It's absolutely insane that phones have online accounts deeply integrated into the OS. You need to give Apple your phone number to download any apps on iOS.
For example:
Say anyone that downloaded IceBlock commited crime, Apple could give the govt everyone who downloaded its phone number, the govt could get the realtime location of everyone based on their phone number from the carrier.
And that's not even mentioning the other problem that nobody can download IceBlock anymore[1].
It's so refreshing for my phone not to ask for any identifying information when I set it up. GrapheneOS is a better software experience than iOS anyway[2].
Phones have great potential to be the most private and secure computers, cell services not withdrawing. And iPhones are one of the most private and secure devices. But, Apple uses that to restrict its users freedom and it makes Apple's users can easily be controlled by any government.
[2] once you install good apps. This is coming from a lifelong iOS user. Not prejudiced against Apple, I use a Mac (without an account) and their Advanced Data Protection is great (when I had an account).
Curious to hear: how much effort did it take to migrate to GrapheneOS? I own a pixel, grabbed it in anticipation of unlocking, but the effort it seems it would take from reading GrapheneOS docs has stopped me from committing to it on my daily driver. Would you please provide a quick time estimate and any snags you hit?
I agree with that.. additionaly, I'm finding it to be insane that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)
Remote attestation is not just insane, it's the technology that will end free computing as we know it today.
What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted and gets us banned from every service out there? Gets us ostracized from digital society? Because we "tampered" with the device?
We should be able to run whatever software we want and they should be none the wiser. Instead, we are part of the threat model now. Our devices are now cryptographically attesting that they are corporate owned and that we are under corporate control. It's so disgusting. The future we're heading towards is terrifying. Everything the word hacker ever stood for will be destroyed if this keeps up.
It's all about who owns the keys and who trusts those keys. If you don't have the keys to "your" computer, then you don't own that computer, you're just renting it from the corporation.
And even if our own keys could be used, who's going to trust those attestations? Nobody. They will trust Google's keys, Microsoft's keys, Apple's keys. Not ours.
Yeah same as TPM and Secureboot. They can improve your own personal security (and thereby privacy) drastically, but it has to be controlled by the user.
You'll probably just need to keep two phones. One hostile spying device that you use for authenticating and dealing with government stuff, and that becomes e-waste every 2 years. Then you have one that you can repair and extend for your own stuff that respects you and your privacy.
I am doing this now. I have had a carrier locked iPhone SE 2020 which I only use on Wi-Fi for over five years now. I also have an android phone and I don't install any banking apps on my android phone.
>What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted
That is not what remote attestation is for. The operating system maintains isolation between apps, so a free software app being installed doesn't mean an app that needs high security is compromised.
I think you've misunderstood. It's not an app problem. The problem is that it makes Free Software OSes unviable. The copy of Android you compile and install yourself - or your copy of desktop Linux where you upgraded the kernel yourself - will never pass remote attestation, and it gives both the attestation provider and software that checks attestation the ability to unilaterally shut out any OS they like with no workaround, even those that do pass attestation.
In a world of deeply untrustworthy Big Tech, and trend of governments, banks and other basic services needed to exist in society relying on apps and in the future, websites that use remote attestation, that is very troubling.
There are better ways of dealing with the bad actors problem, but Big Tech has chosen violence.
It’s not incompatible with open source. It’s incompatible with free software. If Apple or Google or Microsoft or the government needs to “bless” your build, then you have no freedom to actually use your build.
Your "development build" is another person's daily driver.
Case in point: GrapheneOS (or any other custom Android distro) is unlikely to be able to ever pass remote attestation, even a signed, secure boot build with the bootloader relocked, because it's not the original OS for the hardware.
GrapheneOS implements its own attestation so you can attest that it's real GrapheneOS. The valid approach they've chosen is to try and get on a level playing field with the big guys rather than destroy the playing field. They have a good argument their OS is very secure, so you should accept its attestation. This is how a user-friendly OS backdoors into the attestation system.
I still think destroying the playing field is better, but less likely to succeed.
This isn't about you attesting anything though. It's about corporations attesting that your device is 100% corporate owned. Can't have you running software that impacts their bottom line after all.
GrapheneOS could be the most secure operating system to ever exist, it doesn't matter to the corporation because it's still under your control. When they say "security", they mean "the corporation's security against the user", not "the user's security against the hostile world out there".
They have to come and outright say "we block this because we don't control it". They can't say "we block this because it isn't secure" because it's obviously very secure.
GrapheneOS doesnt implement its own attestation. It simply inherits the existing, generic attestation system provided in the android open source project. Any fork of AOSP can provide this, the keys would just need to be whitelisted per OS.
The hypervisor maintains isolation between operating systems, so a free operating system being installed doesn't mean an app that needs a high security operating system is compromised.
The whole point of this discussion is the trend towards societal scale denial of that feature by both market forces and governmental forces.
There is no such a thing as "just buy a different device" when this "different device" is actively discriminated against to the point it's a paper weight. I wouldn't be surprised if remote attestation becomes necessary to even get an internet connection in the future.
We're running into situations where the usage of smart phones and apps are becoming mandatory for using services.
For example: The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK. Additionally the EU digital identity services have a hardware/software attestitation that is required to run their apps. (Many of those which 3rd party software can't run).
Another example of this is the Australian eTA - (Everyone has to have a visa to visit Australia.. but the real only way to get a visa* is you have to get an electronic travel authorization which only works via an App)
myGov (Australian government app)
gov.br (Brazilian government app)
Ticketcorner
Authy
Chyrpe Dating
TextNow
mada Pay (Saudi NFC payment app)
McDonald's (International app used for many but not all countries not including the US)
Dott
My SEAT (Connectivity for SEAT cars)
SwissID
Volkswagen
BKK Faber-Castell & Partner
TK-Doc
TK-Ident
TK-App (Blocks access to TK-Safe, TK-GesundheitsMessenger, fingerprint login)
IO (Italian government app which uses it to gate access to the digital wallet feature)
PosteID (Italian postal service’s app used to access the national digital identity system "SPID")
Singpass
> The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK.
That's untrue.
There was a strong push towards the digital ID from the current administration, but it was abandoned 6 months ago.
What you likely mixed up with digital ID is the old digital visa scheme, mandatory for all non-UK citizens to prove right to work.
Re: your app list: looks a little bit eclectic, so it's worth mentioning most of the apps don't ban GoS specifically, but enforce Google play strong or device integrity pass, which GoS doesn't pass.
Some trip on some exploit protections, like secure app spawning, but these can be turned off per app in the latest releases based on Android 17.
GrapheneOS and others should have lobbyists or rather lawyers and lawmakers to fight for using secure systems to mandatory be allowed for these. Sure, there must be some type of OS guarantee, but that should not be exclusive to Google and Apple. And indeed browsers with otp/authn devices (not one per service but yubi/thetis type of thing as those can be made sovereign for a large part); when an OS is not allowed, the browser and app should be mandatory allowed with such a device as that is, actually, more secure than the original device as it is an external encryption and encryption key source the hacker cannot reach.
Us users might be effective as well. Hopefully anti-trust law catches up and bans play integrity. They are probably going to spend their money improving features and experience to get more users. There's threads on the forum dedicated to sending emails to Volkswagen to get them to support Grapheneos and it may be working.
> The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK.
False
In fact I can't think of a single Government service or legal requirement that requires a smartphone in the UK.
In the past year I have applied for a passport, applied for benefits, opened a bank account, passed through border control, filed a company tax return, closed down a business, helped someone else claim for benefits, made police reports, filed a case with the small claims court, paid my council tax, received an incone tax refund, travelled on public transport extensively, hired a car.
All had alternatives as far as I can recall.
Quite a few were done online just with a computer and optionally a phone number
And based on prior discussions here I have to point out that "require" doesn't mean "ok but the alternative is kind of inconvenient"
Likely referring to Android's Play Integrity/hardware attestation API (good explainer from GrapheneOS [1]) that is practically used to restrict what devices/brands/Android builds an app will allow itself to be run on.
