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GrapheneOS user reported to authorities for using GrapheneOS
- iugtmkbdfil834 5mo agoUK now, but that train is never late..
- microflash 5mo agoMight as well report all users of internet to authorities for using internet because internet can also be used to commit fraud.
- trumpdong 5mo agoWhile most people who use an unbackdoored OS aren't frauds, presumably it's correct at a slightly higher rate than assuming someone is a fraud because they use the internet.
- theglenn88_ 5mo agoExactly, don't forget, if you own or drive a car you must be a criminal, because cars are used as getaway vehicles in serious crimes.
- tiborsaas 5mo agoYou can also murder people with your car including children.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
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- gib444 5mo agoYou mean like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collection_of_Internet_Connection_Records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collection_of_Internet_Connect...
- zelphirkalt 5mo agoActually, that makes me think, what will happen, if suddenly there is a flood of reports, too many for them to deal with? Let's say all GrapheneOS users installed that app to get reported and then some more bots/fakes are set up to do that too.
- eunos 5mo agoFor start you can strong arm or mandate bank to not make their app run on GrapheneOS device. Bank is highly regulated service and vital so there's strong incentive and ramp up here
- VariousPrograms 5mo agoI'm done for once the authorities know I have an account on HACKER News.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- mjlee 5mo agoWhen I was in high school I brought in a copy of The Hacker's Dictionary to show a friend. A teacher saw it. A few weeks later there was a hacking incident! The shared spreadsheet of every pupil's grades that every teacher had full access to was modified, boosting the grades of some students (including me) and lowering the grades of others (including people I didn't get on with). I was immediately sent home during the investigation. Nothing came of it in the end. Years later my friend revealed the advanced technique of finding his music teacher's password (bassoon) on a post-it note under their keyboard.
- TylerE 5mo agoHey, under the keyboard is an advanced technique. In those days it was usually on the monitor.
- kotaKat 5mo agoI remember trying to argue with the IT folks at school because hackaday.com was blocked for "hacking"... damn, guess all those fun electronics projects people were doing is Super Evil And Only For Criminals.
- QuantumNomad_ 5mo agoWhen I was in middle school I used to download keygens and cracks for programs from the school computer and take them with me home on a floppy disk because I didn’t have internet at home. One of the websites I downloaded keygens and cracks from was called TheBugs.WS. Another pupil saw that I was downloading keygens and stuff and tried to rat me out to one of the teachers saying like “hey look at his screen, he can’t use the computer for that”. The teacher had a brief glance at my monitor and read the title of the page TheBugs.WS and just said “nothing wrong about learning about insects” and then just walked away lololol. To this day I still don’t know if the teacher genuinely though the page was about insects just from the title, or if she just didn’t care as long as the briefest of glances at my screen didn’t show anything that seemed really out of place. Either which way, my situation was kind of the exact opposite of yours. And the inconspicuous name of the site was enough that I didn’t get in trouble even though I could have if a teacher looked closely.
- gib444 5mo agoI would take "automatically reported to the authorities" with a pinch of salt (in this sphere, "nudging" people with lies is de rigueur [0]). Not that I'm arguing the UK isn't accelerating further into an authoritarian nightmare. [0] Kinda related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_Insights_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_Insights_Team
- Lucasoato 5mo agoA friend of mine told me that Yoti is used as an age verification system in so many porn websites. That’s such an issue, this information should never be owned by private companies.
- jiin 5mo agoOr you could just choose not to use pornography. Then you don't have to verify your age to these websites. I get that some people have a behavioural addiction to this harmful content but perhaps the age verification is an opportunity to step back and reconsider.
- microsoftedging 5mo agoFirst they came for the porn watchers And I did not speak out Because I was not a porn watcher
- trumpdong 5mo agoAlmost everyone has watched porn, especially the people who want to outlaw it.
- trumpdong 5mo agoGreetings stranger! Your comment has been shadowbanned. In order to prove you are a legal adult, please email a selfie, holding your username on a piece of paper, and your government ID to hn@ycombinator.com. Alternatively, you may use this opportunity to step back and reconsider whether you still wish to remain addicted to Hacker News.
- Cider9986 5mo agoOr they can be pushed to watch on less regulated platforms to avoid the age verification, which is far more likely and has negative consequences.
- IlikeMadison 5mo agoSo we shouldn't be using GrapheneOS neither nor any Sony products if we follow your logic right? Because obviously it means we are addicted to both.
- trumpdong 5mo agoI guess this user gets to sue Sony for a full refund.
