TLDR: Drug dealers in Catalonia have started to adopt GrapheneOS en masse leading to Catalan police suspecting anyone with a Google Pixel is a drug dealer
I’ve used Samsungs for years, but they have gotten too expensive for what I need, so I went for a Pixel this time around. I got issues with it, but mostly because I’m so used to the Samsung universe. Still way better than an Apple.
I guess I’m a Spanish drug dealer now.
This is a weird advertisement, but I kind of want grapheneOS now.
Been on it for ~2 years and never going back, fuck Google, fuck the government.
I’ve also been using it for like 2 years but I really want the hardware of something like the Fairphone. A fairphone or something similar with Graphene would be amazing
You can technically put GrapheneOS on a Fairphone, but it’s not officially supported.
Long term, the GOS team is looking to branch off from their reliance on Pixels.
The Graphene OS people have always been talking about how they eventually intend to develop their own hardware. So, possibly they will make something good eventually.
Not develop their own hardware, but contract an established manufacturer to do it for them. Which is good, they have no business doing hardware!
Would be sick. If they also make it open enough to try out mobile Linux, I’d totally buy it and try to transition (esp. if it can dual boot).
Epic
Well you still bought a Google phone
True, with the intention of installing Graphene OS on it. No other options.
Strange that google is the only option for the only “secure” operating system.
Hey, do you know what is Ring Level minus One ?Strange that google is the only option for the only “secure” operating system.
The have their reasons: https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
Hey, do you know what is Ring Level minus One ?
I know you’re only trolling here and I’m feeding into it, but you nerd sniped me just right to explain why your question is stupid on multiple fronts.
First of all, “Ring -1” is the hypervisor, at least on virtualization-capable devices (which modern Pixels are), and the hypervisor will be Linux’s KVM in this case, which is open source and compiled by the Graphene team as part of the kernel from source.
Secondly, Arm (which is the architecture basically all phone chips use, including Pixels) has a slightly different model of security, where apps are Exception Level 0, the OS is EL1, the hypervisor is EL2, and the “secure monitor” (or management firmware) is EL3 (and is probably what you were trying to refer to).
So yeah, I don’t think you know what “Ring -1” is. At least not enough to warrant a snarky comment.
“-1” is not just hypervisors, things like Intel Management and AMD Platform Security Processor can peer into system memory. I have no doubt similar system exist on ARM, I suspect the radio transceiver can also read system memory and read secrets out of the security devices.
I don’t think modern phones are trustable devices. They are opaque blackboxes, pretending to have high security but this security only really protects the spyware operators from being notices.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that the most “secure” and “private” operating system only operates on a very narrow model selection of phones from just one manufacturer. Probably because they have the best technology to keep the inherent backdoor invisible and implausible. A backdoor to a system nobody trusts wouldn’t be very useful.
The original post is about how it’s so secure the piggies can’t get in. Unless the super secret backdoor is only for the shadow government to disappear dissidents with no trace, thus keeping their super secret backdoor secret.
Been on it for about 19 months now, it’s what Android should be.
Shameless plug for SwapMyOS
I have an iPhone since the first one and I wanna try it to.
Basically, if you don’t have a phone the cops can easily backdoor, you must be a criminal.
“What do you have to hide?” taken to it’s logical conclusion.
Humans are apes desiring power, there’s no excuse under which you can give it to them. They’ll invent authority giving them right to judge you and think they are in the right.
Also why I absolutely despise the Silicon Valley - it’s many such people who think they are the elite now. I want that place detroited as soon as possible. Zuckerberg prosecuted for all the murders he’s committed (I’m certain there are plenty, a person with ASPD with such power just can’t be anything else) which are now unknown, Brin and other jerks playing “cooperating with legal elected authorities” while giving them something with no mandate whatsoever feeling themselves powerful - prosecuted for high treason, all these playing censorship and recommendation - prosecuted for scams on the scale of billions, yadda-yadda.
Cops saying this should be immediately sued for inciting hate or defamation or whatever against people who don’t want to be backdoored.
I have a right to not be surveilled, they don’t have a right to surveil me.
Anyway, I might all the time fly a weird trajectory between various ideologies, but they are all anarchist and Silicon Valley bosses are all thieves.
Basically, if you don’t have a phone the cops can easily backdoor, you must be a criminal.
… and if it’s an obscenely expensive one.
Normal people either can’t afford these devices or don’t have time for all the hassle of installing and using a rare operating system on a phone.