I miss the days when iOS jailbreaks allowed you to completely circumvent basically all DRM because the trust in Apple was so high that you could just assume a device is secure. Contrast that with Android, which has always had invasive attestation mechanisms because of widespread mistrust in OEMs. On iOS, sometimes you had individual apps trying to check for jailbreak but that was it
> that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)
Even worse, GOVERNMENTS do that. EU Governments basically forcing you to give Google (via the Google Mobile Services rootkit) or Apple (and via the cloud act also the Trump Admin) access to your entire phone (including all of your saved personal data) to use the govt eID system...
If it were only that and we actually had “free market capitalism” and “competition” you could simply choose, but leering and steering these “organizations” is the treasonous and inherently illegitimate government, which is increasingly indistinguishable from private corporations, mostly because it’s the same pool of people, which are reflexively moving us all towards a common focal point of a form of tyranny similar to hereditary oligarchy and/or serfdom.
Don't phones have identifiers outside of phone number anyway?
I feel like you have to trust the hardware/os vendor anyway.
So if you don't trust apple to not misbehave, maybe not getting an iphone is better than chasing the whole phone-number idea.
Your comment isn't super clear to me, let me know if I misunderstood anything.
Yes there are still identifiers when using cellular data service, but they aren't connected to your phone number that you give out. Phone number gets a determined threat actor real time location, which is what I explained. Threat actor gets location from any carrier identifier. Cellular was built in a terrible way for privacy and security.
Android doesn't let apps see hardware identifiers if that's related.
Yes you're correct about having to trust Apple, but my point is that the way Apple is collecting all this extra info allows them to be compelled to hand it over. It's not about trusting Apple, it's about them following the law, which they will do.
I’m on the edge of migrating from my iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS.
But there is ONE feature I love on iOS and it’s the Live Photos. I feel like it’s an amazing way to keep family memories. Do you know if it exists on GrapheneOS?
There are 3rd party camera apps that support it, but you'd have to download them separately. GrapheneOS camera app is fine but nothing outstanding. It will give you decent pictures but don't expect any fancy upscaling or editing features.
Only in Google camera, which is usable on grapheneos: You get a live shot feature, it ain't exactly the same tho, look into that.
I run pixelos and the amount of stuff I miss from iphone is staggering, the difference between pixelos/grapheneos isn't as big as the difference between iphone/pixel.
It's mostly the app. Nothing come close to apple notes or reminder for instance.
Even safari... On Android, you get chromium that doesn't have any extension or Firefox that has incredibly frustrating UI and doesn't work well on some website.
I can understand extensions but I like Vanadium a lot more than Safari. Reminders is hard to replace unfortunately. Overall I like android apps a lot more though. Once you find the right ones.
I mean... your sentiment is in the right place, but Android phones (non-GrapheneOS) can be used without Google account just fine.
Yes, you need to use F-Droid & Co. to get apps (just like on Graphene), but otherwise they're functional and many people are actually using them like that.
Reasonably happy with GrapheneOS, but the number of bugs (maybe more ecosystem bugs) would make me hesitant to suggest other people rely on it as a communication device.
I have notifications turned ON for WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. I never receive notifications from Telegram. I have to open that app to see if anyone said anything. WhatsApp and Signal notifications seem to vary between late or never? This is despite a constant notification reminder that Signal has Background connection enabled.
Also I can only send messages to some whatsapp contacts. My messages appear as pending for a while and eventually turn into 'could not send'.
This is not an issue with GrapheneOS, this is an issue with your configuration, which is trivial to solve.
All of those apps support using google services FCM for push notification delivery. I dont think Telegram has a fallback, and Signal and Whatsapp have power-intensive fallbacks. You may also need to reinstall these apps for them to detect google services (apps generally dont check for google services more than once on initial launch).
On this subject since it's an Australian seller and marketed as "DV safe".
Australia has a national test of it's phone alert system in 10 days at 27/07/26, 2PM AEST. (People in North America would know it as Cell Alerts/Presidential Alerts etc.)
There have been warnings that hidden phones will almost certainly sound, and their recommendation is to ether power off the phone or put it into airplane mode at least an hour before the test...
You cannot on many phones, and often phones will even lie when it says all categories are disabled, as some jurisdictions have laws against turning off some of the highest alert categories.
I've dealt with Android phones for which there was zero way to disable the highest alert, adb regardless. Unless you have root, it's often not possible.
Yes, GrapheneOS of course allows this.
Edit: re followup comment.
No, adb cannot be used in all cases to disable the packages involved. At all. Some phones refuse to lets users disable some packages, no matter what.
Yes, I know what I'm talking about.
As someone with decades of Linux and Android experience, who often works nights, having Quebec police use presidental alerts... CRTC regardless, to warn of a child abducted by a parent 2000km away from me, is an exceptionally strong motivator.
The sheer stupid of an alert you cannot control the volume, sound, and length of in any way, is absurd. Try going back to sleep after something screams at you, at your equiv of 2am is madness.
By god I hate those alerts.
So yes, I know. If you don't have root, and the phone won't let you disable some packages, you're done.
ADB can be used to disable it without GrapheneOS by disabling the packages providing the high level implementation of wireless emergency alerts. It's not something most people can be expected to do though. It's actually a lot easier to install GrapheneOS via the web installer than using the CLI ADB shell. ADB is also quite dangerous and people can be tricked into giving very invasive access to malware with it. We're not recommending that people use ADB for this but rather just noting it can be done.
This post is literally just SEO copy designed to sell degoogled phones to (justifiably) anxious DV victims?
Their phones are more than twice as expensive as equivalent models at JF HiFi too (and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace).
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles (Private Space, secondary users) with improvements but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
> and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace
Devices with drastically worse privacy and security than the Android Open Source Project including lack of bare minimum updates aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
There are a bunch of companies selling devices with GrapheneOS at a significant markup despite it being very easy for non-technical people to install it themselves in 10 to 20 minutes. There's a lot of demand for it and companies set prices based on what they can get away with charging.
The linked post is a mess which was probably generated with an LLM. GrapheneOS does have useful properties for this even though it isn't the focus. Someone could write a proper article making a case for it even though this isn't one.
GrapheneOS is free and we recommend people install it themselves with the web installer. People can also save a lot of money getting a used device, but we strongly recommend against an older device than a Pixel 8 due to support time. A used Pixel 8a tends to be the cheapest option. An important thing to watch out for with used devices is avoiding ones which were originally sold by carriers locking their devices. Some phone sellers wrongly label locked devices as being fully unlocked.
If people buy a device with GrapheneOS instead of doing it themselves as we recommend, we a guide to follow to make sure it's genuine GrapheneOS and get rid of any strange software or configuration it ships with:
Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
I remember Cyanogen ships without Google Play etc., right? (Because if you install Google Services and a bunch of crap from their store (theirs and otherwise) that spies on you, it defeats the purpose of a privacy preserving OS.
So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that? (Well Cyanogen at least give you the option of installing all that crap but that would seem to defeat the purpose in this case.)
But more broadly I'm not sure I understand the relevance in this particular context. The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario? (Ok I suppose half the stuff on the Play store is spyware so maybe it's more realistic than I'm thinking...)
> So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that?
GrapheneOS is a privacy and security hardened OS. LineageOS and CyanogenMod aren't in that space. GrapheneOS preserves the standard privacy and security features and updates of the Android Open Source Project as a baseline. It greatly improves privacy and security with major privacy and security features along with much better privacy/security updates. It keeps up with the major OS updates including having a release based on Android 17 since the day it was released (2026-06-16).
> Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS is a production quality OS with around 15 people paid to work on it. It's not a hobbyist project. We've never used the term custom ROM since it isn't accurate and propagates misconceptions. It's best to avoid it.
