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France threatens GrapheneOS with arrests / server seizure for refusing backdoors

324 points by nabakin 10mo ago

deleted 10mo ago
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nabakin 10mo ago
This is a better link from a French privacy non-profit but I can't change it now: https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 @dang or other mods, could you change it? Google Translated text: > Two articles in Le Parisien yesterday, followed today by one in Le Figaro, have launched a shameful attack against GrapheneOS, a free and accessible open-source operating system for phones. At La Quadrature du Net, it's one of the tools we favor and regularly recommend for protecting against advertising tracking and spyware. > Echoing the propaganda of the Ministry of the Interior, newspapers describe GrapheneOS as a "crime-related phone solution," and a police officer adds that its use is suspicious in itself because it indicates an "intention to conceal." By portraying GrapheneOS as a technology linked to drug trafficking, this attack aims to criminalize what is actually a secure privacy-preserving tool. > In these articles, the head of the cybercrime section of the Paris prosecutor's office – who was behind the arrest of Pavel Durov – also threatens the developers of GrapheneOS. In an interview, she warns that she will "not hesitate to prosecute the publishers if links are discovered with a criminal organization and they do not cooperate with the justice system." https://archive.is/20251119110251/https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/telephones-proteges-utilises-par-les-narcotrafiquants-rien-nest-inviolable-19-11-2025-3PP34GIBAJGH3EZOVEJVT7OMU4.php https://archive.is/20251119110251/https://www.leparisien.fr/... > The government regularly tries to link privacy technologies, particularly encryption, to criminal behavior in order to undermine them and justify surveillance policies. This was the case in the so-called "December 8th" case, where a police narrative was constructed around the (secure) digital practices of the accused to portray a "clandestine" and "conspiratorial" group. https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/affaire-du-8-decembre-le-chiffrement-des-communications-assimile-a-un-comportement-terroriste/iste/ https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/affaire-du-8-decembr... > Now, drug trafficking is being used to attack these technologies and justify the surveillance of communications. The so-called "Drug Trafficking" law was thus used as a pretext to try to legalize "backdoors" in encrypted applications like Signal or WhatsApp, without success. https://www.laquadrature.net/2025/03/18/le-gouvernement-pret-a-tout-pour-casser-le-droit-au-chiffrement/ https://www.laquadrature.net/2025/03/18/le-gouvernement-pret... > An article in Le Monde diplomatique from November extensively examines the history of the political exploitation of drug trafficking to justify security and surveillance policies. The police attack on GrapheneOS fits perfectly within this pattern. https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2025/11/BONELLI/68915 https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2025/11/BONELLI/68915 > In its response published yesterday, GrapheneOS points to the authoritarian tendencies of the French government, one of the most fervent supporters of the "ChatControl" regulation under discussion at the European level, one of whose goals is to put an end to end-to-end encryption. https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 Additional context: https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/11557599710445618... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/115581775949920078 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/11558177594... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739
- shlip 10mo ago
  I think you meant https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 instead of a link to "Le Parisien", which is not a non profit, but a newspaper owned by LVMH/Bernard Arnault, and known for having rightist opinions.
  - nabakin 10mo ago
    Oops, that's correct, ty
    - shlip 10mo ago
      No problems :) The full "Le parisien" article is available here FWIW: https://archive.ph/20251124161701/https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/google-pixel-et-grapheneos-la-botte-secrete-des-narcotrafiquants-pour-proteger-leurs-donnees-de-la-police-19-11-2025-NTGPQE4JCNGEHLF7XGIQ3CCA2I.php https://archive.ph/20251124161701/https://www.leparisien.fr/...
- ricksunny 10mo ago
  More graphic content needed to get folks to click through: This is excerpted from the result of G-translating the Parisien link: "This 27-year-old alleged trafficker is suspected of having run this drug telephone platform which, between 2023 and 2024 in Paris, collected a turnover of two million euros and is said to have caused three overdose deaths during chemsex parties."
- dang 10mo ago
  Ok, we've changed to that from https://grapheneos.social/@watchfulcitizen@goingdark.social/115605398547420414 https://grapheneos.social/@watchfulcitizen@goingdark.social/... above.
  - nabakin 10mo ago
    Ty!
  - 10mo ago
tehjoker 10mo ago
I believe this is the OS recommended to journalists that report on Palestine because freedom of speech doesn't apply without aggressive assertion of your rights.
- grimblee 10mo ago
  They always point to the criminals to get at the political opposants, just look at chatcontrol
rurban 10mo ago
Into jail with those officials. Clear violation of their constitution
- inglor_cz 10mo ago
  It is France. The state is them. Edit: I wonder why this is downvoted. The bureaucratic class holds enormous power in France, and has constantly acted against digital rights and privacy with impunity. The only institution that can somewhat restrain them is ECHR.
  - rurban 10mo ago
    Well, other states are not much better. UK, Australia, USA come to my mind. But this is excessive
    - inglor_cz 10mo ago
      We indeed seem to be in a race towards the bottom in this regard, but France was always a "forerunner". Already 15 years ago it was illegal to use Wi-Fi outside buildings in France. I still remember the old Nokias plastered with those warnings.
      - rurban 10mo ago
        And I remember the longstanding argument why women should not be allowed to vote in France, because that's what brought Hitler to power. They were the third last European country to do so, only Greece and Switzerland were more backwards.
nabakin 10mo ago
Google Translate link: https://translate.google.com/translate?tl=en&hl=en&u=https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/google-pixel-et-grapheneos-la-botte-secrete-des-narcotrafiquants-pour-proteger-leurs-donnees-de-la-police-19-11-2025-NTGPQE4JCNGEHLF7XGIQ3CCA2I.php https://translate.google.com/translate?tl=en&hl=en&u=https:/... Additional context: https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/11557599710445618... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/115581775949920078 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/11558177594... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739
- riedel 10mo ago
  I like grapheneOS. Their have a clear focus and that should be respected. However, all that drama about e/OS they are creating and claims about fascist law enforcement are a bit over the top IMHO.
  - sapphicsnail 10mo ago
    How so?
    - riedel 10mo ago
      With such wording, zhey seem to suggest that somehow French law enforcement wants to crack down some democratic opposition with the use of purposefully insecure OSs such as e/OS. That seems to be a bit much of conspiracy theory to me.
  - udev4096 10mo ago
    e/OS is a fucking joke
    - riedel 10mo ago
monerozcash 10mo ago
This is not something that's actually happening.
- aja12 10mo ago
  Yet. When ChatControl will be in place, it'll only be a matter of time
- jeffbee 10mo ago
  Right?? The daily display of uncritical thinking is at least slightly amusing, though.
hirako2000 10mo ago
Some advocacy groups are denouncing the collusion and lobbying taking place between industrials, governments, and the media. https://eu.boell.org/en/2024/04/25/press-freedom-france https://eu.boell.org/en/2024/04/25/press-freedom-france https://ipi.media/france-media-freedom-threats-capture/ https://ipi.media/france-media-freedom-threats-capture/
BLKNSLVR 10mo ago
Is it safe to assume, then, that Google and Apple already have backdoors in their operating systems as likely requested by many governments around the world (not least of which the one from their home country)? Or is GrapheneOS the only one built securely enough to need to be leaned upon? Either way, makes Google and Apple look bad and/or incompetent and GrapheneOS look like some kind of beacon of user protection / privacy rights / other things that are the opposite of the direction the world seems to be moving.
- srmatto 10mo ago
  Or that GrapheneOS is small enough to bully.
  - fooqux 10mo ago
    The EU doesn't seem to shy about forcing Apple or Google to do things, so I don't think it's a size thing.
    - teaearlgraycold 10mo ago
      France isn’t the EU though.
      - fooqux 10mo ago
        True, but from what I understand France and Germany quite often get their way in the EU.
- VWWHFSfQ 10mo ago
  I seem to remember the FBI attempting to compel Apple to decrypt a criminal's iPhone, only for Apple to refuse and claim that it wasn't possible. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that. I think it was suspected that the NSA was able to do it by exploiting an unpatched zero-day. So they didn't need Apple's help anymore and the issue was dropped from the public's eye.
dgan 10mo ago
Given the fact that most protests are organized on facebook groups, how does one keep him/herself aware of eventual protests to come without Facebook/instagram? I d gladly join for a cause i support
deleted 10mo ago
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mhitza 10mo ago
