There is no such thing like "bad government" and "good government". I mean - it really depends on people's views, therefore we must not blissfully put our data into govt hands because "they will protect us from terrorists and child rapists". What they will do, actually, is that for sure they will abuse innocent citizens at some point of time. They will. Even if they don't, they will. Or maybe they are doing it right now and they need more control to make it easier
marcofloriano · 3h ago
No. When the government fails to delivery what people need (not necessarily wants), you have a bad government. When gangs and bandits (or drugs, or diseases, or whatever) takes on the street, it's not about people's view, it's just bad stuff that the government need to address or there's no point on having a government.
jbstack · 2h ago
Aside from the fact that there's a subjective definition problem here (how do we decide what people "need"?), I think this an unrealistic view. By this definition, every government that has ever existed or ever will exist is a "bad" government because no government can ever tackle every single problem 100% of the time. Many problems are extremely difficult to solve (e.g. global warming), and others simply cannot be solved without creating other problems.
For example, people "need" access to healthcare, but there's essentially an unlimited amount of money you could spend to keep improving healthcare (e.g. opting for increasingly expensive treatments with diminishing returns on health outcomes). The more money you allocate to healthcare, the less you have available to spend on other things that people "need". Sure, you can tax more up to a point, but eventually that tap runs dry and you're forced to reallocate existing resources.
As another example, people "need" criminals to be punished in order to be able to live in a safe a crime-free society. People also "need" to not be put in prison when they are innocent. But you can never be 100% sure that a convicted criminal actually committed the crime. Locking up criminals implies by necessity that you will also lock up some innocent people. No government can solve both of these problems simultaneously which means they are all "bad".
Even the most competent "good" government ultimately has to select among which "bad" things it is going to allow to continue and which it will solve.
npoc · 20m ago
There is no man-made global warming crisis. The earth is in fact one of the coldest periods in history.
What the "man-made global warming crisis" is, is in an example of how a corrupt/captured state will overreach and control the people for its own gain through manipulation. Many governments are captured by the now global financial system that has almost unlimited power due to its money printers. It charges interest on money that it prints out of thin air. By leveraging its existing power to steer the governments to spend money it is able to effectively spend printed money (governemnt loans) on itself and then receive interest on that money as a bonus. A positive feedback loop that ends in global domination by the unelected financial system with the national and international central banks at its heart. Even worse is that it's power obtained essentially through fraud - it's all based on lending out something for interest that isn't theirs. It started with them lending out gold that people had given them to safely look after in their vaults.
n4r9 · 14m ago
Requiring people to watch a 1hr+ video to understand your argument is a big red flag.
danans · 2h ago
> Sure, you can tax more up to a point, but eventually that tap runs dry and you're forced to reallocate existing resources.
Since the 1980s, we have been consistently taxing less. If the tap is dry, it isn't because of over-taxation - it's because there's a reservoir of wealth hoarded by the relatively few.
A even cursory glance at the trajectory of wealth distribution will make that clear.
jbstack · 2h ago
> Since the 1980s, we have been consistently taxing less
Who is "we"? We're talking about governments in general ("good" vs "bad" ones), and I have no idea what jurisdiction you are referring to.
In any case, I didn't say the tap is dry. I said if you keep raising taxes it will eventually run dry. Or to put it another way, taxes are not an unlimited resource that you can keep increasing as much as you'd like. At some point you'll hit a ceiling where raising taxes any further doesn't produce additional tax revenue.
For example, as you raise income tax rates, people have less incentive to advance their careers (e.g. by chasing promotions or improving their skills), and people have more incentive to leave the jurisdiction and go somewhere with lower taxes. Up to a point, the increase in tax rates produces a net extra revenue for the government. Above a certain point, the number of people who stop paying taxes (e.g. by leaving or by working less) outweighs the gains from those who continue to pay. This is why you'll rarely see any government with excessively high top-bracket tax rates (e.g. 60 - 100%), because it results in tax losses.