> The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?
Yes, stalkerware is very common and there are a bunch of apps marketed for this purpose. It's helpful to get a new phone set up from scratch without the same accounts or automatically restoring any data on it. This can be a GrapheneOS phone but it doesn't particularly need to be. It's not GrapheneOS recommending itself for this purpose. There are an assortment of privacy and security features relevant to this in standard Android 17 and in the features added by GrapheneOS but nothing essential to this. GrapheneOS makes sense as a general choice for a new phone for many people due to being a highly usable, compatible, private and secure device but we're not specifically recommending it for being who are victims of stalkerware ourselves.
Zero Google services are shippsx by default, but you can install Play Store and Services in a sandbox and it has minimal privacy problems, depending on the permissions you give it.
Their docs are really good, not only for their phone but for learning about privacy and security: https://grapheneos.org
You could still install an app that spies on you on grapheneos because it has 99.99% android app compatibility, so if you gave an app designed for spying the relevant permissions, it would still be able to spy. No way it could hide location indicator or anything like that, but I doubt it could do that on other OSes (don't quote me on other OSes).
A web search for the term will turn up many more results. Graphene OS's hardening against exploits, compared to the abysmal record of Android vendors, gives much better odds against any of these apps being able to run with elevated privileges, which means Android's sandboxing is effective.
I am having a hard time believing your first link, which says:
> In Anna’s case, stalkerware was disguised as a picture message, sent to her by the man she was dating (let’s call him David), just a few weeks after they met. She was then under constant surveillance for about two years
That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right? I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
I totally get the problem that "the abuser knows the iCloud password and can use the FindMyPhone feature to track the victim", or "the abuser convinced the victim to install an app that would track the victim without their consent". But I am genuinely wondering how much GrapheneOS protects against that.
There are many tiers of far easier remote attacks far easier than exploiting an up-to-date iPhone through iMessage of WhatsApp. It doesn't mean that's what happened but it's often not something that's extremely difficult. Many people use phones with years of missing security patches. It's getting increasingly easy to exploit those in the age of LLMs.
Regardless, it sounds more like a social engineering attack tricking someone into installing an invasive app and granting invasive permissions to it.
> I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
They do regularly use social engineering to trick their partners into setting up stalkerware or permitting it to be installed. Getting a new phone and accounts is a very helpful for people who are victims of it. They've often given access to their accounts and devices without knowing how to fully get rid of it. Reclaiming the existing devices and accounts is far easier if they have a clean one to start from where they can get technical help. It doesn't specifically need to be a GrapheneOS device, but it's a good choice in general and doesn't require being technically savvy to use or even install it.
Not really, these are available to any script kiddy as long as unpatched phones and software exists. It takes some initial effort to find them out, but that is it.
And I remember similar attacks floating around few years ago even outside domestic violence situation.
It's an advertisement. That's pretty much the difference, the company selling these phones has a very high margin for essentially resell of Google phones with reflash of GrapheneOS.
I mean, some obvious things are there in the article, IMHO -
- App isolation and hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)
- Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)
So you can do stuff on there that's not going to tip off someone who's controlling enough to demand to see your phone, and so you'll at least be tipped off if someone compromises it.
Indeed, whenever I reboot (which is very frequently, because Mastodon will only open, not reopen. If I close it, I need to reboot before using it again) I see the tamper detection. It warns me that I'm using GrapheneOS, not Android.
I've used GrapheneOS, but not PrivacyPros setup. The site is interesting. It is almost like a to do list of things for my phone. Most of the things they've done feels like a topic to look into and consider implementing.
Any data collected can be abused. This is like saying why care about what flock knows about you, when it's been used by far too many police to stalk their romantic interests.
Police can obtain data from Google. Police can be abusers or friends with abusers.
> It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.
No, that's exactly the fear. With enough disclaimers and third parties involved, a motivated, highly intelligent and rich attacker with the right connections could get that information.
The tl;dr is that you can either share this data by accident through some sort of "locate my family" app, or because your abuser gets access to your Google/Apple account (for instance because you're signed in on another device they have access to).
The threat model here can be: domestic abuse victim flees a situation at home in a hurry, stays signed in on a computer. Abuser uses the sign-in on that computer to track their phone, figures out they're staying at their aunt's place.
Yes, you can avoid this on a regular Google phone as well, but that requires correctly configuring it (and a lot, such as location and search history, can be re-enabled remotely!). If you're running Graphene you are protected by default, rather than compromised by default.
Even on grapheneos you got to install the play store and play services to get most app to work, which mean connecting to a Google account.
Technically you can use fdroid, Aurora store, or only use stock applications but if we are serious, not all domestic abuse victims are also geeks that know how to do all these things.
They will need their apps, for instance for social security. Also, many people use their phone to pay nowadays, can't do on grapheneos.
Domestic abuse is a serious threat and people are motivated to stay away from their abusers, but if you give them something so barebone that they can't do 90% of their stuff, a significant percentage of them will revert to their old behavior and risk compromising themselves. For instance, buying a second phone and connecting it to the old Google account just to browse tiktok.
They don't need completely bare-bones setup. Sweet spot for non-geeks is installing play services, which can be used without signing into an account and by default have invasive permissions revoked. Then installing playstore apps from aurora store.
Stock photo - yeah that triple camera is equivalent to an Apple logo. Perhaps royalty-free image chosen without enough care or b/c it’s just a stock photo. (Or they already licensed that one.)
It's not as easy as it can be (the text is aimed at people familiar with Android flashing) but in practice you need to toggle one setting, reboot holding the volume button, and then click four buttons in your browser in order, with the exact names for settings spelled out in the guide itself.
I don't think wiping an abuser's malware is such a great solution unless you've already managed to get out of the DV situation. Perhaps GrapheneOS is a good idea on a secret second phone?
I know how easy it is to install graphene. But if your abuser is controlling the apps you install they can (should) see you installing a new OS or changing your phone?
I don't think it was the point of the parent. Sure it's easy to install, but the point is that if an abuser can somehow control your phone and install that kind of app, then they probably won't let you remove it.
I am a (very happy) GrapheneOS user, I am certain that I can install a tracking app on it. I can even easily side-load an abusive app that would be banned on the Play Store...
Like I would totally recommend GrapheneOS because it's great, but I don't think it solves the problem of "a domestic abuser can access your phone by making you give access to your phone".
Yes, I find it much easier to set up and use than any other Android phone. There’s less bloatware, and battery life is noticeably better.
Two tips for beginners:
Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed from the App Store. They aren’t included by default because GrapheneOS works fine without them.
If a trusted app has trouble running, try enabling Exploit protection compatibility mode on the app’s Info screen (long-press the app icon → Info → Exploit protection).
Yes it's usable by everyone. It's secure by default but anyone can make something insecure. For example granting malicious apps accessiblity permissions would not be great for security.
It has 99.99% android app compatibility. Over 90% of banking and government apps work. These apps take extra measures to ban grapheneos, apps must put in work to make their app incompatible, not the other way around.
I wouldn't say anyone can use it, if you can't sign in to a Google account by yourself then you would have trouble setting it up. But that would be similar on iOS. For the average person, definitely. There's no code or anything like that. Works just like stock Pixels.
If I was giving it to my grandma then I would install her apps and she would be fine clicking icons. But similar on iOS.
Yeah that RAM mention is very strange, not the best article.
Here we're discussing a domestic abuse situation, where people are forcing victims to hand over their phone, and have apps installed to keep track of them. Against their will.
And the solution is to... what? Mysteriously have control of your own phone, and install an OS which prevents this? Seriously? I can just imagine it, when the unfamiliar OS is discovered, or the app not working. This is a domestic abuse situation, it's not about hidden sneakiness.
It's about in-your-face control. It's about forced compliance, or else. It's about the abuser becoming exceptionally upset about their tracking not working, or about a new, mysterious OS.