Any actual source for the claim?
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
[flagged]
- nabakin 10mo ago
  I understand they are similar, but I think this post adds new information to the situation. Regardless, appreciate your help moderating the site.
  - ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
    [flagged]
avh02 10mo ago
Link warns I'm leaving grapheneos.social and then when you click the redirect tried to download some .bin file, wtf?
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999024
- speedgoose 10mo ago
  It’s a much better link this time though.
  - ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
    Same referenced link as earlier. Same discussion.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
freehorse 10mo ago
The url is just redirecting to https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768 https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768 Maybe consider replacing the redirecting url to the destination url? Not very good not being able to see the actual url linked imo.
crtasm 10mo ago
the submitted URL makes HN show grapheneos.social as the domain. the actual URL is https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768 https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768
Covzire 10mo ago
At the end of the day, these attacks on privacy are always in reality for keeping incompetent politicians and bureaucrat's safe from meritocracy. Built into the onslaught of demands of backdoors are two key ideas: A) That the backdoors will only be exploitable by the authorities and that B) they're even necessary to carry out their work in stopping trafficing. I think most people know by now the first idea is preposterous. The second idea is too. The EU should focus on better police tools and tactics that detect and track the actual movement of goods.
- GuestFAUniverse 10mo ago
  All politicians and bureaucrats demanding backdoors should go straight into prison -- for endangering national security.
- hcal 10mo ago
  "I think most people know by now..." Sadly, I don't think that that's true. I've been shocked by the lack of understanding there in groups of technical people who should know better. It's even worse in groups of non technical people. I'm afraid this is an ongoing battle, and every time ideas like this come up from government it's going to be an effort to inform the public.
- BLKNSLVR 10mo ago
  > The EU should focus on better police tools and tactics that detect and track the actual movement of goods. This is a point that doesn't get raised very often: the actual crimes occur in "meat space", not electronically on a device. Haven't police and intelligence been solving crimes like that since 'the beginning'? The coordination of a crime may be done electronically 'on device', but the actual crime occurs somewhere physical, generally with physical objects and the presence of the criminals themselves. Why is it suddenly so much more difficult for law enforcement to do their jobs that the privacy of every member of the public needs to be able to be invaded? Are police forces under-resourced to take on the "how it's always been" approach to fighting crime? Are law enforcement being subject to inapplicable software engineering rules of efficiency to save money? (Ie. Too much focus on the metrics, not the outcomes). Don't police have great physical surveillance tools? Yes, it may cost more in having to physically surveil targets, but that seems (to me, and this is where the rift lies) that's a good compromise opposed to surveiling the entire populace. Anyone can say anything in a piece of correspondence that they think is private. If it's made public it completely changes the context. A joke between friends, criminals or not, can look like conspiracy to X, Y, or Z. Research for a crime novel could appear like preparation for a Louvre heist. And even if it is, it's not a crime until it occurs, until that point it's not 'real', the thing suspected of being planned hasn't actually taken place until it takes place. Are we implementing pre-crime without the three psychics? And one thing I know for sure is that law enforcement do not understand context. They're bred to find guilt, not innocence, and having a larger haystack they'll find plenty of hay they think look like needles. Gotta hit those metrics. There's plenty of nuance missing from what I've written here, but I fairly strongly feel it's leaning towards reality rather than liberal fantasy.
walletdrainer 10mo ago
The claim in the title of the post is not substantiated in any way. The correct headline here would be ”GrapheneOS worried about France after negative press”
- MYEUHD 10mo ago
  It is in third post in the thread: https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775986937247 https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775986937247 > Interviewed, she warns that she will “not stop pursuing publishers if links are discovered with a criminal organization and they [GrapheneOS] do not cooperate with justice.”
  - schoen 10mo ago
    Did "links" mean "a criminal organization is involved in the project" or "a criminal organization is using the technology"?
    - londons_explore 10mo ago
      I wonder if say some drug cartel was found to be donating money to graphene?
      - juvoly 10mo ago
        ... And what if a competing mobile OS (say iOS or android) received payments or donations from said organization :-)
    - immibis 10mo ago
      Probably the former. SkyECC, Encrochat, etc, were found to be deliberately sold to nontechnical drug lords for large amounts of money - as in, the project leads went out searching for drug lords and selling phones to them individually and offered to sell them 100 phones for $200 per month per phone. Drug empires have that sort of money. And they didn't sell to anyone else since nobody else has that sort of money. It seems unlikely that GrapheneOS is the same way, since it's free, but you never know - maybe it is made for drug lords, and giving it away to the rest of us is just for plausible deniability.
Currybongos 10mo ago
[flagged]
- viktorcode 10mo ago
  For contrast, you can imagine how this debate between a private OS developer and the government would go in a non-democratic country. Or, you don't even have to imagine, because examples are not hard to find.
  - ceayo 10mo ago
    > debate > non-democratic country My guess is there will be no debate... That said, we must acknowledge even having this debate is a positive step.
  - martin-t 10mo ago
    A threat is not a debate. But really, the point GP was trying to make (IMO) is that all western democracies are very obviously sliding towards authoritarianism. They are building tools which, even _if_ they don't abuse them now, will be available to any future government and with time, the probability of one of them being non-democratic is 1.
shlip 10mo ago
Just to be clear about what is really happening right now; There were three articles from newspapers (Le Figaro, Le Parisien) known for their rightist, pro-cops, opinions, and owned by billionaires (LVMH/Arnault, Dassault). In those articles, GrapheneOS is associated with bad actors purpotedly using it as a way to obfuscate their activities. A comment was made by Johanna Brousse, Chief of French Cybercrime Unit, stating she would not refrain from pursuing the publishers if links were found with a criminal organization and they refused to cooperate with the justice system. Another claim from a police investigator equates GrapheneOS usage to illegal activity.
kittikitti 10mo ago
There were many decades where phones didn't have back doors. Now, it's the opposite case in the most dystopian way. It's concerning that all phones are required to have back doors for law enforcement and the enforcement is severe. I know several people who have a corrupt "cop they know" that they can regularly contact for favors. Why is it so out of the ordinary to distrust law enforcement when they have these tools?
- blackoil 10mo ago
  Before internet on phone, every communication was in plain text, so no need to have a backdoor in phone if you can tap directly into AT&T or Vodafone.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- marcinzm 10mo ago
  > There were many decades where phones didn't have back doors. Your cell phone provider almost certainly will respond to a valid warrant and wire tap your non e2e encrypted phone call. I'd be very surprised if the most common mode of remote communication in any time period was not subject to government interception in some format within a short time of becoming such. That includes physical mail, telegrams, landlines, cell phone calls, txt messages, emails, etc. Referring to "how things used to be" is not in fact helping the case for privacy.
  - mytailorisrich 10mo ago
    Of course they will respond to warrants, they have to, and nowadays they have the infrastructure to forward all traffic to law emforcement's servers in real-time.
    - ceayo 10mo ago
      > and nowadays they have the infrastructure to forward all traffic to law enforcement's servers in real-time. The goal should be, designing your infrastructure in such a way they simply cannot forward this traffic to law enforcement.
maelito 10mo ago
The linked article from Le Parisien (a big French billionaire-owned newspaper) is quite nuanced. It gives the police's view on narco-trafic crime, but also Graphene's take : "Criminals and traffickers also use knives." This organization, which is not a company but a foundation, emphasizes that its solution is used by ordinary people who dislike how apps and operating systems handle their data. It adds that if criminals use Google Pixel phones and GrapheneOS, it’s because these solutions work well. But that doesn’t make them accomplices, they assure. "Criminals and traffickers also use knives, fast cars, and cash—things that are also widely used by honest citizens," its representatives note. And GrapheneOS adds that it protects users from hackers and intrusions by the secret services of totalitarian states. "We consider privacy a human right, and we are concerned about projects like Chat Control (a European bill aimed at detecting child sexual abuse material in messaging services, but which has faced significant criticism) that the French government supports. The invasion of privacy enabled by such legislation would have alarming implications under an authoritarian-leaning government," it argues.