MrOwen · 20m ago
How are you coming to the conclusion that it will run dry? For example, in the US, arguably the most prosperous period here was in the first half of the 1900s. It is when Roosevelt's New Deal went into place and the US experienced extraordinary growth and prosperity. Do you know what also coincided with this? The marginal income tax rate. From wikipedia:
> For tax years 1944 through 1951, the highest marginal tax rate for individuals was 91%, increasing to 92% for 1952 and 1953, and reverting to 91% 1954 through 1963.
Since that time, the income tax rate has declined, especially for the higher brackets. From my perspective, it kinda just sounds like wealthy people got greedy and they were able to advocate for income tax changes. Back then, they couldn't pull as much funny business as they do today with high compensation modalities ($1 trillion for Musk?) so they opted for marginal tax rate reduction. But there's no evidence from what I can see that the the money was about to "run dry." Quite the opposite it seems. Even in nordic countries, the money is not "running dry". They have great support systems in large part because of the high marginal tax rates.
jonas21 · 1h ago
> Since the 1980s, we have been consistently taxing less.
Assuming "we" means the United States, this isn't really true. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has been remarkably stable, not just since the 1980s, but since the end of World War II [1].
The long-term average since 1945 is 16.85%, the average in the 1970s (i.e. the decade before the 80s) was 16.76%, and the average in the 2020s is 16.96%.
> Since the 1980s, we have been consistently taxing less.
In the US at least, that’s the perception because the tax cuts get a lot more publicity than the increases; everyone know that Reagan passed what was, to that time, the biggest (at least in aggregate nominal terms) tax cut in US history, fewer know that he followed it with the biggest increase.
But what has actually happened is a series of tax burden shifts (often, downward from the wealthiest, though some have been the other way or largely orthogonal to wealth.)
estimator7292 · 57m ago
Everything is bad if we simply redefine "good" to mean "immaculately perfect and infallible in literally all conceivable scenarios"
pona-a · 3h ago
The 50s~70s are idealized by many as an American golden age, despite higher reported crime. Law enforcement back then did not have AI-powered surveillance camera networks, widely deployed IMEI stingrays, private data-brokers, or the ability to remotely activate any phone's microphone with 0-click RCE.
crumpled · 3h ago
What's the 0-click RCE thing?
pona-a · 2h ago
Pegasus [0] and the like — commercial spyware updated with the latest exploit chains, developed in-house or purchased from markets like Zerodium, sold as terrorism-prevention tools to such trustworthy states as Russia, UAE, and Hungary.
A type of exploit (Remote Code Execution) that can be used to secretly infect your device with spyware without requiring any interaction from you (0-click).
__MatrixMan__ · 3h ago
Agreed. There are problems that governments solve and if a government can't solve them it's a bad one.
Maybe consensus shifts (or goes away) about which problems are the domain of government, buy ultimately it's about efficacy against those. The rest is a distraction.
dizhn · 2h ago
"people" being their own citizens. Many governments do not limit their activities to their own people and they have almost opposite rules for their own people vs others. Not that the picture is so clear for their own people either.
Rygian · 3h ago
> therefore we must not blissfully put our data into govt hands
Extending this reasoning, we should not blissfully put our data into anyone's hands.
Government mission at least have a veneer of public servants, as opposed to private hands whose only real motivation is fiduciary obligations towards the shareholders.
Anonyneko · 2h ago
It's an interesting argument in theory, but in practice the government in my country of origin actively searches through people's phones to find evidence of wrongthink (e.g. donations or incriminating social media activity), for which they sentence people to incredibly long prison terms.
That said, no matter how secure GrapheneOS may be, for this particular threat a permanently clean phone is a necessity.
IlikeKitties · 8m ago
If the reaction to "I'm not unlocking my phone" is being beaten and put into a gulag, no technical solution will help.
But countries that have fallen that far off the path are not worth saving anyway.
rangerelf · 1h ago
You're being willfully dense, I do not believe it's up for debate.