- userbinator 5mo agoIf anything, from an age-verification perspective those using GrapheneOS are probably more likely to be adults, mentally mature, or otherwise smarter than the average sheeple.
- trumpdong 5mo agoBut it's not about checking age, it's about enforcing control.
- userbinator 5mo agoExactly.
- throwfaraway135 5mo ago- Heavy censorship - Two-tier justice system - This How did it come to this? The UK is arguably the country that has done the most for the cause of freedom, having led the way in abolishing slavery.
- mmikeff 5mo agoCan we stop it with this two tier justice system nonsense?
- kaliqt 5mo ago[flagged]
- mmikeff 5mo agoIt's not a fact at all, it's a lie spread by people who want to stoke anger for their own benefit.
- skippyboxedhero 5mo agohttps://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1270374388488167428?lang=en https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1270374388488167428?lang=e...
- trumpdong 5mo agoAre we just posting irrelevant links? https://thedailywtf.com/ https://thedailywtf.com/
- croes 5mo agoAnd? Being against anti-black racism doesn’t mean pro-white racism. Have you looked up what all those claiming racism against white people said when the victim of a mistake of an police officer was non-white?
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- uni_baconcat 5mo agoThis is not how authorities work. They need to prove people guilty, not flag all “suspicious activity” then let people prove they are innocent.
- 243341286 5mo ago[dead]
- fmajid 5mo agoThat's in countries that have a constitution, a Bill of Rights that can't be revoked by a simple vote of the legislature, separation of powers and the rule of law. None of which applies to the UK.
- tgv 5mo ago3 of those factors are nothing more than bits of paper. Everything hinges on separation of powers, and the one you omitted: a thoroughly established sense of democracy. If either of those fails, any report to the authorities is a threat.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- joe463369 5mo agoThe UK has a constitution.
- Havoc 5mo agoNot sure if you've read the news during the past couple of months but things are no longer normal
- NooneAtAll3 5mo agowatchlists existed for decades
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- pogue 5mo agoSomeone in the comments of that post linked to a long FAQ section for GrapheneOS about how apps can identify it and so forth [1]. I don't understand why it doesn't just attempt to spoof that's it's stock Android/Google everywhere it possibly can? [1] https://grapheneos.org/faq#:~:text=Apps%20can%20detect%20that%20they%27re%20being%20run%20on%20GrapheneOS%20via%20the%20privacy%20and%20security%20features%20placing%20further%20restrictions%20on%20them%20and%20hardening%20them%20against%20further%20exploitation. https://grapheneos.org/faq#:~:text=Apps%20can%20detect%20tha...
- fph 5mo agoBecause that would be pointless. If you have use-after-free exploit mitigations active, apps can test for its presence by simply trying to use after free. The only way to make the mitigation unnoticeable would be disabling it.
- Cider9986 5mo agoThey are focused on making their users more private and secure, not trying to trick 0.01% of apps that give them problems. It's a cat and mouse game that would require significant investment and could make things look more suspicious, better to focus on adoption so it becomes harder for companies to make stupid decisions like this. I've seen a banking apps that have expressly added support for GrapheneOS with their hardware attestation after customers mentioned it. Even dedicated anti-detect browsers are constantly blocked and need patches. It's not something I would want GrapheneOS to focus on.
- saint_yossarian 5mo agoBecause the GrapheneOS team takes security seriously, and spoofing would actually justify banning. From https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...: > GrapheneOS not only upholds the app security model but substantially reinforces it, so it cannot be justified with reasoning based on security, anti-fraud, etc.
- croes 5mo agoI bet they would count that as a attempted fraud.
- antiloper 5mo agoOI mate, you got a loicense for that operating system? The only surprising thing about this story is that the user didn't get a visit by the police to be charged with a "non-crime cybersecurity incident". The UK has become such a shithole.
- Cider9986 5mo agoYep, police can simply ask anyone for their passwords and if you don't give it up they can put you in jail. I won't be visiting. Despite many flaws, the US has some damn good rights for its citizens compared to the rest of the world.
- lukan 5mo agoYet swatting, making police kick in the doors and shoot the dogs of someone who was victim of anonymous slander, isn't really a thing here in europe compared to the US.
- SpectreHat 5mo agoThe user you replied to was talking about UK, not Europe.
- JdeBP 5mo agoThat response looks like it is generated from boilerplate, so the 'reported to the authorities' part is as likely true as when sudo says the same thing. * https://postimg.cc/3kVXKzhk https://postimg.cc/3kVXKzhk
- Gander5739 5mo agoRe sudo: https://xkcd.com/838/ https://xkcd.com/838/
- cellardweller 5mo agoSudo actually does that by default. I hate it when I get an email report of my own damn failed authentication attempt from my own damn machine.