Installing GrapheneOS would not be tolerated. It would be an act which comes with reprisals. I can just imagine the reaction when the abuser can't get the phone to do as they wish, for the person to disclose what the OS is, or just to hand over their unlocked phone, and discover it's GrapheneOS, and Google it and see what it's for.
It's actually horrible advice to advocate the someone in this situation installs GrapheneOS. How could it possibly help?
GrapheneOS is great to protect from secret, unknown spying. Not some domestic abuse situation where spying isn't via secretness.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
I should have been explicit: I used the GrapheneOS webpage. I am placing my trust in them but I am not under any particular threat and just liked that they have stated they won't support age verification.
The relevant quote* from the linked Australian research is:
Technology-facilitated abuse is becoming more and more of a key feature of domestic and family violence. A 2015 survey of 546 domestic and family violence frontline workers found that 98% of respondents had clients who had experienced technology-facilitated abuse.
The research then focuses specifically on children, finding that of all the domestic violence cases, 27% involve technology-facilitated abuse of children.
Can you expand on what it is that "Doesn't fill [you] with confidence" ?
I disagree, it's cool to promote good projects like GrapheneOS that help people.
Have you seen how many articles recommend not secure and not private alternative phones, that's not cool.
Edit: damn some of their phones with it preloaded are like 4x the price your can get for pixels in the state's. Can't speak to Australian prices for regular pixels tho.
The cheapest option, Pixel 10, costs $1349 from Google, they want $1990 (in Australian Dollars, that's about $940 and $1390 in USD)
So not quite a 50% markup on the bard phone, not quite as bad as 4x.
And while I'd feel like a jerk if I asked for money helping someone at risk of DV setting this up, if I was doing it as a business with the mandatory warranty and support this'd need to include in Australia, I think that's expensive but probably fair?
GrapheneOS user and community member here. TLDR: The blog post that this thread links is full of misrepresentations and falsehoods about what GrapheneOS offers and also is heavy mismarketing of the phones and services PrivacyPros offer. I recommend to avoid PrivacyPros.
The basic premise, that a secured and private phone, is useful for domestic abuse victims is of course okay. It is true that protecting your privacy from abusive family members can be useful and GrapheneOS' features, which are accurately described on their own website (contrary to the linked blog post), certainly help remove threats in that regard. See : https://grapheneos.org/features
. This is dependent on the specific situation, of course, (e.g. huge difference between ex-partner stalking you and a current partner you live with abusing you), because if you are forced to give your phone password at the threat of being hurt, a secure phone won't really help you a lot.
While the licenses that GrapheneOS uses permit companies to establishes businesses using GrapheneOS software, it's not recommended by the project to buy pre-installed phones, certainly not pre-configured phones, like PrivacyPros offers. The install process of GrapheneOS is simple if you are using the WebInstaller, and there is a lot of free support available in the community chat rooms and fora if you bump into issues. This saves you a lot of money because you can buy a new, used or refurbished Pixel with the stock OS installed at a much lower price. If you install GrapheneOS itself the guide also mentions you have to verify the integrity of your installation. That also holds true for preinstalled phones, you should check the verified boot hash and set up Auditor app. Preconfigured phones should actually be completely factory reset, not only from the OS but preferably also from recovery mode and then set up again, with a check of the boot hash and a set up of Auditor app before you install any apps or start changing settings. You don't know what PrivacyPros has changed to the settings, what they loaded on the device and Auditor should be set up by yourself and straight from the beginning, before you start using the device, because pinning-based security is an important part of its security model and you would want to be pinned to a clean state from the post install.
The blog post and also the PrivacyPros website where they promote and sell their phones is riddled with unnecessary misguided advice and also falsehoods about what GrapheneOS offers and what the dangers of the stock Pixel OS and Android in general are. Pixel OS and Android in general are portrayed way too negatively. I'll just give a few examples because it will cost me way too much time too debunk and correct all of it. These ones are verified easily by yourself and I hope it just makes clear you can discard everything PrivacyPros has written and makes clear you should just consult the official GrapheneOS website. So, they pretend as if Android and Pixels themselves don't have a permission model, multiple users and verified boot. This is untrue. GrapheneOS hardens the app sandbox and permissions model more and offers stuff like storage scopes to work around to broad permissions, but the sandbox and permissions model itself exists for Android in general. Verified boot is also a standard Android feature, and also exists on iPhones and even on MacOS and ChromeOS. Multiple users are part of Android, GrapheneOS just increases the available number of users and increases their usability. Also note that users don't improve sandboxing. Sandboxing and access control exist within profiles as well, profiles are mainly meant for increased isolation via separate user data, user settings and VPN slots. They also offer separate encryption keys allowing you to selectively put data at rest etc. The whole idea of a "ghost" profile and user profiles being at the centre to security and privacy is misguided. They also call about kill switches, Pixels don't have hardware kill switches and the software kill switches are just part of Android.
It's absolutely insane that phones have online accounts deeply integrated into the OS. You need to give Apple your phone number to download any apps on iOS.
For example:
Say anyone that downloaded IceBlock commited crime, Apple could give the govt everyone who downloaded its phone number, the govt could get the realtime location of everyone based on their phone number from the carrier.
And that's not even mentioning the other problem that nobody can download IceBlock anymore[1].
It's so refreshing for my phone not to ask for any identifying information when I set it up. GrapheneOS is a better software experience than iOS anyway[2].
Phones have great potential to be the most private and secure computers, cell services not withdrawing. And iPhones are one of the most private and secure devices. But, Apple uses that to restrict its users freedom and it makes Apple's users can easily be controlled by any government.
GrapheneOS delivers that dream.
[1] https://www.iceblock.app/
[2] once you install good apps. This is coming from a lifelong iOS user. Not prejudiced against Apple, I use a Mac (without an account) and their Advanced Data Protection is great (when I had an account).
Curious to hear: how much effort did it take to migrate to GrapheneOS? I own a pixel, grabbed it in anticipation of unlocking, but the effort it seems it would take from reading GrapheneOS docs has stopped me from committing to it on my daily driver. Would you please provide a quick time estimate and any snags you hit?
I agree with that.. additionaly, I'm finding it to be insane that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)
Remote attestation is not just insane, it's the technology that will end free computing as we know it today.
What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted and gets us banned from every service out there? Gets us ostracized from digital society? Because we "tampered" with the device?
We should be able to run whatever software we want and they should be none the wiser. Instead, we are part of the threat model now. Our devices are now cryptographically attesting that they are corporate owned and that we are under corporate control. It's so disgusting. The future we're heading towards is terrifying. Everything the word hacker ever stood for will be destroyed if this keeps up.
It can be used for security and used privately [1] but I entirely agree with you, Google's use of it is anti-competitive and terrible.
[1] attestation.app
It's all about who owns the keys and who trusts those keys. If you don't have the keys to "your" computer, then you don't own that computer, you're just renting it from the corporation.
And even if our own keys could be used, who's going to trust those attestations? Nobody. They will trust Google's keys, Microsoft's keys, Apple's keys. Not ours.
Yeah same as TPM and Secureboot. They can improve your own personal security (and thereby privacy) drastically, but it has to be controlled by the user.
You'll probably just need to keep two phones. One hostile spying device that you use for authenticating and dealing with government stuff, and that becomes e-waste every 2 years. Then you have one that you can repair and extend for your own stuff that respects you and your privacy.
I am doing this now. I have had a carrier locked iPhone SE 2020 which I only use on Wi-Fi for over five years now. I also have an android phone and I don't install any banking apps on my android phone.
>What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted
That is not what remote attestation is for. The operating system maintains isolation between apps, so a free software app being installed doesn't mean an app that needs high security is compromised.
I think you've misunderstood. It's not an app problem. The problem is that it makes Free Software OSes unviable. The copy of Android you compile and install yourself - or your copy of desktop Linux where you upgraded the kernel yourself - will never pass remote attestation, and it gives both the attestation provider and software that checks attestation the ability to unilaterally shut out any OS they like with no workaround, even those that do pass attestation.