- ovi256 10mo ago
  > Le Parisien (a big French billionaire-owned newspaper) They're all billionaire owned. As an example, left wing newspaper Liberation has Kretinsky among the owners
  - _ache_ 10mo ago
    Yeah, "Le media" and "Mediapart" are "left wing" newspaper and not billionaire owned, there is right wing too, but they are smalls. Libé isn't owned by Kretinsky but Patrick Drahi, Kretinsky owns Mariane (right to far-right now...). But anyway yeah, in France (and in other countries too ) there is a media oligarchy. Check the France problem: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/IMG/png/poster_medias_francais_6347-v20-2-2025.png https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/IMG/png/poster_medias_fran... Other countries with broken media ecosystem: - Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/the-brutal-reality-is-that-australias-media-is-broken-and-policy-tinkering-will-not-help https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/the-br... But also USA and Poland for example.
ForHackernews 10mo ago
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 > The FBI ran a sting operation in Europe where they created their own 'secure' phone and messaging platform. Their OS used portions of our code and was heavily marketed as being GrapheneOS or based on GrapheneOS. So how do we know GrapheneOS itself isn't a honeypot? It's run by a mystery org and heavily marketed as being a secure platform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG was a CIA front for 50 years.
- victorbjorklund 10mo ago
  The honeypot run by the FBI was closed source and that's why they could do it. while this is open source, which would make it much harder.
  - londons_explore 10mo ago
    Wouldn't be hard to hide a backdoor in a multi million line codebase ...
    - SpaghettiCthulu 10mo ago
      Unless you think the same backdoor is hiding in AOSP, you can just check the diff and some extra lines for context.
      - ForHackernews 10mo ago
        People in this thread are very explicitly claiming that Android and iOS are backdoored, yes.
  - amarant 10mo ago
    Would be an interesting experiment actually: how long would it take for the community at large to discover a backdoor in graphene OS if added sneakily by generally trusted Devs, ie the org that maintains it. Or, phrased differently, how much independent auditing is graphene OS subjected to?
miroljub 10mo ago
[flagged]
- lawn 10mo ago
  Statements like these show how little you truly know about North Korea.
  - miroljub 10mo ago
    That's the point, I don't want to find out.
konmok 10mo ago
I think your devices should have government-mandated backdoors if and only if you are a public servant. I don't understand why private citizens are held to higher standards of conduct than politicians and cops.
- alfalfasprout 10mo ago
  Even if you're a public servant, a backdoor is a big security risk.
  - mito88 10mo ago
    exactly!
- notaustinpowers 10mo ago
  Backdoors exist for everyone or they exist for no one, this technology isn't one that has room for a gray area to debate. If it can be deployed to public servant devices, it can be deployed to your device.
  - konmok 10mo ago
    Only if they're using the same devices everyone else uses. If they're required to use a certain kind of hardware, or they're required to submit their device for hardware modification, this stops being an issue, doesn't it?
  - aeurielesn 10mo ago
    Not according to Chat Control at least where politicians are exempting themselves from State surveillance.
    - forgetfulness 10mo ago
      Great way to fight the allegations that EU politicians are corrupt and unaccountable, there
  - 10mo ago
jcsager 10mo ago
I think EncroChat scared them pas-de-merde, and this may be an overreaction by untutored civil servants.
- pimterry 10mo ago
  In the end, wasn't EncroChat a larger problem for the criminals than the governments? Once it became a big enough target it got taken down, and then quietly run by the police who collected everybody's messages for months before triggering a huge round of arrests, including quite a bit of major organized crime across Europe. The dangers of centralization. They'd love another EncroChat! Doesn't apply so much to GrapheneOS of course since they're not in the messaging platform market, but it's definitely a cautionary tale.
  - hdb385 10mo ago
    [dead]
- rwmj 10mo ago
  I watched a fascinating documentary about EncroChat (https://www.channel4.com/programmes/operation-dark-phone-murder-by-text https://www.channel4.com/programmes/operation-dark-phone-mur...). It was obvious the police absolutely loved having this real time feed into criminal communications, and thought "let's have more of that please". They don't realise the consequences are that criminals won't use such forms of communication once they know they're backdoored.
  - immibis 10mo ago
    Of course they realise it, and they know it's irrelevant, because their job is to catch actual dissidents today, not hypothetical future dissidents.
- School-Cotton 10mo ago
  > scared them pas-de-merde Huh?
deleted 10mo ago
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londons_explore 10mo ago
If the small guys are getting threats like this, one can only assume the big guys already have suitable backdoors...
- jtbayly 10mo ago
  Perhaps, or perhaps they started with companies that are smaller and easier to intimidate.
  - mistercheph 10mo ago
    Larger companies are easier to influence than small ones, no intimidation is necessary. Protecting user privacy delivers close to 0 shareholder value, being friendly with nations wins you billions of dollars in contracts, regulatory protection, and friendly courts, it's a win-win for big companies and surveillance states to be friendly with each other.
    - themafia 10mo ago
      Larger companies have more to lose if people lost faith in their platform and devices. Monopolies are easy to influence as they don't even have to care about the optics.
      - mistercheph 10mo ago
        By that logic, maybe unsurprisingly, the FANG's of the world have monopolies. Who believes that their Apple-Google device doesn't phone home to Five Eyes directly or indirectly. Who would care or be surprised if they announced publicly that they did?
- jmyeet 10mo ago
  I can understand you thinking that and there's probably some truth to it but do I consider Android and iOS compromised with government backdoors? No. What do I base this on? The lucrative black market for Android/iOS 0days. And who's buying them? Generally, state actors, directly or indirectly. There is an entire ecosystem of Israeli "security" companies that exist to farm out these exploits. This is a big part of why Israel is such a key component of the American national security infrastructure. Israel is largely beyond the jurisdiction of American courts and any kind of direct scrutiny by the government. It's a bit like how the US isn't (technically) allowed to spy on US citizens. How do they get around this? By farming out such activities to allied intelligence services, particularly Five Eyes members. This entire ecosystem and marketplace just wouldn't exist if Android or iOS were fully backdoored.
dagi3d 10mo ago
so, they are basically confirming Android and Apple have their backdoors as no arrests or seizures on that matter have taken place
- bigyabai 10mo ago
  > As of 2018 through an initiative sometimes termed "Five Eyes Plus 3", Five Eyes has agreements with France, Germany, and Japan to introduce an information-sharing framework to counter China and Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Five_Eyes_Plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Five_Eyes_Plus
- silverline28 10mo ago
  absolutely yes
- InexSquirrel 10mo ago
  That was my read on that too.
- this_user 10mo ago
  Not really. It's one thing trying to bully a relatively small FOSS project, it's quite something else to take on one of the world's biggest companies that can afford a literal army of lawyers and that also has the power to have the US government intervene on their behalf.
  - bigyabai 10mo ago
    > that also has the power to have the US government intervene on their behalf. This would seem to be a weakness, if your goal is using American clout to persecute malware manufacturers: https://www.securityweek.com/apple-suddenly-drops-nso-group-spyware-lawsuit/ https://www.securityweek.com/apple-suddenly-drops-nso-group-...
  - einpoklum 10mo ago
    Actually, in some ways, it is easier to bully large companies - because those companies are less flexible in avoiding confrontation with the authorities in a certain state. For Google to avoid having a legal presence in France is much harder than for the GrapheneOS project to do the same. But - valid point regarding having the US government intervene.
throitallaway 10mo ago
Gotta love the Streisand effect that happens due to stuff like this!
hdb385 10mo ago
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aborsy 10mo ago
[flagged]
tony-john12 10mo ago
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cedws 10mo ago
Remember when they arrested Pavel Durov? I don't buy their official reasoning. Dear European friends, our leaders are tightening the screws. If we don't make our voices heard this is only going to get worse. https://x.com/durov/status/1976420399970701543 https://x.com/durov/status/1976420399970701543
- looobay 10mo ago
  In the Pavel case, it involved child pornography groups on Telegram and the fact that they ignore a court order. But I agree with you for the authoritarian logics in Europe (even America) with Chat Control and other actions like the French gov. just did....
