The drama and accusations the GrapheneOS developers are spewing and engaging in are giving me a bad taste in the mouth and make me doubt the OS’s reliability am I the only one?

  •  N.E.P.T.R   ( @Neptr@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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    1 month ago

    While I do find GOS drama a bit annoying, they aren’t wrong about the lacking security of many AOSP forks. iode and /e/OS have a history late patches for security vulnerabilities in both the OS (https://web.archive.org/web/20241231003546/https://divestos.org/pages/patch_history) and for the forked apps they bundle with it. Each Android monthly and Chromium patches usually contains dozens High Risk CVEs, so taking a month or 2 is unacceptable. Neither are good for privacy or security.

    See a comparison between some Android ROMs here, especially noting the update speed section: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

    •  jherazob   ( @jherazob@beehaw.org ) 
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      1 month ago

      Basically this. The project head might be a bit too paranoid, bellicose and problematic, but at this time a phone with GrapheneOS seems to be by far the safest way to have a smartphone, and the project head’s personality might be a part on this as their stated objective is to be able to resist state-level actors, you likely need someone who’s more than a bit “out there” to have the right mind for this

  •  majster   ( @majster@lemmy.zip ) 
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    1 month ago

    Its nutjobs like them that are pushing progress further. State security apparatus doesn’t want to work by law. That can be observed worldwide.

    French went after Telegram even though it doesn’t market itself primarily for security. It was just that some public channels went against their strategic objectives and they felt the need to bruteforce their way.

    So GrapheneOS is very right to be nervous and pack their bags before they come knocking at the door.

    • Exactly. The lead dev can come across as frustrated or confrontational on his social media posts but really the amount of noobs criticising Graphene for nonsense reasons or repeatedly bringing up other ‘secure’ OSes to him that he’s already thoroughly debunked again and again like e/OS would drive me insane

  •  sheinar   ( @sheinar@feddit.uk ) 
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    1 month ago

    I’ve accepted for a while that the lead developer is extremely paranoid and could probably genuinely do with healthcare intervention. Like in much open source development I think it isn’t helped by overwork and burnout, so I hope that at some point Graphene gets a better governance structure which spreads responsibility and which hopefully will limit the incessant drama that only harms the project. I don’t see him being willing to give up his grip, but I can always hope.

    I’ll continue to use Graphene unless things go entirely off the rails though, as it is a great OS and I don’t really think there are many great alternatives.

    • All secured OSes and messaging systems are threatened by European governments / EU institutions at the moment, and the French government has been doing so for a few years.

      This is not a grapheneOS only issue and it is not new.

  •  l3db3tt3r   ( @l3db3tt3r@piefed.social ) 
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    1 month ago

    Who benefits?

    Who benefits from sowing a narrative around “drama”, “accusation”, and/or “paranoia”. Seriously.

    I think given the following circumspect; GrapheneOS’s reaction, to move project pieces out of potential hostile environments/jurisdiction, is perfectly reasonable.

    1. France’s Support for EU “Chat Control”, scanning proposals. France has been one of the governments most supportive of EU‑level proposals that would require scanning of communications and devices for illegal content.

    2. The general French framing and approach to cybercrime. As in other EU countries, French authorities are pushing for: Expanded powers to compel cooperation from service providers, and developers. Strong rhetoric against tools that are seen as systematically obstructing investigations.

    •  exu   ( @exu@feditown.com ) 
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      1 month ago

      The main GrapheneOS dev creates beef with a bunch of other projects. It’s not some shadowy organisation, it’s him having stupid takes in GitHub issues and spreading false claims about other projects.

  •  CoyoteFacts   ( @CoyoteFacts@piefed.ca ) 
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    1 month ago

    It mainly makes me pine for linux phones. I think Graphene is the best we have at the moment in the mobile space, but that’s far more of a testament to our lack of options than how valuable Graphene is. I have no doubts that we’ll eventually kick Graphene to the curb when it stops being useful, so I’m not overly concerned with its future. Worst-case, I think many of us would be just fine on any other AOSP rom for a few extra years until linux phones can come save us all.

  •  erebion   ( @erebion@news.erebion.eu ) 
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    1 month ago

    I also feel concerned about GrapheneOS. Here’s why.

    I got banned from the GrapheneOS Matrix chat simply for asking a question, it was worded similar to this:

    “Hey there! GrapheneOS is cool. I noticed CalyxOS added support for eSIM, are you planning to add that as well?”

    The post got deleted, I thought I had not sent it and posted it again. It was deleted again. I asked something along the lines of “Wait, where has my question regading eSIM support and doing the same as CalyxOS gone? Seems to have disappeared, lol”.

    THAT was also deleted.

    Then I posted something along the lines of “Huh, my questions seem to be disappearing”.

    That was NOT deleted.

    Then I asked something like “Anyway, are there plans to add eSIM support just like CalyxOS? :)”.

    That was ALSO deleted.

    I got a private message from a mod saying I was banned.

    That was alle the interaction I ever had with the GrapheneOS project. I might have started contributing, but I could not even ask a simple question. It seems that they don’t like it if you mention any other custom ROM, I guess.

    (This has been a while ago, so I don’t remember my precise wording)