In a world of deeply untrustworthy Big Tech, and trend of governments, banks and other basic services needed to exist in society relying on apps and in the future, websites that use remote attestation, that is very troubling.
There are better ways of dealing with the bad actors problem, but Big Tech has chosen violence.
I don’t see how it’s incompatible with open source, just because my development builds aren’t being blessed.
It’s not incompatible with open source. It’s incompatible with free software. If Apple or Google or Microsoft or the government needs to “bless” your build, then you have no freedom to actually use your build.
Your "development build" is another person's daily driver.
Case in point: GrapheneOS (or any other custom Android distro) is unlikely to be able to ever pass remote attestation, even a signed, secure boot build with the bootloader relocked, because it's not the original OS for the hardware.
Same goes for any desktop Linux.
GrapheneOS implements its own attestation so you can attest that it's real GrapheneOS. The valid approach they've chosen is to try and get on a level playing field with the big guys rather than destroy the playing field. They have a good argument their OS is very secure, so you should accept its attestation. This is how a user-friendly OS backdoors into the attestation system.
I still think destroying the playing field is better, but less likely to succeed.
> so you can attest
This isn't about you attesting anything though. It's about corporations attesting that your device is 100% corporate owned. Can't have you running software that impacts their bottom line after all.
GrapheneOS could be the most secure operating system to ever exist, it doesn't matter to the corporation because it's still under your control. When they say "security", they mean "the corporation's security against the user", not "the user's security against the hostile world out there".
They have to come and outright say "we block this because we don't control it". They can't say "we block this because it isn't secure" because it's obviously very secure.
GrapheneOS doesnt implement its own attestation. It simply inherits the existing, generic attestation system provided in the android open source project. Any fork of AOSP can provide this, the keys would just need to be whitelisted per OS.
You can apply my same comment 1 layer up.
The hypervisor maintains isolation between operating systems, so a free operating system being installed doesn't mean an app that needs a high security operating system is compromised.
Then why can't we install whatever we want on "our" devices?
Because you are buying a device without the feature of installing a custom OS. If you want a feature, buy a device offering it.
The whole point of this discussion is the trend towards societal scale denial of that feature by both market forces and governmental forces.
There is no such a thing as "just buy a different device" when this "different device" is actively discriminated against to the point it's a paper weight. I wouldn't be surprised if remote attestation becomes necessary to even get an internet connection in the future.
What is that? I don't seem to be finding anything relevant on Google.
We're running into situations where the usage of smart phones and apps are becoming mandatory for using services.
For example: The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK. Additionally the EU digital identity services have a hardware/software attestitation that is required to run their apps. (Many of those which 3rd party software can't run).
Another example of this is the Australian eTA - (Everyone has to have a visa to visit Australia.. but the real only way to get a visa* is you have to get an electronic travel authorization which only works via an App)
https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...
Apps that ban graphene-os being used:
> The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK.
That's untrue.
There was a strong push towards the digital ID from the current administration, but it was abandoned 6 months ago.
What you likely mixed up with digital ID is the old digital visa scheme, mandatory for all non-UK citizens to prove right to work.
Re: your app list: looks a little bit eclectic, so it's worth mentioning most of the apps don't ban GoS specifically, but enforce Google play strong or device integrity pass, which GoS doesn't pass.
Some trip on some exploit protections, like secure app spawning, but these can be turned off per app in the latest releases based on Android 17.
GrapheneOS and others should have lobbyists or rather lawyers and lawmakers to fight for using secure systems to mandatory be allowed for these. Sure, there must be some type of OS guarantee, but that should not be exclusive to Google and Apple. And indeed browsers with otp/authn devices (not one per service but yubi/thetis type of thing as those can be made sovereign for a large part); when an OS is not allowed, the browser and app should be mandatory allowed with such a device as that is, actually, more secure than the original device as it is an external encryption and encryption key source the hacker cannot reach.
Us users might be effective as well. Hopefully anti-trust law catches up and bans play integrity. They are probably going to spend their money improving features and experience to get more users. There's threads on the forum dedicated to sending emails to Volkswagen to get them to support Grapheneos and it may be working.
This sucks. The solution is to buy the cheepest iPhone and use it just for the goverment services.
The cheapest new iPhone is €720 (iPhone 17e)
> The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK.
False
In fact I can't think of a single Government service or legal requirement that requires a smartphone in the UK.
In the past year I have applied for a passport, applied for benefits, opened a bank account, passed through border control, filed a company tax return, closed down a business, helped someone else claim for benefits, made police reports, filed a case with the small claims court, paid my council tax, received an incone tax refund, travelled on public transport extensively, hired a car.
All had alternatives as far as I can recall.
Quite a few were done online just with a computer and optionally a phone number
And based on prior discussions here I have to point out that "require" doesn't mean "ok but the alternative is kind of inconvenient"
Likely referring to Android's Play Integrity/hardware attestation API (good explainer from GrapheneOS [1]) that is practically used to restrict what devices/brands/Android builds an app will allow itself to be run on.
[1] https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...
I miss the days when iOS jailbreaks allowed you to completely circumvent basically all DRM because the trust in Apple was so high that you could just assume a device is secure. Contrast that with Android, which has always had invasive attestation mechanisms because of widespread mistrust in OEMs. On iOS, sometimes you had individual apps trying to check for jailbreak but that was it
Apps trying to check for jailbreak is still a thing on iOS and as you would expect, it's jank and can trigger on stock iOS if you are unluky
> that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)
Even worse, GOVERNMENTS do that. EU Governments basically forcing you to give Google (via the Google Mobile Services rootkit) or Apple (and via the cloud act also the Trump Admin) access to your entire phone (including all of your saved personal data) to use the govt eID system...
Use the old-school ID system.
> organizations are trying to force
If it were only that and we actually had “free market capitalism” and “competition” you could simply choose, but leering and steering these “organizations” is the treasonous and inherently illegitimate government, which is increasingly indistinguishable from private corporations, mostly because it’s the same pool of people, which are reflexively moving us all towards a common focal point of a form of tyranny similar to hereditary oligarchy and/or serfdom.
Don't phones have identifiers outside of phone number anyway? I feel like you have to trust the hardware/os vendor anyway. So if you don't trust apple to not misbehave, maybe not getting an iphone is better than chasing the whole phone-number idea.
Your comment isn't super clear to me, let me know if I misunderstood anything.
Yes there are still identifiers when using cellular data service, but they aren't connected to your phone number that you give out. Phone number gets a determined threat actor real time location, which is what I explained. Threat actor gets location from any carrier identifier. Cellular was built in a terrible way for privacy and security.
Android doesn't let apps see hardware identifiers if that's related.
Yes you're correct about having to trust Apple, but my point is that the way Apple is collecting all this extra info allows them to be compelled to hand it over. It's not about trusting Apple, it's about them following the law, which they will do.
I’m on the edge of migrating from my iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS.
But there is ONE feature I love on iOS and it’s the Live Photos. I feel like it’s an amazing way to keep family memories. Do you know if it exists on GrapheneOS?
Natively it doesn't.
There are 3rd party camera apps that support it, but you'd have to download them separately. GrapheneOS camera app is fine but nothing outstanding. It will give you decent pictures but don't expect any fancy upscaling or editing features.
But you can install google camera without giving it network permissions.
Sure but that's arguably 3rd party at that point.
Only in Google camera, which is usable on grapheneos: You get a live shot feature, it ain't exactly the same tho, look into that.
I run pixelos and the amount of stuff I miss from iphone is staggering, the difference between pixelos/grapheneos isn't as big as the difference between iphone/pixel.
Hmm, don't really miss anything from iOS besides tap the top screen to go to top of page. Also Apple Notes is great.
No back button on iOS is madness and also the Android rotate screen integration is way better than iOS.
