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The problem is that to achieve privacy through security, Graphene has to treat the user as a potentially hostile actor. Therefore, the system needs to protect

The problem is that to achieve privacy through security, Graphene has to treat the user as a potentially hostile actor. Therefore, the system needs to protect itself and other apps from the user. Which is very much contrary to software freedom.

Cider9986 15d ago
> Which is very much contrary to software freedom. Yeah, the goal is privacy although the OS is completely open source. They do improve user experience by allowing disabling emergency alerts, call recording without alerts, no mandatory camera noise in Japan, no extra warning popup from installing APKs from the web (it's the same permission in every app store iirc), increases password length to 128 digits. All the network services are open source afaict while all the other mobile operating systems listed in that android comparison connect to Google's closed source services, netowrk permission, sensors permission, storage scopes, contact scopes. You can still easily install whatever Android app you want on GrapheneOS and you can install dangerous apps like shizuku and apps with way too many permissions. But yeah the goal is privacy so that everyday people can protect themselves as well as journalists can protect themselves. I want journalists to get the best privacy possible without having to know a ton of technical things or making many choices.
Ajedi32 15d ago
Verified boot does indeed make this more complicated, but it's totally possible to build Graphene with your own signing key and get full control over the OS that way (i.e. https://github.com/schnatterer/rooted-graphene https://github.com/schnatterer/rooted-graphene). Looking at their public statements on the matter, it seems like the problem isn't exactly that they treat the user as a potentially hostile actor so much as that they treat the system UI and persistent storage as a potentially hostile actor (though I admit from a practical perspective that's nearly the same thing): https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/is_root_possible_with_grapheneos/ji54e19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/is_root... I wonder how they'd feel about something like protected confirmation to enable sudo: https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/protected-confirmation https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/protected-...
palata 15d ago
> Which is very much contrary to software freedom I believe you misunderstand what "software freedom" means. You can compile and install GrapheneOS yourself, and you can grant yourself admin access. This is software freedom. Software freedom does not mean that you should run everything as an admin, always. And just in case: software freedom does NOT mean that you should remove your firewall and let everybody SSH into your server by having a blank password.
- Ajedi32 15d ago
  You can't grant yourself admin access with the official build. Only the Graphene devs have the ability to push changes to the OS on your phone. Yes you can fork the software and build a version with your own signing key, then wipe your phone and install your custom build and thereby take back control, but then is that really still Graphene? I think it's fair to say that that's at least borderline anti software freedom, even if it's true they have good security reasons for doing things that way.
  - palata 15d ago
    > I think it's fair to say that that's at least borderline anti software freedom Then you don't understand software freedom either. Software freedom doesn't mean AT ALL that random projects on the Internet MUST implement the features YOU want. Never, not at all, it's not borderline, it's not up to debate. Software freedom is about being able to use the software the way you want, as in "you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run them". You can do that with GrapheneOS (well except for the binary blobs situation, but that's not in GrapheneOS' hands at all). Software freedom is NOT about GrapheneOS giving you root access on official builds because you want it. And it's also NOT about GrapheneOS installing Doom on the official builds because I want it.
    - Ajedi32 14d ago
      > Software freedom is about being able to use the software the way you want You can't use the software in the way you want if it uses hardware backed cryptography to block you from doing so. > you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run them This is completely infeasible for 99% of the population. If you technically have a freedom but have no practical way to exercise it, it may as well not exist. You could argue "but someone else could modify it for you, build it, and make an easy way for you to install it", and normally I'd accept that, but given that installing that modified version would require you to completely reset your phone and install the new modified OS from scratch, I think it's debatable at that point whether you'd still be running Graphene, rather than a fork. And if exercising your freedom requires you to stop running Graphene and start running something else, is it really fair to say Graphene itself supports that freedom? Like I said, borderline. If you're still not convinced, consider what would happen if companies started using remote attestation to verify you're running the official GrapheneOS build and block forks...

Cider9986 15d ago

> Which is very much contrary to software freedom. Yeah, the goal is privacy although the OS is completely open source. They do improve user experience by allowing disabling emergency alerts, call recording without alerts, no mandatory camera noise in Japan, no extra warning popup from installing APKs from the web (it's the same permission in every app store iirc), increases password length to 128 digits. All the network services are open source afaict while all the other mobile operating systems listed in that android comparison connect to Google's closed source services, netowrk permission, sensors permission, storage scopes, contact scopes. You can still easily install whatever Android app you want on GrapheneOS and you can install dangerous apps like shizuku and apps with way too many permissions. But yeah the goal is privacy so that everyday people can protect themselves as well as journalists can protect themselves. I want journalists to get the best privacy possible without having to know a ton of technical things or making many choices.

Ajedi32 15d ago

Verified boot does indeed make this more complicated, but it's totally possible to build Graphene with your own signing key and get full control over the OS that way (i.e. https://github.com/schnatterer/rooted-graphene https://github.com/schnatterer/rooted-graphene). Looking at their public statements on the matter, it seems like the problem isn't exactly that they treat the user as a potentially hostile actor so much as that they treat the system UI and persistent storage as a potentially hostile actor (though I admit from a practical perspective that's nearly the same thing): https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/is_root_possible_with_grapheneos/ji54e19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/is_root... I wonder how they'd feel about something like protected confirmation to enable sudo: https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/protected-confirmation https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/protected-...

palata 15d ago

> Which is very much contrary to software freedom I believe you misunderstand what "software freedom" means. You can compile and install GrapheneOS yourself, and you can grant yourself admin access. This is software freedom. Software freedom does not mean that you should run everything as an admin, always. And just in case: software freedom does NOT mean that you should remove your firewall and let everybody SSH into your server by having a blank password.

Ajedi32 15d ago
You can't grant yourself admin access with the official build. Only the Graphene devs have the ability to push changes to the OS on your phone. Yes you can fork the software and build a version with your own signing key, then wipe your phone and install your custom build and thereby take back control, but then is that really still Graphene? I think it's fair to say that that's at least borderline anti software freedom, even if it's true they have good security reasons for doing things that way.
- palata 15d ago
  > I think it's fair to say that that's at least borderline anti software freedom Then you don't understand software freedom either. Software freedom doesn't mean AT ALL that random projects on the Internet MUST implement the features YOU want. Never, not at all, it's not borderline, it's not up to debate. Software freedom is about being able to use the software the way you want, as in "you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run them". You can do that with GrapheneOS (well except for the binary blobs situation, but that's not in GrapheneOS' hands at all). Software freedom is NOT about GrapheneOS giving you root access on official builds because you want it. And it's also NOT about GrapheneOS installing Doom on the official builds because I want it.
  - Ajedi32 14d ago
    > Software freedom is about being able to use the software the way you want You can't use the software in the way you want if it uses hardware backed cryptography to block you from doing so. > you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run them This is completely infeasible for 99% of the population. If you technically have a freedom but have no practical way to exercise it, it may as well not exist. You could argue "but someone else could modify it for you, build it, and make an easy way for you to install it", and normally I'd accept that, but given that installing that modified version would require you to completely reset your phone and install the new modified OS from scratch, I think it's debatable at that point whether you'd still be running Graphene, rather than a fork. And if exercising your freedom requires you to stop running Graphene and start running something else, is it really fair to say Graphene itself supports that freedom? Like I said, borderline. If you're still not convinced, consider what would happen if companies started using remote attestation to verify you're running the official GrapheneOS build and block forks...