- TiredOfLife 10mo ago
  I remember. It helped expose his lies about not traveling to russia and not collaborating with russian security services.
  - tagyro 10mo ago
    care to expand/provide some more info?
    - mikeyouse 10mo ago
      Durov had long claimed he was in exile from Russia and couldn’t return and that he was a UAE/French citizen. then records leaked that showed 120 border crossings from 2016-2021 and that he still held a Russian passport. One such border crossing was a flight from St Petersburg on June 18, 2020 which happens to be the same day that Telegram was unblocked in Russia… Lots and lots of smoke.. The Kyiv Independent article is a good summary. https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-examining-telegram-founder-pavel-durovs-alleged-ties-to-the-kremlin/ https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-examining-telegram-found...
      - dijit 10mo ago
        I was hit pretty hard when Russia was trying to block telegram; I don’t buy that it was a coverup. And there is only a single (anonymous) source for that whole article. That said, would be good to rely on no central authority and use Matrix instead; or at least put OTR/Ratchet on top of Telegram with custom clients. TG does not seem hostile to third party clients the same way Whatsapp/Signal are. It would otherwise serve the USA for people to prefer Signal over TG (due to jurisdiction).
anthk 10mo ago
The French goverment will be sued into oblivion for breaking licenses bound to Copyright.
udev4096 10mo ago
[flagged]
Canada 10mo ago
The gloves are really off against the best interests of the public now aren't they?
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
  In a sense, trajectory has not really changed, but, admittedly, the pace of change has accellerated tremendously. UK and now France.
anthk 10mo ago
Dear French: criminals would just use fake spam emails or bullshit trolling posts under fake Usenet groups in the clear. No encryption needed, and yet your would earn nothing by backdooring them
moomin 10mo ago
The article is kind of interesting: on the one hand, you’ve got a tool that can be used by ordinary citizens and political dissidents for legitimate reasons. On the other, the French police were mildly inconvenienced during their arrest of a small-time drug dealer. Yes, really, that’s the argument.
- p0w3n3d 10mo ago
  It's about protecting kids/olds/fighting crime/drug dealer `What would you like me to wrap the global surveillance in?'
  - throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
    IYKYK :D https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz2FvX7IEAAZ7F4.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz2FvX7IEAAZ7F4.jpg
maxlin 10mo ago
>narcotrafiquants >police yeah France doing France things. Like back when they forced Windows to store passwords in plaintext, with encryption outlawed. Sigh.
lisbbb 10mo ago
Everything about the exercise of power in the digital world is tilted away from the individual. Windows 11 moved all my files into the cloud without even asking me! I was livid--those are documents that I deliberately DID NOT WANT in the cloud! It's crazy what malice we have to put up with and navigate these days. It just keeps getting worse and more convoluted, too.
Kim_Bruning 10mo ago
Should I worry about E/OS too? (It'd be funny if French software was illegal to use in the EU for GDPR violations. )
johnwayne666 10mo ago
HN title: "France threatens GrapheneOS with arrests / server seizure for refusing backdoors" LQDN: "Dans ces articles, la cheffe de la section cybercriminalité du parquet de Paris – à l'origine de l'arrestation de Pavel Durov – menace également les développeurs·es de GrapheneOs. Interviewée, elle prévient qu'elle ne s'« empêchera pas de poursuivre les éditeurs, si des liens sont découverts avec une organisation criminelle et qu’ils ne coopèrent pas avec la justice »." In the (very short) linked article: No mention of arrest, server seizure or backdoor, and a more nuanced take. Loosely translated summary: Some users have a legitimate need to protect their communications. IF we find links with criminal organizations AND there is no cooperation, then we might take action. They're specifically taking the approach of a case by case hack of single phones which might cost up to a million euros. Is this an issue if there's a warrant? This seems blown out of proportion?
- delusional 10mo ago
  > This seems blown out of proportion? Par for the course on hacker news.
- raverbashing 10mo ago
  I agree The thread linked is much more balanced than the title given
- miohtama 10mo ago
  And how do you hack a single phone without a backdoor in every phone?
  - foxyv 10mo ago
    You use the signing keys for GrapheneOS to push an update to a single user.
    - strcat 10mo ago
      That doesn't offer a way to bypass disk encryption for data protected by the per-profile lock method. GrapheneOS cannot bypass the brute force protection implemented by the secure element. Google cannot bypass the brute force protection either because they designed the Titan M2 to require the Owner user successfully unlocks in order to update it. Weaver + insider attack protection for the secure element are among our hardware security requirements (see https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices for a list) which are being implemented by an OEM we're working with to provide a Pixel alternative. Weaver has a table of user authentication tokens mapped to random tokens used as part of the final key derivation. The authentication token is made with a hash of the initial key derived from scrypt, then the final key derivation in TrustZone combines both with hardware-bound key derivation to get the key derivation key. Weaver implements very aggressive time-based throttling. We have the original delays documented at https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption but it ramps up faster now. Aside from that, people can use a strong diceware passphrase on GrapheneOS due to us massively raising the character limit from 16 to 128. This is far more usable on GrapheneOS because people can combine it with fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock instead of fingerprint-only secondary unlock. 5 attempts are allowed for fingerprint unlock and the 2nd factor PIN being entered incorrectly counts towards that so even a random 4 digit one works well. That's convenient to use with the passphrase only having to be entered 48h after the last successful passphrase unlock and after reboot. We also won't do it and cannot be forced to do it under Canadian laws. France's laws are going to be as relevant to us as North Korean laws once we've finished replaced our OVH servers in Beauharnois, Canada with a Canadian provider. France could currently force OVH to mess with our static website or mail server but we haven't done anything illegal so it would be outrageous and a diplomatic incident due to violating Canadian sovereignty during a time period when foreign server hosting companies being subject to foreign law is already in a recent news cycle. We're not waiting around for them to hijack our website though.
elric 10mo ago
Is it a coincidence that this comes out on the same day that the Chat Control proposal got a green light from the EU member states?
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
jmward01 10mo ago
True freedom, of any kind, requires freedom to say things and think things in private. I sometimes think horrible things and even discuss them with my friends. I need that space to work out issues. Without a truly safe space I would eventually go mad as I suspect many people would. The other part of this is that a basic requirement of freedom is trust with accountability. It means we allow things that may be harmful but if things go bad we hold those responsible accountable after the fact. It also means we may not catch all the bad guys and that is OK because the alternative is that everyone turns into a bad guy when we prevent people from doing things in case they will be bad. There is a balance here but the position that a govt will always have access to all private individual (acting in a private capacity) communications is not anywhere near a reasonable balance.
justinzollars 10mo ago
Has anyone noticed the whole of the Western World has gone tyrannical paranoid police state?
einpoklum 10mo ago
As a response to this situation, consider supporting GrapheneOS financially: https://grapheneos.org/donate https://grapheneos.org/donate
greenavocado 10mo ago
Americans do not understand the fact that their own government rates the top four intelligence threats as French, Israeli, Chinese, and Russian.
- throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
  Where do you get that ‘fact’? Can you elaborate? According to all the Annual Threat Assessment reports from the office of the Director of National Intelligence[1], the top four threats are 1. China 2. Russia 3. Iran 4. North Korea [1]: https://www.intelligence.gov/annual-threat-assessment https://www.intelligence.gov/annual-threat-assessment
  - greenavocado 10mo ago
    Of course they would say that
    - throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
      You know, not providing any evidence for your claim (the “fact”) does not prove your point..
- BergAndCo 10mo ago
  Is the "fact" in the room with you right now?
FilosofumRex 10mo ago
Russia is as European as France and certainly more European than the US or Canada. Most of Europe's problems stem from trying to keep Russia out and Germany down. The latter has worked well because Germany is, to this day, occupied by the US & the UK. But the former has never worked out and is now bankrupting the EU!
papageek 10mo ago
Perfect timing for moving hosting to Wyoming, USA.
andsoitis 10mo ago
” In Canada and the US, refusing to provide a PIN/password is protected as part of the right to avoid incriminating yourself. In France, they've criminalized this part of the right to remain silent.”