- asdfsa32 5mo agoA new age of piracy is ahead of us. When they come crying about "revenue", these days will be remembered.
- Cider9986 5mo agoWhat do you mean?
- harvey9 5mo agoSites like TPB don't try to verify your age.
- trumpdong 5mo agoTPB is the worst piracy site now by the way. It's full of fake uploads should never be used. There are many others with better curation.
- somewhatgoated 5mo agoI hear that often but I have yet to find any issues with it. Maybe I’m too niche or not niche enough to run into issues. I also never download software from any site like this so maybe that’s it.
- trumpdong 5mo agoEven so, have a look around, there are better sites.
- asdfsa32 5mo agoAs the age verification and the dodgy businesses around them become more widespread, people will find the friction and risk of paying for "legitimate" access on par with pirating, and to boot, the later doesn't cost money. Remember, people use these services largely for convince more than qualms with paying for multinationals. So once they create friction, off we go to the bays again in large masses.
- muyuu 5mo ago[dead]
- gaiagraphia 5mo agoIt's really scary how society is being 'nudged' into using 'authorised devices' to participate in society (which we have to pay for, lol). I wonder if some ideology which believes in tech freedom will become the communism of the next age, and prompt a new wave of 'democracy' purity crusades.
- trumpdong 5mo agoThis was always the case in console gaming.
- somewhatgoated 5mo agoThere will definitely be a Butlerian Jihad to destroy the abominable intelligence and rampant digitalisation
- BashagtBot 5mo ago[dead]
- elric 5mo agoAny insights on what Yoti is or what might motivate them to take those moronic actions?
- trumpdong 5mo agoSeems pretty obvious from the incident that it's a mass surveillance company.
- zx8080 5mo agoIt's so surprising that despute so many screams "China" in western media in the last 15 years, it happens in the west, but in China it's free to use any OS without any negative consequences. Why? What's going on?
- minraws 5mo agoNot true the part about China, but yes Western countries do like to pretend they have a lot more freedom than they do. If you can't criticize or protest Xi in China, try criticize or protesting the laws in rest of the world. Especially the things they do in the name of privacy, I remember UK jailing folks for FB posts, that's stuff that happens in third world countries. Not that UK ever had much of a leg to stand on, US does the same now very scary. For trips to any of the countries first thing I check is my socials and delete stuff that might get checked on airports now. This was apparently not supposed to happen in the developed world. My friends still tell me it's not that bad, but it's just scary reading stuff on HN like this once a month, every month for the last few years.
- nextstep 5mo agoDo you have any sources for these claims about China?
- vsgherzi 5mo agohttps://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/police-warn-families-of-tiananmen-crackdown-dead-not-to-visit-graves-on-37th-anniversary https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/police-warn-families-... Not exactly what you asked but here’s something tangentially related
- nextstep 5mo agoBlocking an event memorializing a shameful part of China’s history? that’s not great, but that’s really not the same thing
- eunos 5mo ago
- shevy-java 5mo agoPeople often critisize the USA - rightfully so, now as the orange king and his cronies rule over it - but the UK is in some ways worse. One of the best things that happened in the last years was BREXIT; that way the craziness from the UK can no longer taint other Europeans. And that's actually a good thing. Age sniffing is done for appeasement to corporate overlords; people should not buy into the propaganda that this is "to protect the kids". It is so obvious at this point in time - the amount of money spent by lobbyists must be insane, and the UK is the easiest to fall victim here, even before the USA. Evil companies such as Yoti need to be disbanded at once - either by the state, or by the people if the state has already been bribed into obedient submission to private, particular interests.
- trumpdong 5mo agoEU is planning to develop a carbon copy of ICE. Fun fact: big European bad guy also carbon copied his strategies from the USA.
- b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago[flagged]
- sunaookami 5mo agoSeems like this company got fined recently for breaching GDPR: https://www.ictrecht.nl/en/blog/leeftijdsverificatie-online-spaanse-toezichthouder-legt-forse-boete-op-aan-yoti https://www.ictrecht.nl/en/blog/leeftijdsverificatie-online-... >The Spanish privacy regulator (hereinafter: AEPD) recently imposed a fine of €950,000 on age verification service YOTI >For the unlawful processing of biometric personal data in violation of Article 9 of the GDPR, YOTI was fined €500,000. In addition, a fine of €200,000 was imposed for obtaining invalid consent in violation of Article 7 of the GDPR. Finally, the company was fined €250,000 for exceeding retention periods in violation of Article 5 of the GDPR
- asdfsa32 5mo agoAbout 3% of their revenue. In context, someone in UK using their phone while driving will be charged about £1000 pound or ~3% of the median income..