Governments that public force to kidnap, torture, murder, "disappear" their own citizens, are bad. Plenty of examples to go around, both historically and currently: China, Russia, México, North Korea, Belarus, the balcans, plenty of African governments, etc.
It shouldn't matter that "34% of my neighbors" want me sent to a concentration camp, personally I wouldn't want to end up there.
The example you're giving, the whole "it really depends on people's views, ..." is a bad government.
And the truth is that it's easy to be a good government: don't be bad.
Edit: fixed a word.
jbstack · 1h ago
Ok, so how do you categorise a country like Norway (typically viewed as a "good" country by most people) which knowingly invests money from its sovereign fund into companies which are linked to the Israeli military which (in many people's view) is currently causing genocide and widespread starvation?
At what point does the "good" cross over into the "bad"? Is it ok that having a highly regarded government comes at the price of dead children? How about the sizeable group of people (e.g. in the US and Israel) who don't believe there is any genocide at all? Doesn't that make the whole thing subjective?
chuckSu · 1h ago
You’ve got quite a list of examples there. In 2025 that list of examples should include the US and Israel
foofoo12 · 46m ago
> it really depends on people's views.
No it does not. It depends on peoples morals.
dragonwriter · 43m ago
> > it really depends on people's views.
> No it does not. It depends on peoples morals.
Morals are a kind of views.
tomtomistaken · 1h ago
Time for a Bitcoin moment, but for governments.
KyleBerezin · 1h ago
Or more likely, regardless of intentions, they will accidentally let it fall into a bad actors hands.
squigz · 3h ago
I think this sort of thinking is symptomatic of something very problematic: that if a government doesn't align with your views, it's a bad one. We've forgotten that, in order for a civilization to survive, with many, many viewpoints, we must compromise sometimes.
mordnis · 2h ago
Maybe we should have no government, because they always have some information on us which can be abused
IlikeKitties · 3h ago
> There is no such thing like "bad government" and "good government".
Of course there is, compare the government of Finland to that of North Korea. Just because there are shades of grey and human institutions are generally susceptible to corruption greed an power politics doesn't mean there aren't governments that are different not only in degree but in kind.
codys · 2h ago
It is strange how folks are refusing to admit they can even _evaluate things_ in a bunch of cases. We're seeing that here, but I've also noticed it in other posts on HN: a disagreement with the position of the article is framed not as a distinct examination which comes to different conclusions, but instead commenters claim the post author was foolish in even attempting to evaluate the thing the post is about.
To some degree it feels like bits and pieces of anti-intellectualism getting into folks brains: rejecting the idea that folks can think about things at all.
azalemeth · 3h ago
I really love Graphene OS but I _wish_ there was a version in which you could get a root shell and extract private data of apps you install when verified as the user. The developers are on record as saying that root blows a hole in their security model (it does!) but if there was _some_ way of doing it safely, so I can modify applications I as the user wish to, it would be my ideal OS. I know I could download and self sign it, but I'd rather not…
djrj477dhsnv · 2h ago
I wish this as well. I make a userdebug build myself to get adb root, which isn't difficult, but would be a lot nicer if it were officially supported.
imiric · 1h ago
That's interesting. Can you share a guide for doing that?
rjdj377dhabsn · 1h ago
You can just follow the official build instructions with a single change: when specifying the build target, change it from -user to -userdebug:
One of the things I like the most about GOS is the web installer, and how easy it is to use. If I need a custom build, to run my own server, and sacrifice performance for it, it doesn't seem worth it. It would also be good to know what a debug build entails, how exactly it is "less secure", and so on. Since this is unlikely to be documented by the GOS team, a 3rd party guide would still be helpful.
subscribed · 2h ago
You can't have a cake and eat it. A root access is a big hole, there's no way mainline will support it.
As for the possible way, you answered yourself already (custom keys and images) :)
imiric · 2h ago
> A root access is a big hole
How so?
On Linux, I can add an account to the sudoers list, and have the flexibility to configure the level of security appropriate for my use case. I have yet to experience any security issues (that I'm aware of). Why isn't this possible on my mobile device as well?