Pixels are mid range if you buy a generation back. I have 6a and paid $250 two years ago.
No one forces you to root your Pixel, you are allowed to use it with stock android.
I paid $350 or so for my Pixel 8 refurb. New wasn’t that much more.
And yeah, the Pixel is fine without a different ROM, I just like what GrapheneOS offers, so I specifically bought it instead of an alternative.
I have 6a
Well shit. Guess I need a battery
Oh my, I hear Google is going to brick the batteries of the 6a just like they did with the 4a phones. Due to worry about them catching fire. So good luck!
Batteries are a part of the device that will wear down over time anyways. The real problem is making them inaccessible. I have no idea how hard it is to replace on a pixel though.
It looks to be a pain between the tools needed and the hassle. It supposedly takes between 30 minutes to a couple of hours depending on your skills and some luck.
Yeah, it needs a battery
Minimum wage in Spain is €1,300 per month. A Pixel 9a is under $500 and under €550 and currently on sale for $449 and €500. A couple of hundred can get you a Pixel 9. What exactly is a not obscenely price for a flagship phone to you?
And I don’t even understand your second comment. People spend over an hour a day on social media alone.
So the normal person in Spain could buy this phone and the normal person in Spain does have the time to figure out how to install a “rare” operating system. A “rare” operating system that’s free and easily copied.
Yup, install process takes a few minutes, it walks you through it on a pretty friendly web page.
You can buy a Pixel with Graphene already installed, and they’re by no means obscenely expensive.
You can install Graphene from the browser, it’s really not a huge hassle to install especially if you do it right when you get the phone.
rare operating system
android
🤔
maybe they dumbed down “a custom ROM” or just didn’t want to name GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS is most used on old Google Pixels which are anything but “obscenely expensive”
The refurbished pixel 8 I bought cost a fraction of what I’d have paid for a new phone and the installation took 5 minutes.
Interesting, at least four people in my closer circle aren’t normal people. Including myself.
What sorts of drugs do you and your gang sell?
Mint?
Maybe Arch or even Ubuntu?
Only one of those.
I use Arch, btw.
I am not allowed to tell you. I don’t want you to buy a Google Pixel.
I’m more of a Fairphone guy myself.
Do you live in that region?
No. Do I have to, to be a “normal people”?
Yeah. Only Spanish people are normal. Found that out today. /s
I paid $350 or so for my Pixel 8 refurb. New wasn’t that much more. I put GrapheneOS on it the day I got it, and it took maybe 15 min? The install process was really smooth.
Pixels are way less than top phones, like iPhones or Samsungs.
Normal people either can’t afford these devices or don’t have time for all the hassle
Had a friend who was getting by on $2k/mo and got herself a $1400 top of the line iPhone, because her carrier gave her a reduction in her monthly payment plan (for an obscene amount of debt and locked-in service on the back end). Her brother jail-broke it for her and did the normal “cleaning off all the bloatware” due-diligence.
This is just something we all put up with in the modern day. “Normal people” have a harder time navigating the bullshit, but its a lake we all have to paddle through.
This is the best recommendation for a phone I’ve seen yet.
Thanks catalonian police
Be wary since as of Android 16, Google no longer provides device source for Pixel phones.
I’ll keep in mind thanks
The police: ‘We’ve encountered a difficulty with our paid spying software. Welp it must be just the criminals.’
Edit: Missed the R and hit the T on our.
pretty much. The original article says that if they have a pixel they have to ask for a warrant
This implies searching other phones don’t require warrants?
Yes. Yes it does.
Or more accurately, they can’t search your phone without you knowing with GrapheneOS, so they have to get a judge to force you to willing unlock it.
So they follow the laws only on GrapheneOS users. Iirc other up to date phones are also hard to crack especially if it’s on first unlock
I don’t really know. I operate under the assumption that my phone is always a piece of spyware and minimize what’s actually on it or what it can hear.
You are a smart person. We need more people like you.
Same here and I use grapheneos.
Without? Even with paid spying software is hard, as far as data forensics go. Going with Pegasus and the likes, you never know, just reboot every 2 hours if you don’t mind the hassle.
I’m pretty sure they just misspelled our as out
Technically I didn’t misspell. This is me missing the correct key.
Well I do use a Pixel (for lineage OS) and I do make my living selling drugs… wait wait this is a bad example.
Well in that case two marijuanas please
As long as you are in my province then sure! Gotta obey the law after all.
Original or hot n spicy?
1/2 and 1/2 with extra cheese pls
You too!?