- TalkingCodeMonk 5mo agoThe lesson is you gotta incorporate your crimes. If you kill a person you face life in prison. If you are a decision maker at Boeing who lies to regulators and customers, committing fraud that killed hundreds of people [0], you receive a golden parachute instead! [0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Augmentation_System https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Augme...
- joe463369 5mo agoSomeone using their phone while driving in the UK will almost certainly be charged £200. They'll only receive the maximum £1000 charge in extreme circumstances. Please don't lie.
- throw_a_grenade 5mo agoOh, this gave me an idea. OP should be able to get a hold of this „report” by subject access request. Law enforcement exception to GDPR doesn't apply to private companies.
- dwedge 5mo agoThis is totally unacceptable. But going to the hassle of running GrapheneOS and then using it to try and submit facial scans to combine your identity with your PSN account just seems so pointless.
- Cider9986 5mo ago> But going to the hassle of running GrapheneOS and then using it to try and submit facial scans to combine your identity with your PSN account just seems so pointless. reply Totally disagree. Everyone has a different threat model. Some people may solely be interested in the exploit protections and not care about their privacy. Some people might just like that it's completely open source or that there's no AI or it's bloat free. I really dislike this maximalist, "ruin privacy" stance because it discourages people from making a small improvement if they can't be perfect. Changing to GrapheneOS is an insanely large privacy benefit compared to almost any other change and people might see this sort of sentiment and think there's no point if they use one privacy invasive app.
- dwedge 5mo agoThe thing is though that this kind of verification is going to be rife if we keep accepting it, and inconveniences like it not working (plus some banking apps) is almost the entire downside of GrapheneOS. If you don't use it for things like this you don't really see any disadvantage. Occasionally I get cloudflare or vercel blocked when trying to read a blog but that's all. So they're at a very strange intersection of using graphene but wanting to do exactly the kind of that is difficult on graphene. And just to be able to chat on PSN. You're right though, different threat model.
- trumpdong 5mo agoEveryone should use Graphene. You don't have to be a privacy nut - it's also a version of Android that just works, efficiently, without bullshit, for you and not for Google. You should even install your privacy-violating apps on Graphene because that's better than having them on stock Android.
- 5mo ago
- Mangochutney27 5mo agoAnd now he's going to jail for using an alternative os or what?
- kgwxd 5mo agoI don't like this post, it will be reported to the authorities and my mommy.
- Onplana 5mo agoThe question is which category of justice does it qualify?
- kstenerud 5mo agoLooking more closely into the claim, the actual message from Yoti was: "Due to past security concerns, Yoti automatically flags multiple verification attempts and any devices running GrapheneOS. These instances are automatically reported to both the authorities and our security team." Then: "Unfortunately, as multiple attempts were made from this specific device, your account has been flagged for suspicious activity." So the "and" looks like a typo, otherwise their system wouldn't have allowed more than one attempt from a GrapheneOS device to begin with. i.e. multiple verification attempts from a GrapheneOS device will flag your account.
- notagorn 5mo ago> i.e. multiple verification attempts from a GrapheneOS device will flag your account Congratulations Graphene for being acknowledged as the OS of the next generation. An old version of Android or OsX would just be a confused boomer.
- YotiPR 5mo agoFull transparency, posting this as Yoti's PR team as discussed with Hacker News moderators: Yoti does not and never would never report any user to the authorities based on their choice of operating system or device. The image of the customer support email being circulated on Reddit does not match anything in Yoti’s customer support records. We have engaged with GrapheneOS to better understand any issues their users may be experiencing and explore ways to securely resolve those issues. For more information visit: https://www.yoti.com/blog/yoti-does-not-report-grapheneos-users-to-the-authorities/ https://www.yoti.com/blog/yoti-does-not-report-grapheneos-us...
- BLKNSLVR 5mo agoAs time progresses, the more I feel like 'acceptance' by the majority is a signal of complete capitulation to the power of the mighty dollar at the expense of all else. That with which the authorities disagree is more than likely the morally, ethically, societally correct direction. I'm a proud GrapheneOS user. In the immortal words of Marvin: "I'm mine". Fuck y'all.