324 points by nabakin 10mo ago

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

This is a better link from a French privacy non-profit but I can't change it now: https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 @dang or other mods, could you change it? Google Translated text: > Two articles in Le Parisien yesterday, followed today by one in Le Figaro, have launched a shameful attack against GrapheneOS, a free and accessible open-source operating system for phones. At La Quadrature du Net, it's one of the tools we favor and regularly recommend for protecting against advertising tracking and spyware. > Echoing the propaganda of the Ministry of the Interior, newspapers describe GrapheneOS as a "crime-related phone solution," and a police officer adds that its use is suspicious in itself because it indicates an "intention to conceal." By portraying GrapheneOS as a technology linked to drug trafficking, this attack aims to criminalize what is actually a secure privacy-preserving tool. > In these articles, the head of the cybercrime section of the Paris prosecutor's office – who was behind the arrest of Pavel Durov – also threatens the developers of GrapheneOS. In an interview, she warns that she will "not hesitate to prosecute the publishers if links are discovered with a criminal organization and they do not cooperate with the justice system." https://archive.is/20251119110251/https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/telephones-proteges-utilises-par-les-narcotrafiquants-rien-nest-inviolable-19-11-2025-3PP34GIBAJGH3EZOVEJVT7OMU4.php https://archive.is/20251119110251/https://www.leparisien.fr/... > The government regularly tries to link privacy technologies, particularly encryption, to criminal behavior in order to undermine them and justify surveillance policies. This was the case in the so-called "December 8th" case, where a police narrative was constructed around the (secure) digital practices of the accused to portray a "clandestine" and "conspiratorial" group. https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/affaire-du-8-decembre-le-chiffrement-des-communications-assimile-a-un-comportement-terroriste/iste/ https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/affaire-du-8-decembr... > Now, drug trafficking is being used to attack these technologies and justify the surveillance of communications. The so-called "Drug Trafficking" law was thus used as a pretext to try to legalize "backdoors" in encrypted applications like Signal or WhatsApp, without success. https://www.laquadrature.net/2025/03/18/le-gouvernement-pret-a-tout-pour-casser-le-droit-au-chiffrement/ https://www.laquadrature.net/2025/03/18/le-gouvernement-pret... > An article in Le Monde diplomatique from November extensively examines the history of the political exploitation of drug trafficking to justify security and surveillance policies. The police attack on GrapheneOS fits perfectly within this pattern. https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2025/11/BONELLI/68915 https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2025/11/BONELLI/68915 > In its response published yesterday, GrapheneOS points to the authoritarian tendencies of the French government, one of the most fervent supporters of the "ChatControl" regulation under discussion at the European level, one of whose goals is to put an end to end-to-end encryption. https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 Additional context: https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/11557599710445618... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/115581775949920078 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/11558177594... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739

shlip 10mo ago
I think you meant https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775965025042 instead of a link to "Le Parisien", which is not a non profit, but a newspaper owned by LVMH/Bernard Arnault, and known for having rightist opinions.
- nabakin 10mo ago
  Oops, that's correct, ty
  - shlip 10mo ago
    No problems :) The full "Le parisien" article is available here FWIW: https://archive.ph/20251124161701/https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/google-pixel-et-grapheneos-la-botte-secrete-des-narcotrafiquants-pour-proteger-leurs-donnees-de-la-police-19-11-2025-NTGPQE4JCNGEHLF7XGIQ3CCA2I.php https://archive.ph/20251124161701/https://www.leparisien.fr/...
ricksunny 10mo ago
More graphic content needed to get folks to click through: This is excerpted from the result of G-translating the Parisien link: "This 27-year-old alleged trafficker is suspected of having run this drug telephone platform which, between 2023 and 2024 in Paris, collected a turnover of two million euros and is said to have caused three overdose deaths during chemsex parties."
dang 10mo ago
Ok, we've changed to that from https://grapheneos.social/@watchfulcitizen@goingdark.social/115605398547420414 https://grapheneos.social/@watchfulcitizen@goingdark.social/... above.
- nabakin 10mo ago
  Ty!
- 10mo ago

tehjoker 10mo ago

I believe this is the OS recommended to journalists that report on Palestine because freedom of speech doesn't apply without aggressive assertion of your rights.

grimblee 10mo ago
They always point to the criminals to get at the political opposants, just look at chatcontrol

rurban 10mo ago

Into jail with those officials. Clear violation of their constitution

inglor_cz 10mo ago
It is France. The state is them. Edit: I wonder why this is downvoted. The bureaucratic class holds enormous power in France, and has constantly acted against digital rights and privacy with impunity. The only institution that can somewhat restrain them is ECHR.
- rurban 10mo ago
  Well, other states are not much better. UK, Australia, USA come to my mind. But this is excessive
  - inglor_cz 10mo ago
    We indeed seem to be in a race towards the bottom in this regard, but France was always a "forerunner". Already 15 years ago it was illegal to use Wi-Fi outside buildings in France. I still remember the old Nokias plastered with those warnings.
    - rurban 10mo ago
      And I remember the longstanding argument why women should not be allowed to vote in France, because that's what brought Hitler to power. They were the third last European country to do so, only Greece and Switzerland were more backwards.

nabakin 10mo ago

Google Translate link: https://translate.google.com/translate?tl=en&hl=en&u=https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/google-pixel-et-grapheneos-la-botte-secrete-des-narcotrafiquants-pour-proteger-leurs-donnees-de-la-police-19-11-2025-NTGPQE4JCNGEHLF7XGIQ3CCA2I.php https://translate.google.com/translate?tl=en&hl=en&u=https:/... Additional context: https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/115575997104456188 https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/11557599710445618... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115583866253016416 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/115581775949920078 https://grapheneos.social/@LaQuadrature@mamot.fr/11558177594... https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115594002434998739

riedel 10mo ago
I like grapheneOS. Their have a clear focus and that should be respected. However, all that drama about e/OS they are creating and claims about fascist law enforcement are a bit over the top IMHO.
- sapphicsnail 10mo ago
  How so?
  - riedel 10mo ago
    With such wording, zhey seem to suggest that somehow French law enforcement wants to crack down some democratic opposition with the use of purposefully insecure OSs such as e/OS. That seems to be a bit much of conspiracy theory to me.
- udev4096 10mo ago
  e/OS is a fucking joke
  - riedel 10mo ago

monerozcash 10mo ago

This is not something that's actually happening.

aja12 10mo ago
Yet. When ChatControl will be in place, it'll only be a matter of time
jeffbee 10mo ago
Right?? The daily display of uncritical thinking is at least slightly amusing, though.

hirako2000 10mo ago

Some advocacy groups are denouncing the collusion and lobbying taking place between industrials, governments, and the media. https://eu.boell.org/en/2024/04/25/press-freedom-france https://eu.boell.org/en/2024/04/25/press-freedom-france https://ipi.media/france-media-freedom-threats-capture/ https://ipi.media/france-media-freedom-threats-capture/

BLKNSLVR 10mo ago

Is it safe to assume, then, that Google and Apple already have backdoors in their operating systems as likely requested by many governments around the world (not least of which the one from their home country)? Or is GrapheneOS the only one built securely enough to need to be leaned upon? Either way, makes Google and Apple look bad and/or incompetent and GrapheneOS look like some kind of beacon of user protection / privacy rights / other things that are the opposite of the direction the world seems to be moving.

srmatto 10mo ago
Or that GrapheneOS is small enough to bully.
- fooqux 10mo ago
  The EU doesn't seem to shy about forcing Apple or Google to do things, so I don't think it's a size thing.
  - teaearlgraycold 10mo ago
    France isn’t the EU though.
    - fooqux 10mo ago
      True, but from what I understand France and Germany quite often get their way in the EU.
VWWHFSfQ 10mo ago
I seem to remember the FBI attempting to compel Apple to decrypt a criminal's iPhone, only for Apple to refuse and claim that it wasn't possible. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that. I think it was suspected that the NSA was able to do it by exploiting an unpatched zero-day. So they didn't need Apple's help anymore and the issue was dropped from the public's eye.

dgan 10mo ago

Given the fact that most protests are organized on facebook groups, how does one keep him/herself aware of eventual protests to come without Facebook/instagram? I d gladly join for a cause i support

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

mhitza 10mo ago

Any actual source for the claim?

