On the other hand, there are state actors whom will profile you for using a Pixel phone assuming you're running GrapheneOS, so the promise of privacy seems to be working for a lot of people if it's scaring them that much.

And with your logic, you would also need to say that QubesOS / Whonix / Tails are all Disappear/Honeypot operating systems since he's known to run those as well. It's much more likely that the disappearance is due to the fact that his adversaries are very powerful state actors and it takes just one slip up in your OpSec for them to pwn you.

Is it scaring them or are they acting scared?

Graphene being pwned is not mutually exclusive with authorities targeting individuals for using a phone marketed toward people who don’t want to be pwned

I'm just going by occam's razor. It's good to be skeptical/paranoid and to know your threat model. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a powerful entity out there with a zero day for GrapheneOS / Pixel hardware and used it to target Medhurst. But I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater even if that actually did happen. We're in the middle of the storm with the advent of highly competent AI-assisted cybersecurity atm.

There's nothing public about anything happening with him. There's certainly no basis for claiming it has anything to do with GrapheneOS. The post above is making a completely baseless claim about GrapheneOS based on someone who said they use it and has no involvement in the project. The claim is based on him last posting on X on August 23rd and previously posting about using GrapheneOS. That doesn't indicate he disappeared and certainly doesn't mean it had anything to do with GrapheneOS in any way. He likely just stopped posting on X.

No it didn't. The post wanted to clear up what happened to Medhurst before trusting GrapheneOS.

But you with your misinterpretations and FUD all over this thread made that question moot. No one should trust GraphenOS based on your comments, because they scream incompetence.

It didn't clear anything up, it launched an unsubstantiated theory.

The graphene team is probably used to comments like this. It's a lot easier to give unsubstantiated claims than it is to actual work on a FOSS privacy/security product. You can't please everyone if the expectation is perfection.

Don't mind Mikay and GOS docs saying different things about the actual implementation of the secure wipe. One says the data is wiped, the other that it's just locked, and code agrees with one of them (I checked but don't remember off the top of my head).

The android system uses encryption to encrypt user data. When a factory reset is performed, the secure element, the TEE, as well as the encryption headers are wiped. As destroying one of them prevents deriving the encryption key, and that secure element can reliably zero its slots, the data is effectively rendered wiped as it cannot be read without the encryption key which can no longer be derived.

I get that but you have two sources saying different things which is kinda weird when the point of the OS is extreme security paranoia.

No, it's a completely baseless fabrication. We haven't provided inconsistent information about this. You made up something to attack the project and to personally attack the founder.

Sure Daniel.

The point of GrapheneOS is not based in paranoia, and they have not published any conflicting information on how wiping works.

I won't get too much into the history of the project, but the founder has a history of inventing stalkers and hit squads that are allegedly being sent to their door.

Happens every couple of years, just ask the CEO of CopperheadOS, Louis Rossmann, or the myriad of people from the AOSP development scene.

Those are outrageous fabrications as part of your serial lying and bullying towards the founder of GrapheneOS. He has been repeatedly targeted with swatting attacks aimed at killing him. It's verifiable from Toronto police records available upon request. That's an objective fact and pushing outright fabrications about it gets you nowhere.

Rossmann is a Kiwi Farms user with a career based around serially dishonest rant videos attacking people and companies. He's not a credible source at all. He thoroughly lied about what had happened because he was scared he would be exposed for what he'd done and decided to harm as much as he could. We had no intention of publicly exposing his abuse but he decided to do this anyway. He'd publicly live streamed himself engaging in vile bullying towards our founder who he'd openly helped direct harassment towards with months of public jabs and support for harassment content. His video published later the same day was to make excuses for what he'd done. He lied about no longer using the OS, lied about what had happened and nearly everything else about it.

Good luck with Moto, Daniel. Hope they don't look at you the wrong way, or you'll invent swatters and stalkers again.

You realize you being this persistent with your butthurt comments against GOS makes you look like the one you are trying to accuse Micay from being and only proves Micay right.

You clearly have a personal problem with GOS/Micay, but I dont know what you aim to benefit from your comments here.

I also have a personal problem with GOS people attitude. This is one on many reasons I switched to iPhones despite I never used them before and I was a loyal user of GOS since 2023.

I strongly dislike how they treat alternative opinions and stating uncomfortable truth about the inevitable locking down of Google ecosystem in terms of requiring higher integrity levels for bank/gov apps.

Micay is always right because the only time he admitted being wrong he still lied. He never stepped down, took any breaks or anything like that. He still the lead of GOS, he runs all of their accounts, despite his best efforts the writing style is exactly the same as 8-9 years ago when he got on my radar.

I've thankfully avoided getting myself in the blast radius of his "X sent a swat team to my door" attacks, but I've seen the shit he pulls. This is unhealthy and I hope that the opportunity to work with Moto gets him in the right state of mind to stop this shit.

He stepped down as lead developer. He doesn't run all of the accounts, the accounts are shared accounts. Multiple project members have access to it.

If you had gotten into the history, you would know none of these claims are accurate.

If these claims had validity, the world would have known about it due to media coverage + USMS/HSI making a press release post investigation and arrest. Thus, this is rumor BS to spur up animosity against an open source, privacy/security first, project. My question is; what is your aim with this post?

No, that's completely untrue. We've provided clear, consistent and accurate information about how data is wiped. Factory reset, device admin wipe and duress PIN/password all use the same mechanisms to prevent recovering any data.

Disk encryption headers, hardware keystore keys and secure element data are each securely erased. Each of those mechanisms prevents deriving the key encryption keys which prevents ever recovering the data. Secure element data isn't stored on the SSD and prevents recovering data via an earlier image of the SSD. We implemented doing all 3 of those before reboot to recovery for device admin wipe and we used the same code for duress PIN/password wipe. We filed an Android security bug for device admin wipe and convinced them to add the hardware keystore wipe before reboot to recovery, but we still add the other 2 forms of wiping there ourselves.

