What would you want them to complain about instead? Of course they'll complain about that, just like Googlers will complain about things affecting their stock price, no one is surprised that people care about stuff they're personally involved in, it makes a lot of sense.

Now if these complaints weren't accurate, then I'd walk with you and feel a bit more negative with each piece. But the ones I've looked into, have been spot on, so who cares if it's for their specific niche? I expect them to care about their niche, that's why those people all work together in that organization in the first place.

For example, a user being able to inspect and edit the files written by an app, no matter where or how those files were written, would be an anti-spyware feature: you could better observe the behavior of a closed-source application.

Grapene opposes this feature because the app security model protects the app AGAINST the device user editing or reading protected files.

Graphene's philosophy is enforcing the Android security model. The Android security model gives guarantees to the app developer about how their app can behave, even where the device's owner wishes otherwise. See: Play Integrity.

Also your argument about a user inspecting and editing application files feels like a strawman argument. For example many spyware use malicious links to infect the devices, not malicious apps.

To do that, I wish to store a copy of all the files the app has written to my filesystem, and put that copy outside the app's control. This is explicitly to contain data the app's developer does not WANT me to be able to keep.

A. Is my being unable to do this "more secure"? If so, why is the specific threat I described to my data integrity - an app developer deleting my data - invalid?

B. Does GrapheneOS support this protection, ensuring the device owner is secure against the app developer, or do they instead secure the app developer against the user?

Also you are misrepresenting the threat model. The problem is not an app deleting it's own legitimate data.

P.S. On GrapheneOS you can block apps from getting Internet access to limit their bad ideas.

I want to install an app now, and protect against its developer doing a rugpull on my local files later. I do not want to need to review each new app version in advance as I install it.

This is clearly a legitimate case where what the Android security model says I should be permitted to do makes me less secure against an attack by the app developer.

They are also completely against Play Integrity as implemented on principle.

Let's be real, AOSP doesn't exist any more. Google have closed down nearly everything. All the development happens in private, you've stopped addressing bugs raised by the public, the source of patches are only infrequently released, device trees are gone.

Wouldn't you complain?

To emphasize this point a bit more: only "QPR0" (major release) and QPR3 are released as part of AOSP. QPR1 and QPR3 are not released at all anymore, but contain fixes for vulnerabilities that are not marked high/critical (so don't end up in ASB). It is not clear to me whether OEMs get access to QPR1 and QPR3, but Google are not only witholding features, but also a set of security fixes.

Besides that, they are torpedoing other systems through Play Integrity.

IMO it would be best if AOSP was spun off from Google into its own org that actually cares about developing an open source system for others (both open source systems like GrapheneOS/Lineage and commercial vendors like Samsung) and that would have an attestation system that is open to vendors that have good device security.

Not saying whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but just the nature of reality.

Stock Pixel is an awful experience. So many useless notifications, popups, ads, privacy not by default.

Company: "We care about your privacy" meanwhile 1400 corporations they share data with

GrapheneOS: "There's zero telemetry in GrapheneOS"

The more you read the more you realize they are nearly always correct.

No, users are secondary to the mission. If they happen to overlap, that's a happy coincidence. And caring for a user stops if Daniel has the slightest interpretation of their comments being an attack (i.e. any mild criticism or disagreement about direction)

They care about their mission and Daniel's stance first and foremost

I wouldn't be surprised if this comment is branded an attack

I can't know what the developers of any OS are actually thinking, but based their actions, GrapheneOS does more for their users than any other OS.

Therefore I assume that doing good things for users equals care for users. It's probably stupid to try to guess about care.

Huh? What pixel are you on? You only get notifications from stuff you install after the initial setup is done. And even then you can outright mute applications, completely.

> there's 50 apps you don't need Where are you getting your pixels? Mine came with all the essentials, I don't remember disabling anything in particular. No game demos, no preloaded meta cancer, just the normal google suite.

> The OS feels super bloated compared to GrapheneOS.