This absolute stance is not right. Security is not binary, but a spectrum. I should be allowed to have full control over my device without this being a security risk.
rfoo · 34m ago
Well, anyone with actual root on a secure (locked, verified boot on) Android phone can hard brick it with a single command. Yes, you can yell at the user telling them it's their fault. Still something you usually do not want to support.
I don't think having authorized temporary root is inherently insecure, but on the other hand making sure it is secure could be a huge time sink.
Now, the original request here, modifying user app (I'd assume it's not system app) data, is reasonable. Designing a properly authenticated way to allow doing so would be an interesting challenge.
fsflover · 13m ago
> Designing a properly authenticated way to allow doing so would be an interesting challenge.
Qubes OS solved this problem. I don't see any flaws in their security model relying on vurtualization.
colordrops · 50m ago
What is the threat model when enabling root on a phone and why can't it be mitigated? Root is enabled on most servers and desktops and we are surviving fine.
Brian_K_White · 27m ago
The way apps behave and the user interface to apps and the way they are used, the level of basic visibility and control that the user has moment to moment, is totally different on a phone than on a pc.
>...because it is doing far more hardening than iOS against these attacks. iPhones also have security element, but the companies developing attacks, had successfully bypassed secure element throttling from Apple for years (and are doing the same with Samsung and Qualcomm
Is it true that Pixels are more hardened against brute forcing the security module and that iphones (and other phones) are easily bypassesed by these hacking tools?
nixgeek · 2h ago
This feels like countering insinuations on the Internet with insinuations on the Internet.
Cellebrite doesn't publicly publish the latest support matrix so we have no real idea what progress if any they've made against recent iPhones and iOS versions, nor any real detail on how something like Lockdown Mode influences outcomes for their software.
Nor does this show anything about Pixel 9 or Pixel 10 and the newest variants of Android OS (which for Pixel 10 makes sense given (2024), but for Pixel 9 does it?).
What we do know as both companies disclose this is that Apple implements particularly with Advanced Data Protection enabled significantly more E2EE than Google, and both companies invest significantly through i.e. Apple's SEAR into the security of their hardware, software and platforms.
That GrapheneOS exists is great but I don't think this post helps much.
jeroenhd · 2h ago
Documents have been leaked at the beginning of this year: https://osservatorionessuno.org/blog/2025/03/a-deep-dive-int... which do include the Pixel 9. They show GrapheneOS being pretty secure in comparison to other vendors at the very least, with GrapheneOS being marked as unsupported if patched beyond 2022. They also show GrapheneOS beating the stock Google firmware.
One reason GrapheneOS fights these threads is by doing what Google doesn't want to do out of user friendliness, like disabling USB in AFU mode. Unlike Google, Samsung, or Apple in non-lockdown mode, GrapheneOS doesn't need to deal with upset users when they need to unlock their phone before hooking it up to their car/display/flash drive/3.5mm jack converter/etc.
GrapheneOS also enables security features when compiling the OS that have a performance impact but mitigate security risks. They end up with a slower phone with less battery life that's protected better against extremely uncommon attack vectors.
We don't know the current state of Celebrite's capabilities, but the fact they struggled for at least three years last time intel leaked out does paint a good picture for GrapheneOS. I'm sure the GRU and NSA have exploits that can hack even GrapheneOS, but at least they're not the type that makes it into commercially available exploit kits as of now.
vqtska · 2h ago
There is someone who leaks Cellebrite's support matrix to GrapheneOS dev's and it confirms that they are still unable to exploit it.
"Their documentation has explicitly listed GrapheneOS for years due to the high demand from their customers for breaking into it. It shows they were last able to exploit a GrapheneOS release with a 2022 or earlier patch level.
We have their June 2025 documentation and could obtain the newer documentation if we ask for it, but we have much bigger priorities than that right now and we would have been contacted by the main person providing it if anything relevant changed."
This kinds of make me want to get a pixel and install GrafeneOS there.