Oh crap, are they onto us?
Shhhh! They don’t know yet.
Gotta some of that good ket?
No not a veterinarian, sorry.
Reminds me of getting a notice in Middle School, decades ago, about how a pager was considered “drug paraphernalia”
There was also a big Bloomberg-Era push by the NYPD to arrest any woman carrying condoms on her person, on the grounds that a woman carrying a condom must be a sex worker.
Everything I hear about Bloomberg make me question how he ran as a democrat, and then I remember he fits the democratic party better than anyone else…
NYC’s greatest act was tricking everyone into thinking it’s a progressive city. I am interested in Mamdani at least.
Police are not the brightest in any society.
So I guess somebody needs to tell them that they need to focus their efforts a little better if their current plan is ‘anyone with a Google Pixel is a drug dealer’.
Can I suggest they start with the people with drugs, rather than the people with the – not uncommon - google phones in their search for drug dealers?
Police are not the brightest in any society.
It’s a literal job requirement. If you’re smart, you’re not going to blindly follow orders. Police cognitive testing literally discards candidates that perform well in intellectual tasks. This is not a conspiracy or a joke, it’s how police works.
Can confirm. Own pixel, deal drugs.
But do you live in Catalonia?
They’re mad they can’t use cellbrite to snoop on properly configured GOS phones and that they actually have to do real police work to catch drug dealers
Yes. They (cellebrite) don’t mention GrapheneOS support very loudly because it’s poor. They can’t decrypt one that’s BFU (Before First Unlock), not even by brute force if it’s a 6 digit passcode apparently. Don’t know if they can get data from an AFU GOS pixel. A year ago when their internal docs leaked, they also had no support for latest iOS at the time, but had brute force support for older versions as long as phone itself wasn’t too new and had AFU access without brute force for even older versions.
Moral of the story: if there’s a chance police might take your phone to investigate for a crime you hopefully didn’t even commit, shut down your phone completely - the 5x power button trick on iOS disables biometric unlock, but the device itself stays decrypted and thus more vulnerable. Also keep your OS up to date.
If you’ve got a phone that’s neither iOS nor GrapheneOS, it’s probably pretty much Swiss cheese anyway. IOS isn’t as good as GrapheneOS either, but it offers some protection against Cellebrite if up to date and BFU. But if they keep your phone for long enough (months, years), they’ll get it unlocked because you can’t install updates that would patch any newly discovered vulnerabilities and one day they’ll find a BFU unlock for it, probably.
Graphene OS in particular comes with a default feature enabled called Auto Reboot to protect against this. I think it’s set to 18 hours by default because that’s what mine is, but you can go as low as 4 hours.
If you have it set to four hours, I’d wager your phone would reset way before the pigs had enough time to try and get their way in.
Yeah, I have mine at 4 hours and it’s pretty good. It triggers while I’m at work sometimes, but other than that, it’s mostly just when I sleep.
iOS started doing this a year or 2 ago, but unfortunately it’s 3 days and not configurable
Does a full shutdown encrypt all contents on iOS? This is something that everyone entering the USA as I have to do annually needs to think about.
It’s all encrypted in storage. The decryption key is in the secure element / TPM chip, additionally protected by your PIN / password. Shutting it down unloads all encryption keys from memory.
Beware that US customs / immigration / border control can seize your phone and refuse entry.
What happens if I turn it back on but don’t unlock it? Are the encryption keys in memory?
They’re not in memory until the first unlock, that’s why there’s the AFU vs BFU distinction for cellebrite unlocking devices incl iPhones.
But as the other person said, they can seize your phone and refuse entry. If you need to travel to the USA annually and you don’t want them to see your shit, you may want to have a decoy phone that’s not logged into your real accounts or have many photos on it. Just enough to make it believable it’s your real phone, but not enough to help them forge anything on you.
I am a non-resident US citizen so I believe it would be more difficult for them to search and hold me without trial or legal representation. But these days anything is possible.
Yes, but customs can still compel you to unlock your phone as we have recently seen with the Norweigan tourist who was denied entry due to having a JD Vance meme on his phone.
I would recommend having a separate phone with non-important data on it to take with you to the US, or have a self hosted cloud service that you can backup your data to before wiping your device.
You essentially don’t have rights at the border (or in general with the current US government).
How can they compel me?
You either unlock it or we send you back.
Can they really deport a US citizen?
Other countries can. But technically, the US government cannot deny a US citizen access.