When was that ever not the case? When was a stock OS lighter than a custom flavour on any phone? You can't ship Android in the state that custom OS-es do, you won't pass the certification to get Google's goodies like OTA service and preinstalled play store. Don't quite get the Gemini argument either. You're buying a Gemini phone that touts AI everywhere on its promotional page. What do you expect?

Security should be the number one priority, frankly. Graphene has shown that this is possible, and they have tried multiple times to get Google to integrate their work.

Communication is a challenging skill and not all good engineers are good at it. It's stressful to be in a role that demands lots communication if you feel you aren't good at it (I'm not speaking for GOS leaders - I don't know what they think).

Going out on a limb, hoping it helps - the most powerful single solution IME is compassion: Compassion toward yourself and toward others. They are engineers like you, trying to get through a stressful day like you, and they could use some pleasant interaction from someone who understands what it's like. You could use some of that too. Running GOS isn't easy, I'm sure.

What help though? Google has closed off AOSP and only does source code drops twice a year. Google has embargoed security patches for three months and only provides them to OEMs of Google-certified Android phones, not other AOSP-based projects. Google stopped providing git trees of kernel sources and instead requires projects to submit a request for a Google drive link for each kernel version that takes up to weeks to process. Google is shutting out open Android systems through Play Integrity.

Google is not helping anymore, over the last 1-2 years they have tried everything to sabotage AOSP-based projects. The only reason that they are not fully closing AOSP is probably because 1.) they would get in hot water with regulators; and 2.) AOSP will probably get forked.

If everyone in North America and Europe stopped using Graphene, I doubt they would last very long.

High standards are great, but they have to interact with the community and the sanctimony doesn't help.

Hmm... Let's try reframing this: "as much as it seems beloved here, people that install their own operating systems on PCs are the very definition of niche users"

I'm absolutely certain that's how IBM felt before the clones. But the ability to install what they wanted on a defacto standard platform is what launched the computing revolution. I think we'd still be living in a sterile monopolistic environment with $10k compilers otherwise.

Folks installing their own ROMs on phones are only niche because they've been pushed out at every opportunity using locked bootloaders, embedded security processors, factory installed secret keys, etc.

Despite all that, there's still thriving communities developing and using custom ROMs on their phones. That demonstrates more than niche demand.

I mean yeah, 99% of people never installed an OS and never will, what's your point here?

That the 1% who do build visicalc, Linux, the internet, Google, and every application and innovation that happens outside the corporate wall. The entire ecosystem everyone else ends up using.

And that calling that niche is ridiculous, shortsighted, and shooting oneself as a platform owner in the foot.

It is a niche, it always was. There was never a mass community of users, the most installs you used to see on any given AOSP based project is maybe 20-30K for the most popular devices like Redmis, Pocos or Google Nexus phones.

It's still a niche, and things that users do and used to do to their phones are fundamentally incompatible with Android's security model. Root access, magisk, xposed, overall zero or near zero security validation from the security perspective on all ROMs but Graphene (maybe some others, I haven't followed the sphere for a while).

Again, only because the platforms are locked down and there is no single standardized target for universally bootable ROMs in the way a Linux ISO can boot on any PC.

Kinda sounds like you might be younger and didn't live through the 8bit micro -> PC transition. Standardization of the platform led to a cambrian explosion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_the_IBM_PC_on_the...

Couple of things here. Android was never that open to begin with. There were always (and still going) issues with the kernel sources being withheld indefinitely, AOSP side changes are almost never released at all, iirc only Google released anything. Bootloaders were always an issue, not all manufacturers had unlockable (or easily unlockable) bootloaders.

Ironically, Google were always the spearhead of the standartization in the Android world. Project Treble and stuff resulted in the fact that almost any Android device released these days can run a generic Android image, it's not gonna be as functional as the original Android, but it's something.

Yes, I am on the younger side, that's why I know how it was in the Android world. Nobody is interested in reinstalling OS-es on their phones because the amount of effort to create an Android ISO that's as usable as what's preinstalled is truly gigantic. Android flavours are heavily customized for the needs of the OEM, and for the hardware that they're gonna run on.

