Notices by GrapheneOS (grapheneos@grapheneos.social)

Response to dishonest attacks on the GrapheneOS project by Robert Braxman:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20165-response-to-dishonest-attacks-on-the-grapheneos-project-by-robert-braxman

A chat server running on powerful hardware collapsing when handling more than 100 events per second isn't acceptable. Events scale up based on room activity from non-local users including spammers too. It's an issue for a server with 12 users too.

https://element.io/blog/scaling-to-millions-of-users-requires-synapse-pro/

Revolut is specifically banning GrapheneOS by checking for the build machine hostname and username being set to grapheneos. We've changed these to build-host and build-user. Combined with another change, this allow our users to log in to it again until they roll out Play Integrity API enforcement.

There's no legitimate excuse for banning using a much more private and secure operating system while permitting devices with no security patches for a decade. Meanwhile, Revolut's shoddily made app tells users they're banning GrapheneOS because they're "serious about keeping your data secure".

@b83c911407c576004346154f310779d2c0ce7f0ae6a5a02620cbec2e3735d2b2 We don't have a Nostr account yet. This is our Mastodon account being bridged by someone else.

@b83c911407c576004346154f310779d2c0ce7f0ae6a5a02620cbec2e3735d2b2 Here's where that post actually came from:

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113776984958982863

It must be doing a good job bridging to Nostr because we regularly get replies where people think we have a Nostr account. It doesn't do a great job showing us what people are saying on Nostr though. We can only see messages replying to us through what they bridge to us, not earlier conversations in threads before the bridged account was mentioned.

DivestOS inherited a lot of security and stability regressions from LineageOS. It also meant they ended up with a lot of questionable features they didn't really want. They ported over a small subset of GrapheneOS privacy and security features. A newer project could port current GrapheneOS instead.

Now that DivestOS is discontinued, it's possible another project will take on their goal of harm reduction for end-of-life devices. DivestOS was started before Treble, Generic Kernel Images and other improvements making device support far easier. A new project should avoid being based on LineageOS.

Google's Play Integrity API is not a security feature but rather it pretends to be one. Both Apple and Google are failing to protect their users against real world commercial exploit tools. Banning using one of the only options people have for better protection is anti-security.

We've been pointing out this was almost certainly going to happen since they launched:

https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/113601522660269275

Why? Android doesn't have any long term support branches for older versions of the mobile OS. Today's release of Android 15 QPR1 is the only supported stable release.

@ogtechtodon @techprofessor https://privsec.dev/posts/android/choosing-your-android-based-operating-system/ is another article about privacy and security differences between alternative Android-based operating systems. Talks about other alternate operating systems including DivestOS. Unlike most content, these are based on real experience and technical details.

@ogtechtodon @techprofessor GrapheneOS and CalyxOS are much different. GrapheneOS is a hardened OS with substantial privacy and security improvements:

https://grapheneos.org/features

CalyxOS is not a hardened OS. It substantially reduces security. It recently went 2 months not shipping standard security patches.

@ogtechtodon @techprofessor Compatibility with Android apps on GrapheneOS is also much different. GrapheneOS provides our sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

Can run the vast majority of Play Store apps on GrapheneOS, but not CalyxOS with the problematic microG approach.

@ogtechtodon @techprofessor
https://blog.privacyguides.org/2022/04/21/grapheneos-or-calyxos/ is a 3rd party article explaining some of the substantial differences between GrapheneOS and CalyxOS. It's a common misconception that they're similar. CalyxOS is far more similar to LineageOS than GrapheneOS. There are many other alternate OSes available.

https://twitter.com/MyntexInc/status/1626688081985261588

Myntex is selling end-of-life Pixel 3a XL devices with an insecure OS without full security patches as a premium priced proprietary 'secure' phone product. This isn't a hardened device but rather a scam, seen many times before from Encrochat and others.

An anonymous person donated 39 ETH to GrapheneOS on February 12th. Value of ~$59k at the time and now almost $65k.

Currently, all the developers we pay to work on GrapheneOS are directly funded with cryptocurrency donations. This donation will let us hire another full time dev.

#grapheneos #donation #ethereum