Your claim is a completely baseless fabrication and a very poor excuse to start engaging in the usual inaccurate personal attacks towards our founder.

> GrapheneOS provides users with the ability to set a duress PIN/Password that will irreversibly wipe the device (along with any installed eSIMs) once entered anywhere where the device credentials are requested (on the lockscreen, along with any such prompt in the OS).

From your feature overview. Wiping the device means zeroing everything where userdata may exist, not wiping the keystore. I'm sure wiping the keys is technically okay but how many more inconsistencies like that do you have?

That's not an inconsistency but rather the only way to reliably wipe user data. It would be completely broken to attempt wiping data by zeroing the userdata partition. That wouldn't get rid of all the data from the SSD even with secure erase commands for overwriting it.

A modern SSD has both static and dynamic wear leveling. An SSD redirects writes to the free blocks with the least wear and also moves around used blocks to free up the least heavily written parts of the storage. An SSD with a proper whole drive secure erase implements it by securely wiping keys.

I understand all of this. But wiping means what it does, and "removing the keys of an encrypted partition" is not the same. Please be more forthcoming in the documentation.

Sure Daniel

This is just pedantic and dishonest. 'Wiping data' as a concept very much so includes cryptographically scrambling it and losing the key.

No, you are redefining "wipe". A copy of the key could be stored in malicious hardware, ready for the authorities to copy.

The trust you people put in Google and Motorola is surprising.

The linked post is the product announcement for the Motorola Signature 27. It's promoting a smartphone, not GrapheneOS. Our partnership with Motorola Mobility was publicly announced in March 2026 and this is the first device meeting our security requirements and providing official support for it. It shouldn't be a surprise that there's an announcement about the first device with support for it following the announcement of a partnership. There's nothing strange about it.

Richard Medhurst isn't in any way part of the GrapheneOS project and hasn't ever worked with us. GrapheneOS has over 500k users and he's only one person who asked questions about it on Matrix and made several positive posts about it. Claiming GrapheneOS must be a honeypot because a person who said they use it stopped posting on X is utter nonsense. What's strange is a freshly created account making such ridiculous unsubstantiated claims to try to push people away from using or supporting it.

Typical GrapheneOS repsonse. You don't care about your users and resort to "fresh account" bullshit.

It could also be the hardware. Google Pixel has been used before in a sting operation.

Dismissing these concerns when people rely on your product for their safety is just vile.

You started out by claiming a person who said they use it not posting on X for several months somehow indicates it's a honeypot. He wasn't targeted for using GrapheneOS and his legal issues aren't because of it. He asked a question about GrapheneOS on August 31st so he also didn't disappear since August 24 as you claimed.

You're claiming a government sting operation selling phones with a phony privacy OS and messaging service with backdoors somehow reflects negative on our choice of hardware.

Both of these claims are completely unsubstantiated and illogical. It's a clear attempt to create fear and doubt about GrapheneOS. Most threads about GrapheneOS are heavily targeted in this way.

Stop constantly twisting everyone's words. Medhurst has disappeared completely, not just "stopped posting on X".

You are a typical developer with hubris about their own product. I would not trust a "hello world" from you.

Your claim was directly challenged, second green account in a row. Also, make less LLM-like insults, these are against HN rules.

How do you even draw the connection between this person not posting on social media since August 23rd and that somehow being a problem with GrapheneOS? What could that possibly have to do with GrapheneOS>

Pixel 11 was released in August and he asked about it on Matrix on August 31st. Therefore, he didn't disappear after August 23rd. We replied on September 1st and can now see his client sent read receipts afterwards.

Reporter goes missing but uses GrapheneOS which equals honeypot?

That is the biggest conclusion jumping and lack of critical thought I have ever seen/read.

I'm starting to doubt that you're even a real person. This all comes across like an attack on an OS that is already battle tested and has remained steadfast through the years. There's zero evidence to support that are a honey pot. There's commits for the last 12 years, the project is open source it's all auditable, not one single shred of evidence to back up anything you're saying lol

Richard Medhurst has never had any involvement in the GrapheneOS project and we've never worked with him. He's one of over 500k people who uses it. He made positive posts about it on X as many others have done too. There are a bunch of much more prominent people using GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS users are spread around the world and come from across the political spectrum. Many people using it have much different views from Richard Medhurst. He's one guy who uses it and doesn't represent the overall userbase or the project.

Your claim above that he disappeared since August 24th appears to be based on him last posting on X on August 23rd. However, he sent a question about Pixel 11 support for GrapheneOS via his Matrix account on August 31st. We answered on September 1st and received read receipts. We don't follow him on any platform and don't have any regular communication with him so there's nothing unusual about lack of any activity since then. Prior to messages in August, his last Matrix messages were sent in February. There's no basis for claiming GrapheneOS has anything to do with him not posting on X for several months.

This just reads as a smear on GOS. "Something bad happened to a journalist explicitly seeking out hardened privacy software, therefore the software is the problem". There is nothing out of the ordinary about this situation, unless you also read every arrest of a Tor user as evidence that Tor is a honeypot.

You can audit and build it yourself, using local AI if you need that level of privacy. https://github.com/GrapheneOS

If you are not intelligent enough to do that, and have no trusted friends that are then consider a career change, perhaps potato farming?

Which of the 196 repositories should the potato farmer audit? Why should he trust the clanker? How can the potato farmer audit the hardware and its specs?

Source? Seems like bombastic allegations there that would really benefit from evidence.