It's a niche, always was and always will be. A niche powered by a few large players like LOS or GOS, that actually get paid somehow or heavily work for the idea, and an army of teenage unpaid maintainers, who quit the maintainership as soon as they get a properly paying job that takes most of their time (me).

You've restated my thesis.

> Yes, I am on the younger side

I could tell.

Your custom rom experience sits wholly within a larger category of computer systems experience about which I've been speaking.

The sort of fragmentation you describe is a symptom, not a foregone conclusion.

It's easy when it comes preinstalled.

> And it's fundamentally incompatible with the concept of having a truly secure env on your device (same as in the PC space, ironically enough).

Where on earth do you get this misconception? Custom Android != has root. If you don't think Graphene is reasonably secure, explain how?

> By combining GrapheneOS’s pioneering engineering with Motorola’s decades of security expertise, real‑world user insights, and Lenovo’s ThinkShield solutions, the collaboration will advance a new generation of privacy and security technologies. In the coming months, Motorola and the GrapheneOS Foundation will continue to collaborate on joint research, software enhancements, and new security capabilities, with more details and solutions to roll out as the partnership evolves.

https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at...

To be frank, though, I don't see any of this line of reasoning as relevant; it's just appeals to greater authorities on either end. If AOSP is only for manufacturers there's really no reason for it to be open source in the first place. And then folks who care about actually improving security end-to-end outside of whatever's convenient to implement by those beholden to the quarterly profit metrics are up a creek.

Personally, if this whole GrapheneOS/Motorola thing doesn't improve the state of the ecosystem I'm going back to Apple or whatever other manufacturer makes it clear they take security seriously.

My thoughts entirely, I prefer to use CalyxOS, which for some reason in the eyes of GrapheneOS is pure evil.

Don't take it personally. I'm a huge fan of Linux, and GrapheneOS routinely comes here and calls it a huge security liability. And they are right.

Also security and using non-Google OS are not niche usecases. I'm not sure how you are working on Android, the most popular OS while claiming security is a niche usecase. In fact, I have less confidence in security of your work.

They are not neutrally pointing out places where their preferred priorities aren't being met (which would be reasonable), but they are speaking (forgive me the hyperbole) like religious zealots. I don't blame someone who doesn't share their particular viewpoint with being hesitant to work with someone like that.

As a consumer, I don't particularly care. I'm not going to make my decision based on their comms style. But a developer who actually has to work with them? Yeah I could imagine it mattering.

They can be abrasive all they want. People who are wrong still need to sit down and listen instead of spitefully "burning bridges".

And that's assuming they're actually guilty of this "abrasiveness" that people accuse them of. I don't actually think that's true. I think their comments are extremely informative and filled to the brim with valuable technical information. I've spent quite some time reading strcat's comments here and it's actually changed my viewpoints on some security matters. For example, I'm no longer as obsessed with knowing what's inside firmware as I used to be, it's better to minimize and isolate such black boxes so they can do no harm. I started valuing IOMMU support and grouping in PC motherboards.

If there's any "abrasiveness" in their posts, it's probably just an undercurrent of frustration with a world that simply refuses to understand or cooperate. A feeling I can't help but have enormous sympathy for.

While I wish that were how humans work, it definitely is not. You can make the strongest argument ever and still lose if you deliver it in a way that the listener can't process it because you're triggering emotions. The best arguments IME are factual and respectful.

There are consequences to ignoring GrapheneOS developers. Insecure phones can get people killed.

The best arguments are respectful and measured, but few things in this world are ideal. It's in your best interests to tolerate any perceived "abrasiveness". Ignore the the guys who make Cellebrite sweat at your own peril.

Well we know Google isn't enabling MTE, while LLM-enabled exploits are multiplying rapidly. Maybe you need to get back to work?

This is a mischaracterization. The niche isn't Android hobbyists, it's people with what should be a basic expectation for privacy. I wouldn't flash GOS or any other OS if I could safely avoid it.

Too busy crippling sideloading I guess

I truly, sincerely hope that I'm wrong, and that he isn't actually at the helm, because then Motorola are under serious thread of getting an essay saying how they're a terrible company sending assasins to his house, after they disagree on some little thing.