It's mostly the app. Nothing come close to apple notes or reminder for instance.
Even safari... On Android, you get chromium that doesn't have any extension or Firefox that has incredibly frustrating UI and doesn't work well on some website.
I can understand extensions but I like Vanadium a lot more than Safari. Reminders is hard to replace unfortunately. Overall I like android apps a lot more though. Once you find the right ones.
Obsidian might be even greater for notes. Looks beautiful, and it's super immersive on OLED especially. Worth trying for sure.
Tap to scroll might be possible to get also. Haven't felt need for it when it takes a few regular scrolls anyway.
Thanks for the rec, I'll try it it. I like the open nature with markdown but when I tried on Mac it was a bit confusing.
Yes, I have it and I use Google camera and Google photos. Not sure if default camera and gallery have it.
I mean... your sentiment is in the right place, but Android phones (non-GrapheneOS) can be used without Google account just fine.
Yes, you need to use F-Droid & Co. to get apps (just like on Graphene), but otherwise they're functional and many people are actually using them like that.
well you cant blame apple for that since Government can literally force your company to doing shit like this
Reasonably happy with GrapheneOS, but the number of bugs (maybe more ecosystem bugs) would make me hesitant to suggest other people rely on it as a communication device.
I have notifications turned ON for WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. I never receive notifications from Telegram. I have to open that app to see if anyone said anything. WhatsApp and Signal notifications seem to vary between late or never? This is despite a constant notification reminder that Signal has Background connection enabled.
Also I can only send messages to some whatsapp contacts. My messages appear as pending for a while and eventually turn into 'could not send'.
This is not an issue with GrapheneOS, this is an issue with your configuration, which is trivial to solve.
All of those apps support using google services FCM for push notification delivery. I dont think Telegram has a fallback, and Signal and Whatsapp have power-intensive fallbacks. You may also need to reinstall these apps for them to detect google services (apps generally dont check for google services more than once on initial launch).
On this subject since it's an Australian seller and marketed as "DV safe".
Australia has a national test of it's phone alert system in 10 days at 27/07/26, 2PM AEST. (People in North America would know it as Cell Alerts/Presidential Alerts etc.)
There have been warnings that hidden phones will almost certainly sound, and their recommendation is to ether power off the phone or put it into airplane mode at least an hour before the test...
Since it seems to be missed, in GOS you can disable these alerts completely.
GrapheneOS supports fully disabling wireless alerts via the Settings app. It's possible to disable it on other Android devices via ADB.
You should be able to disable these alerts via the Wireless Emergency Alerts.
You cannot on many phones, and often phones will even lie when it says all categories are disabled, as some jurisdictions have laws against turning off some of the highest alert categories.
GrapheneOS supports fully disabling wireless alerts via the Settings app. It's possible to disable it on other Android devices via ADB.
I've dealt with Android phones for which there was zero way to disable the highest alert, adb regardless. Unless you have root, it's often not possible.
Yes, GrapheneOS of course allows this.
Edit: re followup comment.
No, adb cannot be used in all cases to disable the packages involved. At all. Some phones refuse to lets users disable some packages, no matter what.
Yes, I know what I'm talking about.
As someone with decades of Linux and Android experience, who often works nights, having Quebec police use presidental alerts... CRTC regardless, to warn of a child abducted by a parent 2000km away from me, is an exceptionally strong motivator.
The sheer stupid of an alert you cannot control the volume, sound, and length of in any way, is absurd. Try going back to sleep after something screams at you, at your equiv of 2am is madness.
By god I hate those alerts.
So yes, I know. If you don't have root, and the phone won't let you disable some packages, you're done.
And it's another reason I like GrapheneOS.
ADB can be used to disable it without GrapheneOS by disabling the packages providing the high level implementation of wireless emergency alerts. It's not something most people can be expected to do though. It's actually a lot easier to install GrapheneOS via the web installer than using the CLI ADB shell. ADB is also quite dangerous and people can be tricked into giving very invasive access to malware with it. We're not recommending that people use ADB for this but rather just noting it can be done.
This post is literally just SEO copy designed to sell degoogled phones to (justifiably) anxious DV victims?
Their phones are more than twice as expensive as equivalent models at JF HiFi too (and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace).
Why is it on the front page of HN?
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles (Private Space, secondary users) with improvements but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
> and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace
Devices with drastically worse privacy and security than the Android Open Source Project including lack of bare minimum updates aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
Ok, but this is outright a scam for those victims, you realize that? A company profiteering massively from vulnerable people.
There are a bunch of companies selling devices with GrapheneOS at a significant markup despite it being very easy for non-technical people to install it themselves in 10 to 20 minutes. There's a lot of demand for it and companies set prices based on what they can get away with charging.
The linked post is a mess which was probably generated with an LLM. GrapheneOS does have useful properties for this even though it isn't the focus. Someone could write a proper article making a case for it even though this isn't one.
GrapheneOS is free and we recommend people install it themselves with the web installer. People can also save a lot of money getting a used device, but we strongly recommend against an older device than a Pixel 8 due to support time. A used Pixel 8a tends to be the cheapest option. An important thing to watch out for with used devices is avoiding ones which were originally sold by carriers locking their devices. Some phone sellers wrongly label locked devices as being fully unlocked.
If people buy a device with GrapheneOS instead of doing it themselves as we recommend, we a guide to follow to make sure it's genuine GrapheneOS and get rid of any strange software or configuration it ships with:
https://grapheneos.org/faq#preinstalled-devices
Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
I remember Cyanogen ships without Google Play etc., right? (Because if you install Google Services and a bunch of crap from their store (theirs and otherwise) that spies on you, it defeats the purpose of a privacy preserving OS.
So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that? (Well Cyanogen at least give you the option of installing all that crap but that would seem to defeat the purpose in this case.)
But more broadly I'm not sure I understand the relevance in this particular context. The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario? (Ok I suppose half the stuff on the Play store is spyware so maybe it's more realistic than I'm thinking...)
> So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that?
GrapheneOS is a privacy and security hardened OS. LineageOS and CyanogenMod aren't in that space. GrapheneOS preserves the standard privacy and security features and updates of the Android Open Source Project as a baseline. It greatly improves privacy and security with major privacy and security features along with much better privacy/security updates. It keeps up with the major OS updates including having a release based on Android 17 since the day it was released (2026-06-16).
> Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS is a production quality OS with around 15 people paid to work on it. It's not a hobbyist project. We've never used the term custom ROM since it isn't accurate and propagates misconceptions. It's best to avoid it.
> The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?
Yes, stalkerware is very common and there are a bunch of apps marketed for this purpose. It's helpful to get a new phone set up from scratch without the same accounts or automatically restoring any data on it. This can be a GrapheneOS phone but it doesn't particularly need to be. It's not GrapheneOS recommending itself for this purpose. There are an assortment of privacy and security features relevant to this in standard Android 17 and in the features added by GrapheneOS but nothing essential to this. GrapheneOS makes sense as a general choice for a new phone for many people due to being a highly usable, compatible, private and secure device but we're not specifically recommending it for being who are victims of stalkerware ourselves.
Zero Google services are shippsx by default, but you can install Play Store and Services in a sandbox and it has minimal privacy problems, depending on the permissions you give it.
Their docs are really good, not only for their phone but for learning about privacy and security: https://grapheneos.org
You could still install an app that spies on you on grapheneos because it has 99.99% android app compatibility, so if you gave an app designed for spying the relevant permissions, it would still be able to spy. No way it could hide location indicator or anything like that, but I doubt it could do that on other OSes (don't quote me on other OSes).
> The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?
Yes, stalkerware is an entire genre of software and it is designed for exactly this purpose.
How “stalkerware” apps are letting abusive partners spy on their victims https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/07/10/134249/stalkerwa...