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

[flagged]

nabakin 10mo ago
I understand they are similar, but I think this post adds new information to the situation. Regardless, appreciate your help moderating the site.
- ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
  [flagged]

avh02 10mo ago

Link warns I'm leaving grapheneos.social and then when you click the redirect tried to download some .bin file, wtf?

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999024

speedgoose 10mo ago
It’s a much better link this time though.
- ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
  Same referenced link as earlier. Same discussion.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]

freehorse 10mo ago

The url is just redirecting to https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768 https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768 Maybe consider replacing the redirecting url to the destination url? Not very good not being able to see the actual url linked imo.

crtasm 10mo ago

the submitted URL makes HN show grapheneos.social as the domain. the actual URL is https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768 https://goingdark.social/@watchfulcitizen/115605398411708768

Covzire 10mo ago

At the end of the day, these attacks on privacy are always in reality for keeping incompetent politicians and bureaucrat's safe from meritocracy. Built into the onslaught of demands of backdoors are two key ideas: A) That the backdoors will only be exploitable by the authorities and that B) they're even necessary to carry out their work in stopping trafficing. I think most people know by now the first idea is preposterous. The second idea is too. The EU should focus on better police tools and tactics that detect and track the actual movement of goods.

GuestFAUniverse 10mo ago
All politicians and bureaucrats demanding backdoors should go straight into prison -- for endangering national security.
hcal 10mo ago
"I think most people know by now..." Sadly, I don't think that that's true. I've been shocked by the lack of understanding there in groups of technical people who should know better. It's even worse in groups of non technical people. I'm afraid this is an ongoing battle, and every time ideas like this come up from government it's going to be an effort to inform the public.
BLKNSLVR 10mo ago
> The EU should focus on better police tools and tactics that detect and track the actual movement of goods. This is a point that doesn't get raised very often: the actual crimes occur in "meat space", not electronically on a device. Haven't police and intelligence been solving crimes like that since 'the beginning'? The coordination of a crime may be done electronically 'on device', but the actual crime occurs somewhere physical, generally with physical objects and the presence of the criminals themselves. Why is it suddenly so much more difficult for law enforcement to do their jobs that the privacy of every member of the public needs to be able to be invaded? Are police forces under-resourced to take on the "how it's always been" approach to fighting crime? Are law enforcement being subject to inapplicable software engineering rules of efficiency to save money? (Ie. Too much focus on the metrics, not the outcomes). Don't police have great physical surveillance tools? Yes, it may cost more in having to physically surveil targets, but that seems (to me, and this is where the rift lies) that's a good compromise opposed to surveiling the entire populace. Anyone can say anything in a piece of correspondence that they think is private. If it's made public it completely changes the context. A joke between friends, criminals or not, can look like conspiracy to X, Y, or Z. Research for a crime novel could appear like preparation for a Louvre heist. And even if it is, it's not a crime until it occurs, until that point it's not 'real', the thing suspected of being planned hasn't actually taken place until it takes place. Are we implementing pre-crime without the three psychics? And one thing I know for sure is that law enforcement do not understand context. They're bred to find guilt, not innocence, and having a larger haystack they'll find plenty of hay they think look like needles. Gotta hit those metrics. There's plenty of nuance missing from what I've written here, but I fairly strongly feel it's leaning towards reality rather than liberal fantasy.

walletdrainer 10mo ago

The claim in the title of the post is not substantiated in any way. The correct headline here would be ”GrapheneOS worried about France after negative press”

MYEUHD 10mo ago
It is in third post in the thread: https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775986937247 https://mamot.fr/@LaQuadrature/115581775986937247 > Interviewed, she warns that she will “not stop pursuing publishers if links are discovered with a criminal organization and they [GrapheneOS] do not cooperate with justice.”
- schoen 10mo ago
  Did "links" mean "a criminal organization is involved in the project" or "a criminal organization is using the technology"?
  - londons_explore 10mo ago
    I wonder if say some drug cartel was found to be donating money to graphene?
    - juvoly 10mo ago
      ... And what if a competing mobile OS (say iOS or android) received payments or donations from said organization :-)
  - immibis 10mo ago
    Probably the former. SkyECC, Encrochat, etc, were found to be deliberately sold to nontechnical drug lords for large amounts of money - as in, the project leads went out searching for drug lords and selling phones to them individually and offered to sell them 100 phones for $200 per month per phone. Drug empires have that sort of money. And they didn't sell to anyone else since nobody else has that sort of money. It seems unlikely that GrapheneOS is the same way, since it's free, but you never know - maybe it is made for drug lords, and giving it away to the rest of us is just for plausible deniability.

Currybongos 10mo ago

[flagged]

viktorcode 10mo ago
For contrast, you can imagine how this debate between a private OS developer and the government would go in a non-democratic country. Or, you don't even have to imagine, because examples are not hard to find.
- ceayo 10mo ago
  > debate > non-democratic country My guess is there will be no debate... That said, we must acknowledge even having this debate is a positive step.
- martin-t 10mo ago
  A threat is not a debate. But really, the point GP was trying to make (IMO) is that all western democracies are very obviously sliding towards authoritarianism. They are building tools which, even _if_ they don't abuse them now, will be available to any future government and with time, the probability of one of them being non-democratic is 1.

shlip 10mo ago

Just to be clear about what is really happening right now; There were three articles from newspapers (Le Figaro, Le Parisien) known for their rightist, pro-cops, opinions, and owned by billionaires (LVMH/Arnault, Dassault). In those articles, GrapheneOS is associated with bad actors purpotedly using it as a way to obfuscate their activities. A comment was made by Johanna Brousse, Chief of French Cybercrime Unit, stating she would not refrain from pursuing the publishers if links were found with a criminal organization and they refused to cooperate with the justice system. Another claim from a police investigator equates GrapheneOS usage to illegal activity.

kittikitti 10mo ago

There were many decades where phones didn't have back doors. Now, it's the opposite case in the most dystopian way. It's concerning that all phones are required to have back doors for law enforcement and the enforcement is severe. I know several people who have a corrupt "cop they know" that they can regularly contact for favors. Why is it so out of the ordinary to distrust law enforcement when they have these tools?

blackoil 10mo ago
Before internet on phone, every communication was in plain text, so no need to have a backdoor in phone if you can tap directly into AT&T or Vodafone.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
marcinzm 10mo ago
> There were many decades where phones didn't have back doors. Your cell phone provider almost certainly will respond to a valid warrant and wire tap your non e2e encrypted phone call. I'd be very surprised if the most common mode of remote communication in any time period was not subject to government interception in some format within a short time of becoming such. That includes physical mail, telegrams, landlines, cell phone calls, txt messages, emails, etc. Referring to "how things used to be" is not in fact helping the case for privacy.
- mytailorisrich 10mo ago
  Of course they will respond to warrants, they have to, and nowadays they have the infrastructure to forward all traffic to law emforcement's servers in real-time.
  - ceayo 10mo ago
    > and nowadays they have the infrastructure to forward all traffic to law enforcement's servers in real-time. The goal should be, designing your infrastructure in such a way they simply cannot forward this traffic to law enforcement.

maelito 10mo ago

The linked article from Le Parisien (a big French billionaire-owned newspaper) is quite nuanced. It gives the police's view on narco-trafic crime, but also Graphene's take : "Criminals and traffickers also use knives." This organization, which is not a company but a foundation, emphasizes that its solution is used by ordinary people who dislike how apps and operating systems handle their data. It adds that if criminals use Google Pixel phones and GrapheneOS, it’s because these solutions work well. But that doesn’t make them accomplices, they assure. "Criminals and traffickers also use knives, fast cars, and cash—things that are also widely used by honest citizens," its representatives note. And GrapheneOS adds that it protects users from hackers and intrusions by the secret services of totalitarian states. "We consider privacy a human right, and we are concerned about projects like Chat Control (a European bill aimed at detecting child sexual abuse material in messaging services, but which has faced significant criticism) that the French government supports. The invasion of privacy enabled by such legislation would have alarming implications under an authoritarian-leaning government," it argues.

ovi256 10mo ago
> Le Parisien (a big French billionaire-owned newspaper) They're all billionaire owned. As an example, left wing newspaper Liberation has Kretinsky among the owners
- _ache_ 10mo ago
  Yeah, "Le media" and "Mediapart" are "left wing" newspaper and not billionaire owned, there is right wing too, but they are smalls. Libé isn't owned by Kretinsky but Patrick Drahi, Kretinsky owns Mariane (right to far-right now...). But anyway yeah, in France (and in other countries too ) there is a media oligarchy. Check the France problem: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/IMG/png/poster_medias_francais_6347-v20-2-2025.png https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/IMG/png/poster_medias_fran... Other countries with broken media ecosystem: - Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/the-brutal-reality-is-that-australias-media-is-broken-and-policy-tinkering-will-not-help https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/the-br... But also USA and Poland for example.

