfully, some of these "services" can be disabled. The time service is enabled by default but can be disabled. "An HTTPS connection is made to https://time.grapheneos.org/ https://time.grapheneos.org/ to update the time from the date header field." "Network time can be disabled with the toggle at Settings System Date & time Use network-provided time." Connectivity checks are enabled by default but can be disabled. "Connectivity checks designed to mimic a web browser user agent are performed by using HTTP and HTTPS to fetch standard URLs generating an HTTP 204 status code." "You can change the connectivity check URLs via the Settings Network & internet Advanced Internet connectivity check setting. At the moment, it can be toggled between the GrapheneOS servers (default), the standard Google servers used by billions of other Android devices or disabled." Why these are enabled by default, i.e., opt-out instead of opt-in, is strange considering this OS is aimed at technical, security and privacy-conscious users. Users who would surely know what services they want and be capable of enabling them.
  - amatecha 5y ago
    Yeah I agree, these settings should be disabled by default and require explicit opt-in. That said, I am impressed by how privacy/security-conscious the OS seems to be otherwise!
    - yc12340 5y ago
      You can't really get rid of connectivity check, because it is a part of public API. Applications use it to check whether a network has internet access. Android itself uses it to detect captive portals and prompt user to authenticate when network requires authentication/payment via a web page.
      - amatecha 5y ago
        I'm not suggesting they get rid of connectivity check. They already provide the option to disable it. All I'm suggesting is that it's not enabled until the user indicates they want it to be. This could be asked during a "first time" setup flow like most smartphones have.
- bubblethink 5y ago
  Eh, if you want an airgapped phone, use it in airplane mode. Obviously, the phone needs some network infra for things like updates or timekeeping. You can route it over vpn if you want and you can build everything yourself and host all the servers yourself too if you so prefer. This type of pedantry is more harmful than useful to casual users who would be far better served with grapheneos than some non-existent ideal phone.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    "...if you want an airgapped phone, use it in airplane mode." Right, that's what I do. In fact this post comes from a smartphone sans SIM with airplane mode on, with a firewall against apps phoning home, no Google or Gmail account, all Google Gapps nuked including playstore - in fact all Gapps have been completely removed - not to mention that most replacement apps come via F-Droid. Yes, technically it's not fully airgapped but it is against Google and that's my main aim. Of course there's a penalty: I also carry around both a pocket router with WiFi and SIM to which the smartphone connects as well as the dumbest of dumb phones just for phone calls. Yes, it's a little inconvenient in that the combined paraphernalia is about equivalent to two normal smartphones (both the router and dumb phone being somewhat smaller). Next step is to upgrade to a Fairphone or equivalent. (I've often wondered where I'd fit on a percentage scale of users who'd go to such lengths - somewhere between 0.1 and 0.001% I suspect.) You may well ask why I've gone to such lenghts. It's more principle than privacy really. It's because governments around the world completely abrogated their responsibility when they deregulated the once-private telephone networks in the 1980s, when they did they let the Wild West take over. This 'vacuum' then led to a depreciation in the value of privacy on telephone networks. The ultimate insult came when the vacuum was filled by the likes of Google and others who usurped the last vestiges of our telephone privacy for good - and these damn governments just stood by and let it happen without so much as whimper. Remember, we telephone users were never first consulted about our privacy - governments just let Google and Apple et al take over the whole damn caboodle without question. (In the future after all the world has finally woken up to the disaster then we'll have dozens of historians trying to figure out what the hell happened and why. When realization finally dawns everyone will be flabbergasted.) Now, long after the horses have bolted and without so much as an apology, governments are trying to reign in the likes of Google and Facebook. Right, our governance is a fucking farce - it has to be when governments simply allow Big Tech to not only effectively overrule longstanding law but also to go on and do whatever they damned well feel like with impunity.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  My pinephone has multiboot to several different Linux and Android varieties.
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    As well as NetBSD, and probably others, eventually.