The Abuser in Your Pocket: How Stalkerware Threatens Women’s Privacy https://safeescape.org/stalkerware-threatens-womens-privacy/
'I thought I'd been microchipped': How abusers spy on partners with 'parental control' apps https://news.sky.com/story/i-thought-id-been-microchipped-ho...
A web search for the term will turn up many more results. Graphene OS's hardening against exploits, compared to the abysmal record of Android vendors, gives much better odds against any of these apps being able to run with elevated privileges, which means Android's sandboxing is effective.
(Happy Graphene OS user of many years here.)
Happy GrapheneOS user here as well, but...
I am having a hard time believing your first link, which says:
> In Anna’s case, stalkerware was disguised as a picture message, sent to her by the man she was dating (let’s call him David), just a few weeks after they met. She was then under constant surveillance for about two years
That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right? I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
I totally get the problem that "the abuser knows the iCloud password and can use the FindMyPhone feature to track the victim", or "the abuser convinced the victim to install an app that would track the victim without their consent". But I am genuinely wondering how much GrapheneOS protects against that.
> That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right?
There are many tiers of far easier remote attacks far easier than exploiting an up-to-date iPhone through iMessage of WhatsApp. It doesn't mean that's what happened but it's often not something that's extremely difficult. Many people use phones with years of missing security patches. It's getting increasingly easy to exploit those in the age of LLMs.
Regardless, it sounds more like a social engineering attack tricking someone into installing an invasive app and granting invasive permissions to it.
> I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
They do regularly use social engineering to trick their partners into setting up stalkerware or permitting it to be installed. Getting a new phone and accounts is a very helpful for people who are victims of it. They've often given access to their accounts and devices without knowing how to fully get rid of it. Reclaiming the existing devices and accounts is far easier if they have a clean one to start from where they can get technical help. It doesn't specifically need to be a GrapheneOS device, but it's a good choice in general and doesn't require being technically savvy to use or even install it.
> That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right?
Not really, these are available to any script kiddy as long as unpatched phones and software exists. It takes some initial effort to find them out, but that is it.
And I remember similar attacks floating around few years ago even outside domestic violence situation.
It's an advertisement. That's pretty much the difference, the company selling these phones has a very high margin for essentially resell of Google phones with reflash of GrapheneOS.
I mean, some obvious things are there in the article, IMHO -
- App isolation and hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)
- Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)
So you can do stuff on there that's not going to tip off someone who's controlling enough to demand to see your phone, and so you'll at least be tipped off if someone compromises it.
> hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)
I am a happy user of GrapheneOS, I don't know about "hidden" profiles. I am not sure what they are talking about.
> App isolation
That's an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.
> Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)
That's an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.
Indeed, whenever I reboot (which is very frequently, because Mastodon will only open, not reopen. If I close it, I need to reboot before using it again) I see the tamper detection. It warns me that I'm using GrapheneOS, not Android.
I use GrapheneOS, I would endorse it for anyone that is technically capable.
The site has CAPTCHAs, and I'm too dumb to solve them, because the pictures are so bad that I can't make out anything.
How did we get there?
It's funny the page recommends de-Googled phones, but requires a Google service(reCaptcha) to view the page.
Just open your favorite browser MCP and ask it to beat the captcha
Try megaladon.jp/https://example.com uses cloudflare instead
This the same country that exiled the creator of Session because privacy is illegal?
I've used GrapheneOS, but not PrivacyPros setup. The site is interesting. It is almost like a to do list of things for my phone. Most of the things they've done feels like a topic to look into and consider implementing.
The Fingerprint with Pin 2FA is a huge game changer.
Why care about what Google know about you, in case of domestic abuse ?
It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.
There are many reasons to get rid of Google altogether, I just don't understand this one.
Any data collected can be abused. This is like saying why care about what flock knows about you, when it's been used by far too many police to stalk their romantic interests.
Police can obtain data from Google. Police can be abusers or friends with abusers.
You should google 40% of police..
So that your abuser cannot obtain real-time information about you via integrated accounts.
> It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.
No, that's exactly the fear. With enough disclaimers and third parties involved, a motivated, highly intelligent and rich attacker with the right connections could get that information.
Explain how (in comparison to GrapheneOS) please.
Zero Google services ship by default.
I meant - explain how would that data retrieval actually happen in real life for a domestic abuser.
Abuser calls police and says the victim did some crime, police subpoena Google for location history.
Here's an article explaining why one should care: https://privacypros.com.au/privacy-hub/articles/dv-safe-phon...
The tl;dr is that you can either share this data by accident through some sort of "locate my family" app, or because your abuser gets access to your Google/Apple account (for instance because you're signed in on another device they have access to).
The threat model here can be: domestic abuse victim flees a situation at home in a hurry, stays signed in on a computer. Abuser uses the sign-in on that computer to track their phone, figures out they're staying at their aunt's place.
Yes, you can avoid this on a regular Google phone as well, but that requires correctly configuring it (and a lot, such as location and search history, can be re-enabled remotely!). If you're running Graphene you are protected by default, rather than compromised by default.
Even on grapheneos you got to install the play store and play services to get most app to work, which mean connecting to a Google account.
Technically you can use fdroid, Aurora store, or only use stock applications but if we are serious, not all domestic abuse victims are also geeks that know how to do all these things.
They will need their apps, for instance for social security. Also, many people use their phone to pay nowadays, can't do on grapheneos.
Domestic abuse is a serious threat and people are motivated to stay away from their abusers, but if you give them something so barebone that they can't do 90% of their stuff, a significant percentage of them will revert to their old behavior and risk compromising themselves. For instance, buying a second phone and connecting it to the old Google account just to browse tiktok.
They don't need completely bare-bones setup. Sweet spot for non-geeks is installing play services, which can be used without signing into an account and by default have invasive permissions revoked. Then installing playstore apps from aurora store.
Play store is not a significant privacy risk. It is a huge improvement being sandboxed, not installed by default, not given permissions by default.
Grapheneos has 99.99% app compatibility and over 90% of banking apps are compatible.
This is a submarine Advertisement for a company that will resell you a Google Pixel phone with likt 50% markup and preinstalled GrapheneOS.
Let's not normalize this kind of profiteering out of OSS.
Haven't anybody noticed an iPhone in the illustration, or is it just my mind working that way?
Stock photo - yeah that triple camera is equivalent to an Apple logo. Perhaps royalty-free image chosen without enough care or b/c it’s just a stock photo. (Or they already licensed that one.)
Very weird post, I dont see how a victim with not enough agency to control what apps are on their phone will somehow be able to install a custom os
Installing Graphene can be done through the browser: https://grapheneos.org/install/web
It's not as easy as it can be (the text is aimed at people familiar with Android flashing) but in practice you need to toggle one setting, reboot holding the volume button, and then click four buttons in your browser in order, with the exact names for settings spelled out in the guide itself.
I don't think wiping an abuser's malware is such a great solution unless you've already managed to get out of the DV situation. Perhaps GrapheneOS is a good idea on a secret second phone?
You'd be surprised how easy GrapheneOS is to install. You literally do it through a browser with your phone connected via USB.
I know how easy it is to install graphene. But if your abuser is controlling the apps you install they can (should) see you installing a new OS or changing your phone?
I don't think it was the point of the parent. Sure it's easy to install, but the point is that if an abuser can somehow control your phone and install that kind of app, then they probably won't let you remove it.
I am a (very happy) GrapheneOS user, I am certain that I can install a tracking app on it. I can even easily side-load an abusive app that would be banned on the Play Store...
Like I would totally recommend GrapheneOS because it's great, but I don't think it solves the problem of "a domestic abuser can access your phone by making you give access to your phone".
Is GrapheneOS usable by everyone, including the most non-technical phone users, in a secure way?
They also recommend at least 12 GB RAM. What about domestic abuse survivors requires that?
Yes, I find it much easier to set up and use than any other Android phone. There’s less bloatware, and battery life is noticeably better.
Two tips for beginners:
Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed from the App Store. They aren’t included by default because GrapheneOS works fine without them.