I'll admit that big companies may have some incentive to protect their users' privacy; but they are an easy legal target. If tomorrow the US or EU pass legislation that mandates a backdoor in all mobile devices, the entire world is screwed.
edm0nd · 1h ago
Very affordable to do.
I bought a cheap refurbished Pixel 7 Pro off eBay for $250 and installed GrapheneOS on it. Threw an eSim $20/m plan on it and use it as my phone when I leave the house and go IRL.
If I ever lose it or it gets taken while traveling, who cares, its secure af. I just cancel my eSim and buy another phone to install GrapheneOS on all while my main phone Pixel 10 Pro is still safe and at home.
into_ruin · 1h ago
FWIW, the UK recently cited the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016 in an attempt to force Apple to create a backdoor, but Apple refused
truelson · 1h ago
My last pixel (4a) started falling apart after about a year and a half. Is there an android device that's a bit more hardy? I switched back to apple as I was able to use an SE for YEARS. Would love to try running GrapheneOS, though.
crumpled · 1h ago
My wife uses her Pixel 4a to this day. I moved on from mine after some problems, but a factory wipe of the 4a actually fixed all of the problems with mine too.
And you know what else is cool? If the screen gets cracked or something doesn't work, you can take it to an independent repair shop and they can fix it.
Crontab · 1h ago
I am probably the only one but the geek in me would love to see an article where digital forensics are used against the most common operating systems in their most secure configuration - just to see how they compare with one another.
bflesch · 1h ago
All is well
No comments yet
megaloblasto · 2h ago
I've always found it strange that GrapheneOS only runs on Google hardware. Can anyone explain this choice?
sandreas · 2h ago
AFAIK the Pixel devices are the only ones that reliably allow bootloader unlocking / re-locking, that is required to perform custom os installs.
There are others e.g. Motorola ones or Fairphone, that also allow this but it's a good idea to focus on a specific set of devices keeping maintenance as low as possible and security focus as high as possible.
There are alternatives like /eOS/ or CalyxOS supporting more devices and I experienced exactly this "no longer supported" issue with my Xiaomi A2, which suddenly disappeared from the list of supported devices (see https://calyxos.org/news/2021/03/29/mi-a2-ten-firmware/).
AlgebraFox · 2h ago
They've clearly explained here. I'm not sure how many people would keep asking the same question without even doing a simple web search.
> These devices meet the stringent privacy and security standards and have substantial upstream and downstream hardening specific to the devices
It still seems strange. A big part of GrapheneOS is to provide a safeguard from Googles data hoarding, yet it works primarily on Google phones.
rfoo · 5m ago
> It still seems strange. A big part of GrapheneOS is to provide a safeguard from Googles data hoarding, yet it works primarily on Google phones.
That's the most confusing part. IMO GrapheneOS is not mainly about "provide a safeguard from Googles data hoarding", instead this is more like a side quest.
GrapheneOS is about creating a mobile OS that is more secure against advanced threats [0] than anything else, including stock Pixel OS and iOS.
[0] Currently my rule of thumb is, anyone who can find and write exploits for new memory corruption bugs for the wanted attack surface, or who can buy such capability, qualifies as advanced threat. Hence Cellebrite qualifies as a borderline "advanced threat".
fdsfdsfdsaasd · 2h ago
Yes, a situation that Google is steadily fixing.
warkdarrior · 1h ago
Conspiracy theory time: GrapheneOS is a skunkworks project from Google, to sell more Pixel hardware.
Curious if you've already read the comprehensive FAQ entry and are trying to imply something?
megaloblasto · 2h ago
Kind of. I don't use grapheneOS and I'd like to, but de-googling your phone by buying a Google phone seems a bit sketchy. I don't want to take away from a privacy focused project. I'm super thankful for this option and I can't stand android or iPhone. But in the back of my mind I wonder if I'm being tricked.