ForHackernews 10mo ago

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115589833471347871 > The FBI ran a sting operation in Europe where they created their own 'secure' phone and messaging platform. Their OS used portions of our code and was heavily marketed as being GrapheneOS or based on GrapheneOS. So how do we know GrapheneOS itself isn't a honeypot? It's run by a mystery org and heavily marketed as being a secure platform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG was a CIA front for 50 years.

victorbjorklund 10mo ago
The honeypot run by the FBI was closed source and that's why they could do it. while this is open source, which would make it much harder.
- londons_explore 10mo ago
  Wouldn't be hard to hide a backdoor in a multi million line codebase ...
  - SpaghettiCthulu 10mo ago
    Unless you think the same backdoor is hiding in AOSP, you can just check the diff and some extra lines for context.
    - ForHackernews 10mo ago
      People in this thread are very explicitly claiming that Android and iOS are backdoored, yes.
- amarant 10mo ago
  Would be an interesting experiment actually: how long would it take for the community at large to discover a backdoor in graphene OS if added sneakily by generally trusted Devs, ie the org that maintains it. Or, phrased differently, how much independent auditing is graphene OS subjected to?

miroljub 10mo ago

[flagged]

lawn 10mo ago
Statements like these show how little you truly know about North Korea.
- miroljub 10mo ago
  That's the point, I don't want to find out.

konmok 10mo ago

I think your devices should have government-mandated backdoors if and only if you are a public servant. I don't understand why private citizens are held to higher standards of conduct than politicians and cops.

alfalfasprout 10mo ago
Even if you're a public servant, a backdoor is a big security risk.
- mito88 10mo ago
  exactly!
notaustinpowers 10mo ago
Backdoors exist for everyone or they exist for no one, this technology isn't one that has room for a gray area to debate. If it can be deployed to public servant devices, it can be deployed to your device.
- konmok 10mo ago
  Only if they're using the same devices everyone else uses. If they're required to use a certain kind of hardware, or they're required to submit their device for hardware modification, this stops being an issue, doesn't it?
- aeurielesn 10mo ago
  Not according to Chat Control at least where politicians are exempting themselves from State surveillance.
  - forgetfulness 10mo ago
    Great way to fight the allegations that EU politicians are corrupt and unaccountable, there
- 10mo ago

jcsager 10mo ago

I think EncroChat scared them pas-de-merde, and this may be an overreaction by untutored civil servants.

pimterry 10mo ago
In the end, wasn't EncroChat a larger problem for the criminals than the governments? Once it became a big enough target it got taken down, and then quietly run by the police who collected everybody's messages for months before triggering a huge round of arrests, including quite a bit of major organized crime across Europe. The dangers of centralization. They'd love another EncroChat! Doesn't apply so much to GrapheneOS of course since they're not in the messaging platform market, but it's definitely a cautionary tale.
- hdb385 10mo ago
  [dead]
rwmj 10mo ago
I watched a fascinating documentary about EncroChat (https://www.channel4.com/programmes/operation-dark-phone-murder-by-text https://www.channel4.com/programmes/operation-dark-phone-mur...). It was obvious the police absolutely loved having this real time feed into criminal communications, and thought "let's have more of that please". They don't realise the consequences are that criminals won't use such forms of communication once they know they're backdoored.
- immibis 10mo ago
  Of course they realise it, and they know it's irrelevant, because their job is to catch actual dissidents today, not hypothetical future dissidents.
School-Cotton 10mo ago
> scared them pas-de-merde Huh?

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

londons_explore 10mo ago

If the small guys are getting threats like this, one can only assume the big guys already have suitable backdoors...

jtbayly 10mo ago
Perhaps, or perhaps they started with companies that are smaller and easier to intimidate.
- mistercheph 10mo ago
  Larger companies are easier to influence than small ones, no intimidation is necessary. Protecting user privacy delivers close to 0 shareholder value, being friendly with nations wins you billions of dollars in contracts, regulatory protection, and friendly courts, it's a win-win for big companies and surveillance states to be friendly with each other.
  - themafia 10mo ago
    Larger companies have more to lose if people lost faith in their platform and devices. Monopolies are easy to influence as they don't even have to care about the optics.
    - mistercheph 10mo ago
      By that logic, maybe unsurprisingly, the FANG's of the world have monopolies. Who believes that their Apple-Google device doesn't phone home to Five Eyes directly or indirectly. Who would care or be surprised if they announced publicly that they did?
jmyeet 10mo ago
I can understand you thinking that and there's probably some truth to it but do I consider Android and iOS compromised with government backdoors? No. What do I base this on? The lucrative black market for Android/iOS 0days. And who's buying them? Generally, state actors, directly or indirectly. There is an entire ecosystem of Israeli "security" companies that exist to farm out these exploits. This is a big part of why Israel is such a key component of the American national security infrastructure. Israel is largely beyond the jurisdiction of American courts and any kind of direct scrutiny by the government. It's a bit like how the US isn't (technically) allowed to spy on US citizens. How do they get around this? By farming out such activities to allied intelligence services, particularly Five Eyes members. This entire ecosystem and marketplace just wouldn't exist if Android or iOS were fully backdoored.

dagi3d 10mo ago

so, they are basically confirming Android and Apple have their backdoors as no arrests or seizures on that matter have taken place

bigyabai 10mo ago
> As of 2018 through an initiative sometimes termed "Five Eyes Plus 3", Five Eyes has agreements with France, Germany, and Japan to introduce an information-sharing framework to counter China and Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Five_Eyes_Plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Five_Eyes_Plus
silverline28 10mo ago
absolutely yes
InexSquirrel 10mo ago
That was my read on that too.
this_user 10mo ago
Not really. It's one thing trying to bully a relatively small FOSS project, it's quite something else to take on one of the world's biggest companies that can afford a literal army of lawyers and that also has the power to have the US government intervene on their behalf.
- bigyabai 10mo ago
  > that also has the power to have the US government intervene on their behalf. This would seem to be a weakness, if your goal is using American clout to persecute malware manufacturers: https://www.securityweek.com/apple-suddenly-drops-nso-group-spyware-lawsuit/ https://www.securityweek.com/apple-suddenly-drops-nso-group-...
- einpoklum 10mo ago
  Actually, in some ways, it is easier to bully large companies - because those companies are less flexible in avoiding confrontation with the authorities in a certain state. For Google to avoid having a legal presence in France is much harder than for the GrapheneOS project to do the same. But - valid point regarding having the US government intervene.

throitallaway 10mo ago

Gotta love the Streisand effect that happens due to stuff like this!