  - ranger_danger 5y ago
    And nowhere near the security of even stock Android, unfortunately. Every app is free to spy on everything else on the system, just like most desktops.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Librem 5 can also boot different operating systems.
  - xook 5y ago
    How is Pinephone coming along toward this year's end? I check in every now and then, but I need it to be where current Lineage/Graphene are. I don't need trivial software (games et al), but I need it to be automatic enough* that I don't have to spend an evening or weekend unbreaking things – and reliable all the same. * barring basic things like package manager updates

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Looking through the GrapheneOS source, the servers may not be Google servers but the system is still designed to phone home. As such, have they solved the problem or is this just another case of "Dont' trust them, trust us instead." Has anyone succeeded in running multiboot on "smartphone" hardware, i.e., where the user can boot into a choice of kernel/userland. One choice might be Android, another might be GrapheneOS/LineageOS, another might be an OS that does not rely on any third parties whatsoever (no conveniences, "app stores", "connectivity checks", etc.) and is fully controlled by the user. In other words, the third choice lets the pocket-sized computer be used more like a pre-smartphone era desktop/laptop OS. Basic functionality.

dyndos 5y ago
Did you actually find any examples of GrapheneOS phoning home? GrapheneOS doesn't rely on any third-parties I'm aware of. The only service provided is over-the-air security updates. It doesn't even come with an app store (although you can install F-Droid). For that reason, GrapheneOS alone fits all three categories you mentioned: It is Android, it is GrapheneOS, and it is fully controllable / doesn't ship bloatware.
- summm 5y ago
  It is not controllable at all: It still enforces any app author's will against the user's. Root is not offered, and the grapheneos maintainer seems to be personally offended by the thought that root could be helpful.
  - dyndos 5y ago
    >enforces any app author's will against the user's I'm not sure what you mean by this. All apps run in a sandbox and you can deny permissions if you like. >Root is not offered Root access on Android is a security hole.
    - summm 5y ago
      What I mean: I cannot see the app's files, I cannot edit them, I cannot backup the app locally, only by uploading data unencrypted to googles cloud. Adb backup was unreliable in the past, could be switched off by the app against my will, an is deprecated anyway. I cannot screenshot an app if the app doesn't want me to. I cannot block ads properly, only via some fake VPN app, but then I cannot use an actual VPN at the same time. I cannot firewall an app, except with a hack using another fake VPN app. I cannot disable an app into background. I cannot give a fake GPS to an app. I cannot have f-droid auto-update my apps. All of these things I should be able to do, but the anti-user "security" enforces this against me, actually hurting my security in order to make googles and shady app vendor's business models possible. And then they claim it's for my own good. A lot of the "root is bad mkay" is fueled by this more or less hidden agenda. That it helps to idiot-proof devices is a nice side effect only. Historical proof of this hypothesis is: When TCPA was first introduced it was explicitly made for DRM. People fought it a lot, so today they are introducing it disguised as security measure.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  "The only service provided is over-the-air security updates." Connectivity check / time servers https://grapheneos.org/articles/grapheneos-servers#grapheneos.network https://grapheneos.org/articles/grapheneos-servers#grapheneo... Amongst others.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
kaba0 5y ago
For your later linked examples, those can be changed. But as for the microG/GApps question, GrapheneOS provides a sandbox for the actual GApps, so that almost everything can run properly, with very strong control over what is seen by Google.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Looking at the FAQ provides more details on various ways GrapheneOS phones home by default. Thankfully, some of these "services" can be disabled. The time service is enabled by default but can be disabled. "An HTTPS connection is made to https://time.grapheneos.org/ https://time.grapheneos.org/ to update the time from the date header field." "Network time can be disabled with the toggle at Settings System Date & time Use network-provided time." Connectivity checks are enabled by default but can be disabled. "Connectivity checks designed to mimic a web browser user agent are performed by using HTTP and HTTPS to fetch standard URLs generating an HTTP 204 status code." "You can change the connectivity check URLs via the Settings Network & internet Advanced Internet connectivity check setting. At the moment, it can be toggled between the GrapheneOS servers (default), the standard Google servers used by billions of other Android devices or disabled." Why these are enabled by default, i.e., opt-out instead of opt-in, is strange considering this OS is aimed at technical, security and privacy-conscious users. Users who would surely know what services they want and be capable of enabling them.