Are they allowed to? Absolutely not. But… who is stopping them?
can != will
…the current regime will continue doing whatever the f*ck they want as long as nobody stops them…
Threatening to detain you indefinitely (your rights aren’t the same at the border/customs as they are after entering the country), or just outright deny you entry.
I heard they can’t actually hold you more than a couple days if you are a citizen./?
That’s after you go through customs. AFAIK, that doesn’t apply to people coming into the country.
Although this administration holds people more than 48 hours regardless.
“Feds”
checks Wikipedia page for Spain
Government: “Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy”
🧐
(Sorry for nitpicking lol 😅)
But serious tho:
I kinda hate these weird associations. Its like arresting people who wear glasses because intellectual rebels wear glasses? (Pol Pot?)
Like can’t someone just use a phone in peace? Most Pixel users don’t even use Graphene OS.
Hey you know what, drug dealers drink water. Lets arrest people who drink water!
Solid cop logic. Of the exact level you’d expect.
Isn’t it likely the police is kind of right?
I mean, how many people in that community used grapheneos phones before the drug dealers figured out how good they were for their purposes? So in that community, it’s indeed very likely that a grapheneos user is in a drug gang.
Does that mean that grapheneos is an issue, or bad? Not at all. But i see a lot of digs at the police here at how dumb they are. But if literally most grapheneos users there are drug dealers, is it dumb? It’s just a plain observation that’s pretty correct.
And it’s kind of logical that proper open source tools that are not full of spyware are better for also such purposes. Doesn’t make these tools a problem. If a politician would now start a crusade against such operating systems, that i would agree is dumb.
But i don’t see an issue with police somewhere realizing that drugdealers use a specific tool, and focusing on that. Of course sucks for the couple of regular users there that just do it to have control over their device…
That really depends on what they do with that information. If people get arrested for having a pixel, that’s a huge issue. If someone merely gets a closer investigation if they’re suspected of another crime, that’s fine.
The article is light on details.
I think most of the criticism towards police is because they are discriminating based on Google Pixels, which is a completely normal car that you can install GrapheneOS on. It would be like targeting anyone driving a Kia because of the Kia Boys
Pixel has a market share of 1.5%, so they kind of stand out. Also, there is no such thing as “federales” in Spain. Spain is not a federation. If they are talking about National Police or Guardia civil, they go through a pretty hard entrance exam, and then have a minimum of one year instruction. Executive ranks must have a university degree. Generally reasonably competent. Mossos (regional) and local police are another story. They are quite a bit less competent.
Glances at my new Pixel, Welp, I guess I ain’t ever goin’ to Catalonia. Not that I was planning to go there anyway.
***Tinfoil conspiracy: Maybe this a scare tactic to keep the British out of Spain.
Doesn’t a Google Pixel device come with its own OS image by default, independent of Graphene OS? Is there some kind of step that we’re missing here?
Yes. Cops are idiots. Duh.
It does, but a lot of people but the pixels specifically to put graphene on it because graphene they’re compatible and graphene offers better privacy and security. What I’m getting here is drug dealers are using graphene to dodge digital narcs and it’s becoming common enough that the Venn diagram skews heavily to drug dealing.
I mean yeah, I’d say 250k is a lot for a 3rd party phone OS.
The experience speaks for itself. I dont know of anyone who’s ever willingly gone back to stock android either.
You can buy them with either stock Android, or Graphene. Meaning you don’t need to re flash the device or anything.
You cant buy grapheneos preloaded on anything and doing so would be pretty foolish since it could be backdoored. GraphenOS is aimed at people who value security and privacy, you dont let some rando flash your phone if you value those things.
You absolutely can, just not from the manufacturer. But I agree that it’s dumb, installation is easy and doesn’t come with the added risk of the seller putting on some spyware or whatever.
I think this is incorrect but I could be wrong.
You can not buy a Pixel device preloaded with GrapheneOS. They only come from Google with their standard Android and it’s up to the end user to install GrapheneOS. Unless you buy a used Pixel device with GrapheneOS already installed.
deleted by creator
Yeah I’d consider that as a used phone. I’d only get the hardware from the OEM and install GrapheneOS myself. Less chance of man in the middle. It’s super easy to install using the web installer.
If friends asked I would flash their pixel with Graphene, then set it up basically as they would use it for them.
Getting started was complex, your average user won’t have a good experience getting their apps added without a power user helping.
Hmm, you used to be able to buy them directly from Google, but that doesn’t seem to be the case any more.
Umm… I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think you could ever buy a phone from Google with GrapheneOS.