hdb385 10mo ago

[dead]

aborsy 10mo ago

[flagged]

tony-john12 10mo ago

[dead]

cedws 10mo ago

Remember when they arrested Pavel Durov? I don't buy their official reasoning. Dear European friends, our leaders are tightening the screws. If we don't make our voices heard this is only going to get worse. https://x.com/durov/status/1976420399970701543 https://x.com/durov/status/1976420399970701543

looobay 10mo ago
In the Pavel case, it involved child pornography groups on Telegram and the fact that they ignore a court order. But I agree with you for the authoritarian logics in Europe (even America) with Chat Control and other actions like the French gov. just did....
TiredOfLife 10mo ago
I remember. It helped expose his lies about not traveling to russia and not collaborating with russian security services.
- tagyro 10mo ago
  care to expand/provide some more info?
  - mikeyouse 10mo ago
    Durov had long claimed he was in exile from Russia and couldn’t return and that he was a UAE/French citizen. then records leaked that showed 120 border crossings from 2016-2021 and that he still held a Russian passport. One such border crossing was a flight from St Petersburg on June 18, 2020 which happens to be the same day that Telegram was unblocked in Russia… Lots and lots of smoke.. The Kyiv Independent article is a good summary. https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-examining-telegram-founder-pavel-durovs-alleged-ties-to-the-kremlin/ https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-examining-telegram-found...
    - dijit 10mo ago
      I was hit pretty hard when Russia was trying to block telegram; I don’t buy that it was a coverup. And there is only a single (anonymous) source for that whole article. That said, would be good to rely on no central authority and use Matrix instead; or at least put OTR/Ratchet on top of Telegram with custom clients. TG does not seem hostile to third party clients the same way Whatsapp/Signal are. It would otherwise serve the USA for people to prefer Signal over TG (due to jurisdiction).

anthk 10mo ago

The French goverment will be sued into oblivion for breaking licenses bound to Copyright.

udev4096 10mo ago

[flagged]

Canada 10mo ago

The gloves are really off against the best interests of the public now aren't they?

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
In a sense, trajectory has not really changed, but, admittedly, the pace of change has accellerated tremendously. UK and now France.

anthk 10mo ago

Dear French: criminals would just use fake spam emails or bullshit trolling posts under fake Usenet groups in the clear. No encryption needed, and yet your would earn nothing by backdooring them

moomin 10mo ago

The article is kind of interesting: on the one hand, you’ve got a tool that can be used by ordinary citizens and political dissidents for legitimate reasons. On the other, the French police were mildly inconvenienced during their arrest of a small-time drug dealer. Yes, really, that’s the argument.

p0w3n3d 10mo ago
It's about protecting kids/olds/fighting crime/drug dealer `What would you like me to wrap the global surveillance in?'
- throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
  IYKYK :D https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz2FvX7IEAAZ7F4.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz2FvX7IEAAZ7F4.jpg

maxlin 10mo ago

>narcotrafiquants >police yeah France doing France things. Like back when they forced Windows to store passwords in plaintext, with encryption outlawed. Sigh.

lisbbb 10mo ago

Everything about the exercise of power in the digital world is tilted away from the individual. Windows 11 moved all my files into the cloud without even asking me! I was livid--those are documents that I deliberately DID NOT WANT in the cloud! It's crazy what malice we have to put up with and navigate these days. It just keeps getting worse and more convoluted, too.

Kim_Bruning 10mo ago

Should I worry about E/OS too? (It'd be funny if French software was illegal to use in the EU for GDPR violations. )

johnwayne666 10mo ago

HN title: "France threatens GrapheneOS with arrests / server seizure for refusing backdoors" LQDN: "Dans ces articles, la cheffe de la section cybercriminalité du parquet de Paris – à l'origine de l'arrestation de Pavel Durov – menace également les développeurs·es de GrapheneOs. Interviewée, elle prévient qu'elle ne s'« empêchera pas de poursuivre les éditeurs, si des liens sont découverts avec une organisation criminelle et qu’ils ne coopèrent pas avec la justice »." In the (very short) linked article: No mention of arrest, server seizure or backdoor, and a more nuanced take. Loosely translated summary: Some users have a legitimate need to protect their communications. IF we find links with criminal organizations AND there is no cooperation, then we might take action. They're specifically taking the approach of a case by case hack of single phones which might cost up to a million euros. Is this an issue if there's a warrant? This seems blown out of proportion?

delusional 10mo ago
> This seems blown out of proportion? Par for the course on hacker news.
raverbashing 10mo ago
I agree The thread linked is much more balanced than the title given
miohtama 10mo ago
And how do you hack a single phone without a backdoor in every phone?
- foxyv 10mo ago
  You use the signing keys for GrapheneOS to push an update to a single user.
  - strcat 10mo ago
    That doesn't offer a way to bypass disk encryption for data protected by the per-profile lock method. GrapheneOS cannot bypass the brute force protection implemented by the secure element. Google cannot bypass the brute force protection either because they designed the Titan M2 to require the Owner user successfully unlocks in order to update it. Weaver + insider attack protection for the secure element are among our hardware security requirements (see https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices for a list) which are being implemented by an OEM we're working with to provide a Pixel alternative. Weaver has a table of user authentication tokens mapped to random tokens used as part of the final key derivation. The authentication token is made with a hash of the initial key derived from scrypt, then the final key derivation in TrustZone combines both with hardware-bound key derivation to get the key derivation key. Weaver implements very aggressive time-based throttling. We have the original delays documented at https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption but it ramps up faster now. Aside from that, people can use a strong diceware passphrase on GrapheneOS due to us massively raising the character limit from 16 to 128. This is far more usable on GrapheneOS because people can combine it with fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock instead of fingerprint-only secondary unlock. 5 attempts are allowed for fingerprint unlock and the 2nd factor PIN being entered incorrectly counts towards that so even a random 4 digit one works well. That's convenient to use with the passphrase only having to be entered 48h after the last successful passphrase unlock and after reboot. We also won't do it and cannot be forced to do it under Canadian laws. France's laws are going to be as relevant to us as North Korean laws once we've finished replaced our OVH servers in Beauharnois, Canada with a Canadian provider. France could currently force OVH to mess with our static website or mail server but we haven't done anything illegal so it would be outrageous and a diplomatic incident due to violating Canadian sovereignty during a time period when foreign server hosting companies being subject to foreign law is already in a recent news cycle. We're not waiting around for them to hijack our website though.

elric 10mo ago

Is it a coincidence that this comes out on the same day that the Chat Control proposal got a green light from the EU member states?

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

jmward01 10mo ago

True freedom, of any kind, requires freedom to say things and think things in private. I sometimes think horrible things and even discuss them with my friends. I need that space to work out issues. Without a truly safe space I would eventually go mad as I suspect many people would. The other part of this is that a basic requirement of freedom is trust with accountability. It means we allow things that may be harmful but if things go bad we hold those responsible accountable after the fact. It also means we may not catch all the bad guys and that is OK because the alternative is that everyone turns into a bad guy when we prevent people from doing things in case they will be bad. There is a balance here but the position that a govt will always have access to all private individual (acting in a private capacity) communications is not anywhere near a reasonable balance.

justinzollars 10mo ago

Has anyone noticed the whole of the Western World has gone tyrannical paranoid police state?

einpoklum 10mo ago

As a response to this situation, consider supporting GrapheneOS financially: https://grapheneos.org/donate https://grapheneos.org/donate

greenavocado 10mo ago

Americans do not understand the fact that their own government rates the top four intelligence threats as French, Israeli, Chinese, and Russian.

throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
Where do you get that ‘fact’? Can you elaborate? According to all the Annual Threat Assessment reports from the office of the Director of National Intelligence[1], the top four threats are 1. China 2. Russia 3. Iran 4. North Korea [1]: https://www.intelligence.gov/annual-threat-assessment https://www.intelligence.gov/annual-threat-assessment
- greenavocado 10mo ago
  Of course they would say that
  - throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
    You know, not providing any evidence for your claim (the “fact”) does not prove your point..
BergAndCo 10mo ago
Is the "fact" in the room with you right now?

FilosofumRex 10mo ago

Russia is as European as France and certainly more European than the US or Canada. Most of Europe's problems stem from trying to keep Russia out and Germany down. The latter has worked well because Germany is, to this day, occupied by the US & the UK. But the former has never worked out and is now bankrupting the EU!

papageek 10mo ago

Perfect timing for moving hosting to Wyoming, USA.

andsoitis 10mo ago

” In Canada and the US, refusing to provide a PIN/password is protected as part of the right to avoid incriminating yourself. In France, they've criminalized this part of the right to remain silent.”