- amatecha 5y ago
  Yeah I agree, these settings should be disabled by default and require explicit opt-in. That said, I am impressed by how privacy/security-conscious the OS seems to be otherwise!
  - yc12340 5y ago
    You can't really get rid of connectivity check, because it is a part of public API. Applications use it to check whether a network has internet access. Android itself uses it to detect captive portals and prompt user to authenticate when network requires authentication/payment via a web page.
    - amatecha 5y ago
      I'm not suggesting they get rid of connectivity check. They already provide the option to disable it. All I'm suggesting is that it's not enabled until the user indicates they want it to be. This could be asked during a "first time" setup flow like most smartphones have.
bubblethink 5y ago
Eh, if you want an airgapped phone, use it in airplane mode. Obviously, the phone needs some network infra for things like updates or timekeeping. You can route it over vpn if you want and you can build everything yourself and host all the servers yourself too if you so prefer. This type of pedantry is more harmful than useful to casual users who would be far better served with grapheneos than some non-existent ideal phone.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "...if you want an airgapped phone, use it in airplane mode." Right, that's what I do. In fact this post comes from a smartphone sans SIM with airplane mode on, with a firewall against apps phoning home, no Google or Gmail account, all Google Gapps nuked including playstore - in fact all Gapps have been completely removed - not to mention that most replacement apps come via F-Droid. Yes, technically it's not fully airgapped but it is against Google and that's my main aim. Of course there's a penalty: I also carry around both a pocket router with WiFi and SIM to which the smartphone connects as well as the dumbest of dumb phones just for phone calls. Yes, it's a little inconvenient in that the combined paraphernalia is about equivalent to two normal smartphones (both the router and dumb phone being somewhat smaller). Next step is to upgrade to a Fairphone or equivalent. (I've often wondered where I'd fit on a percentage scale of users who'd go to such lengths - somewhere between 0.1 and 0.001% I suspect.) You may well ask why I've gone to such lenghts. It's more principle than privacy really. It's because governments around the world completely abrogated their responsibility when they deregulated the once-private telephone networks in the 1980s, when they did they let the Wild West take over. This 'vacuum' then led to a depreciation in the value of privacy on telephone networks. The ultimate insult came when the vacuum was filled by the likes of Google and others who usurped the last vestiges of our telephone privacy for good - and these damn governments just stood by and let it happen without so much as whimper. Remember, we telephone users were never first consulted about our privacy - governments just let Google and Apple et al take over the whole damn caboodle without question. (In the future after all the world has finally woken up to the disaster then we'll have dozens of historians trying to figure out what the hell happened and why. When realization finally dawns everyone will be flabbergasted.) Now, long after the horses have bolted and without so much as an apology, governments are trying to reign in the likes of Google and Facebook. Right, our governance is a fucking farce - it has to be when governments simply allow Big Tech to not only effectively overrule longstanding law but also to go on and do whatever they damned well feel like with impunity.
Y_Y 5y ago
My pinephone has multiboot to several different Linux and Android varieties.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  As well as NetBSD, and probably others, eventually.
- ranger_danger 5y ago
  And nowhere near the security of even stock Android, unfortunately. Every app is free to spy on everything else on the system, just like most desktops.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Librem 5 can also boot different operating systems.
- xook 5y ago
  How is Pinephone coming along toward this year's end? I check in every now and then, but I need it to be where current Lineage/Graphene are. I don't need trivial software (games et al), but I need it to be automatic enough* that I don't have to spend an evening or weekend unbreaking things – and reliable all the same. * barring basic things like package manager updates