If a trusted app has trouble running, try enabling Exploit protection compatibility mode on the app’s Info screen (long-press the app icon → Info → Exploit protection).
Check whether your bank is supported: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa.... If it isn’t, it likely depends on the Play Integrity API, which means it requires customers to stay under constant surveillance by the world’s largest advertising company, with no real security justification (see https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...). In that case, you should switch to a more trustworthy bank.
Yes it's usable by everyone. It's secure by default but anyone can make something insecure. For example granting malicious apps accessiblity permissions would not be great for security.
It has 99.99% android app compatibility. Over 90% of banking and government apps work. These apps take extra measures to ban grapheneos, apps must put in work to make their app incompatible, not the other way around.
I wouldn't say anyone can use it, if you can't sign in to a Google account by yourself then you would have trouble setting it up. But that would be similar on iOS. For the average person, definitely. There's no code or anything like that. Works just like stock Pixels.
If I was giving it to my grandma then I would install her apps and she would be fine clicking icons. But similar on iOS.
Yeah that RAM mention is very strange, not the best article.
also recommended for government abuse victims.
This is just dumb. I'm sorry, it's dumb.
Why?
Here we're discussing a domestic abuse situation, where people are forcing victims to hand over their phone, and have apps installed to keep track of them. Against their will.
And the solution is to... what? Mysteriously have control of your own phone, and install an OS which prevents this? Seriously? I can just imagine it, when the unfamiliar OS is discovered, or the app not working. This is a domestic abuse situation, it's not about hidden sneakiness.
It's about in-your-face control. It's about forced compliance, or else. It's about the abuser becoming exceptionally upset about their tracking not working, or about a new, mysterious OS.
Installing GrapheneOS would not be tolerated. It would be an act which comes with reprisals. I can just imagine the reaction when the abuser can't get the phone to do as they wish, for the person to disclose what the OS is, or just to hand over their unlocked phone, and discover it's GrapheneOS, and Google it and see what it's for.
It's actually horrible advice to advocate the someone in this situation installs GrapheneOS. How could it possibly help?
GrapheneOS is great to protect from secret, unknown spying. Not some domestic abuse situation where spying isn't via secretness.
Agreed. It'd be great for after the person has left the DV situation but not really beforehand.
This is just the company use DV as a manipulation tactic to get you to buy their phones.
This is a website made by people who sell phones that are 100% tracker-free, and that run on GrpheneOS.
I wouldn’t recommend domestic violence victims to install graphene os on their phone by themselves
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
I flashed a pixel using their webpage. They have made it remarkably simple to do.
How do you know what they installed? Also, I understand that GrapheneOS installs are very simple now.
GrapheneOS provides verification steps at the end of both installation methods to ensure your install is genuine.
I should have been explicit: I used the GrapheneOS webpage. I am placing my trust in them but I am not under any particular threat and just liked that they have stated they won't support age verification.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
Auditor [1] might work. But GrapheneOS recommends flashing yourself.
[1] attestation.app
The website also says:
"Australian research shows that 99% of domestic violence cases now involve some form of technology-facilitated abuse."
Where the "Australian research" is linked to a page where the first Key Finding states:
"Over one quarter (27%) of domestic violence cases involve technology-facilitated abuse of children."
Doesn't fill me with confidence in anything they say (even if I do believe the advice is right).
The relevant quote* from the linked Australian research is:
The research then focuses specifically on children, finding that of all the domestic violence cases, 27% involve technology-facilitated abuse of children.Can you expand on what it is that "Doesn't fill [you] with confidence" ?
* Page 9: https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/Child...
I'm curious what you are considering with recommending buying a privacy phone vs buying a regular phone and flashing in a DV situation?
It's almost like they're trying to sell you one of their phones... not cool
I disagree, it's cool to promote good projects like GrapheneOS that help people.
Have you seen how many articles recommend not secure and not private alternative phones, that's not cool.
Edit: damn some of their phones with it preloaded are like 4x the price your can get for pixels in the state's. Can't speak to Australian prices for regular pixels tho.
The cheapest option, Pixel 10, costs $1349 from Google, they want $1990 (in Australian Dollars, that's about $940 and $1390 in USD)
So not quite a 50% markup on the bard phone, not quite as bad as 4x.
And while I'd feel like a jerk if I asked for money helping someone at risk of DV setting this up, if I was doing it as a business with the mandatory warranty and support this'd need to include in Australia, I think that's expensive but probably fair?
Yeah fair enough. I see 400-500 USD new 10s on eBay so that's where I was coming from. I wonder how much shipping and importing from the US would be.
Interesting they don't sell the 10a, seems like a great budget phone from what I've seen.
Edit: I didn't consider taxes and initially I assumed exchange rates were more similar then they are.
Law in my profile heh (not on purpose)
GrapheneOS user and community member here. TLDR: The blog post that this thread links is full of misrepresentations and falsehoods about what GrapheneOS offers and also is heavy mismarketing of the phones and services PrivacyPros offer. I recommend to avoid PrivacyPros.
The basic premise, that a secured and private phone, is useful for domestic abuse victims is of course okay. It is true that protecting your privacy from abusive family members can be useful and GrapheneOS' features, which are accurately described on their own website (contrary to the linked blog post), certainly help remove threats in that regard. See : https://grapheneos.org/features . This is dependent on the specific situation, of course, (e.g. huge difference between ex-partner stalking you and a current partner you live with abusing you), because if you are forced to give your phone password at the threat of being hurt, a secure phone won't really help you a lot.
While the licenses that GrapheneOS uses permit companies to establishes businesses using GrapheneOS software, it's not recommended by the project to buy pre-installed phones, certainly not pre-configured phones, like PrivacyPros offers. The install process of GrapheneOS is simple if you are using the WebInstaller, and there is a lot of free support available in the community chat rooms and fora if you bump into issues. This saves you a lot of money because you can buy a new, used or refurbished Pixel with the stock OS installed at a much lower price. If you install GrapheneOS itself the guide also mentions you have to verify the integrity of your installation. That also holds true for preinstalled phones, you should check the verified boot hash and set up Auditor app. Preconfigured phones should actually be completely factory reset, not only from the OS but preferably also from recovery mode and then set up again, with a check of the boot hash and a set up of Auditor app before you install any apps or start changing settings. You don't know what PrivacyPros has changed to the settings, what they loaded on the device and Auditor should be set up by yourself and straight from the beginning, before you start using the device, because pinning-based security is an important part of its security model and you would want to be pinned to a clean state from the post install.
The blog post and also the PrivacyPros website where they promote and sell their phones is riddled with unnecessary misguided advice and also falsehoods about what GrapheneOS offers and what the dangers of the stock Pixel OS and Android in general are. Pixel OS and Android in general are portrayed way too negatively. I'll just give a few examples because it will cost me way too much time too debunk and correct all of it. These ones are verified easily by yourself and I hope it just makes clear you can discard everything PrivacyPros has written and makes clear you should just consult the official GrapheneOS website. So, they pretend as if Android and Pixels themselves don't have a permission model, multiple users and verified boot. This is untrue. GrapheneOS hardens the app sandbox and permissions model more and offers stuff like storage scopes to work around to broad permissions, but the sandbox and permissions model itself exists for Android in general. Verified boot is also a standard Android feature, and also exists on iPhones and even on MacOS and ChromeOS. Multiple users are part of Android, GrapheneOS just increases the available number of users and increases their usability. Also note that users don't improve sandboxing. Sandboxing and access control exist within profiles as well, profiles are mainly meant for increased isolation via separate user data, user settings and VPN slots. They also offer separate encryption keys allowing you to selectively put data at rest etc. The whole idea of a "ghost" profile and user profiles being at the centre to security and privacy is misguided. They also call about kill switches, Pixels don't have hardware kill switches and the software kill switches are just part of Android.
Good luck with "age verification" ...