- spacebacon 5mo agoThe manifold of meaning knows better. The days of black box justification machines are over. There is mystical, there is technical, and there is bedrock. Decision plumbing cant hide from the semiotic-reflexive transformer. To the defenders of the proprietary moat: your reality was just rewritten. When you realize we have mapped the semiotic infrastructure you can cut the bs.
- VladVladikoff 5mo agoThe OP of this reddit post has a lot of other posts (now hidden) about age verification, bypassing it, and privacy. They even got called out about this in the reddit thread and responded by hiding their profile, but you can see it on google still if you google for “reddit PaiDuck” Not saying what this company did is right, but it feels like this guy has been testing how far he can push these various age verification companies with bypass attempts, and as a result got banned. Additionally the email response from the company could have been trivially edited before the screenshot was taken, so I’m not even convinced that the story is real. If I was running an age verification company I would absolutely not share with the banned users the reason we caught them, that’s like sharing the recipe for your secret sauce.
- Palmik 5mo agoThe company representative said that they report all users that use Graphene OS, without any additional qualifiers. Presumably after they've already uploaded their personal details. That's the egregious part.
- arprocter 5mo agoAllowing people to hide their history was an awful decision imo https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/search https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/search
- lofaszvanitt 5mo agoPeople who were terrible with arguing with others always dig up some dirt on the other party and went to the mod team crying....
- red_admiral 5mo agoSomething's off about this one. Using GOS itself is not a crime, unless you use it to commit crimes.
- trumpdong 5mo agoWell, he didn't get charged with one. But that's not all authorities do. He's probably on a secret watch list and will be stopped every time be crosses a border, etc.
- sunshine-o 5mo agoMy guess is computers will end up soon where cars are today. I will be unclear if you can use your GOS, Linux or BSD computer. You might get stopped, checked, if the authorities want to screw you they can always find something. If you have an accident your insurance will find something. So you will live in a constant fear of getting caught, and you do not really know why. Until you end up getting a chromebook, aka a bus card or Uber rides. In most western countries the rules for car safety are draconian but I see everywhere 80+ years old people, out of their mind, driving SUV while looking at their phone. Since the 2010 people would call themselves hackers because they hang out here, use Github, VSCode and know about Kubernetes. But now you are about to get arrested for using GOS or whatever. At least the meaning of the term hacker is getting its shine back a bit.
- rgblambda 5mo agoPutting aside that the source for this is a Reddit post linking to screenshots of text, as opposed to a news site where a journalist would have to stake their reputation on the story being true. Anyone can report anyone else to "the authorities" for anything. It doesn't mean the unnamed authorities act on it. It's also quite strange that Yoti (if this isn't just a hoax) don't specify which policing unit is recieving these reports.
- RobotToaster 5mo ago> as opposed to a news site where a journalist would have to stake their reputation on the story being true. Have you seen the reputations of most "journalists" these days? Several UK newspapers frequently repost stories from forums like reddit and mumsnet.
- rgblambda 5mo agoAnd you can choose not to read their journalism. That's the value in having a reputation. And I'll remind you that the alternative in this case is just believing the random redditor's version of events.
- lucasayb97 5mo agoRight, but that doesn’t automatically mean that Redditors have better reputations. I use Reddit daily, but if I see any news that might sound absurd, I will definitely take a look on other news sites to see if the information is real. Journalists, impartial or not, may at least have better credibility in these news sites.
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- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo agoFrom the discuss.grapheneos.org comments "MineralWater This is why people should buy a cheap phone with stock android on which zero private data is stored and that is never used for anything other than those verification things or government apps that might be or become mandatory. What i mean is, use your graphene phone for everything, but don't use it to legitimate yourself. Take an old phone or cheap one and put nothing on it, no contacts, no email (maybe one exclusively used for this phone without any private conversation on it), no apps like messengers and so on. A phone that is only used like a passport, to legitimate yourself and or use government apps you are forced to use." HN commenters consistently argue they, and therefore everyone else, must be able to use the same phone for everything Otherwise corporate mobile OS alternatives like GrapheneOS are useless For example if banking app, the proverbial example, requires some corporate mobile OS, then the owner must use this corporate mobile OS for everything else besides banking, too If they have multiple phones, then presumably they must also use the corporate mobile OS on every one of them No exceptions Perhaps next we will see comments trying to argue that users can only have one phone Or that the only computer user may own is a phone These HN comments make little sense to me Perhaps the people using multiple as phones mentioned in MineralWater's comment are not the people commenting on HN