SirHumphrey · 1h ago
As for why graphene uses graphene uses pixels - their FAQ does a good job explaining. As for why google keeps the bootloader opened and maintains (until recently) good enough device-tree support- I would guess mostly historical reasons? Before becoming as mainstream as they are now nexus and pixel phones used to be in part android development devices and certain creature comforts stuck. This seems to be souring though, so some of the people there may be in talks with an OEM for a graphene os specific device[1].
As long as the USB port of your phone is used, you can not stop it. This is the backdoor the governments want without having to be tethered. Vote for privacy. Vote against the police state. Vote for freedom.
Libertarian rant aside. Governments fund these kinds of operations in secret so they can "effectively do their jobs". There's a ton of subcontractors working on AWS platforms that do analysis of this UFED "dump". (just a zip file of your phones directories). Emails, Phone logs, Carrier settings, Browser History, Text Messages, Cookies, Apps, App Logs, App Data, if it's on your phone, it's in the zip.
WithinReason · 2h ago
> As long as the USB port of your phone is used, you can not stop it.
According to TFA GrapheneOS can disable the USB port too
reactordev · 2h ago
Which is the only defense when law enforcement takes your phone. GrapheneOS is the only ones that will let you.
mrbluecoat · 3h ago
TL;DR:
> Cellebrite admits they can not hack GrapheneOS if users had installed updates since late 2022.
nithssh · 4h ago
The post had some nice structural discussion about digital forensics
For example, people "need" access to healthcare, but there's essentially an unlimited amount of money you could spend to keep improving healthcare (e.g. opting for increasingly expensive treatments with diminishing returns on health outcomes). The more money you allocate to healthcare, the less you have available to spend on other things that people "need". Sure, you can tax more up to a point, but eventually that tap runs dry and you're forced to reallocate existing resources.
As another example, people "need" criminals to be punished in order to be able to live in a safe a crime-free society. People also "need" to not be put in prison when they are innocent. But you can never be 100% sure that a convicted criminal actually committed the crime. Locking up criminals implies by necessity that you will also lock up some innocent people. No government can solve both of these problems simultaneously which means they are all "bad".
Even the most competent "good" government ultimately has to select among which "bad" things it is going to allow to continue and which it will solve.
Thoroughly explained here: https://youtu.be/KDwCUAueLUU?si=YS2ZbnSZGAjHdjX2
What the "man-made global warming crisis" is, is in an example of how a corrupt/captured state will overreach and control the people for its own gain through manipulation. Many governments are captured by the now global financial system that has almost unlimited power due to its money printers. It charges interest on money that it prints out of thin air. By leveraging its existing power to steer the governments to spend money it is able to effectively spend printed money (governemnt loans) on itself and then receive interest on that money as a bonus. A positive feedback loop that ends in global domination by the unelected financial system with the national and international central banks at its heart. Even worse is that it's power obtained essentially through fraud - it's all based on lending out something for interest that isn't theirs. It started with them lending out gold that people had given them to safely look after in their vaults.
Since the 1980s, we have been consistently taxing less. If the tap is dry, it isn't because of over-taxation - it's because there's a reservoir of wealth hoarded by the relatively few.
A even cursory glance at the trajectory of wealth distribution will make that clear.
Who is "we"? We're talking about governments in general ("good" vs "bad" ones), and I have no idea what jurisdiction you are referring to.
In any case, I didn't say the tap is dry. I said if you keep raising taxes it will eventually run dry. Or to put it another way, taxes are not an unlimited resource that you can keep increasing as much as you'd like. At some point you'll hit a ceiling where raising taxes any further doesn't produce additional tax revenue.
For example, as you raise income tax rates, people have less incentive to advance their careers (e.g. by chasing promotions or improving their skills), and people have more incentive to leave the jurisdiction and go somewhere with lower taxes. Up to a point, the increase in tax rates produces a net extra revenue for the government. Above a certain point, the number of people who stop paying taxes (e.g. by leaving or by working less) outweighs the gains from those who continue to pay. This is why you'll rarely see any government with excessively high top-bracket tax rates (e.g. 60 - 100%), because it results in tax losses.
> For tax years 1944 through 1951, the highest marginal tax rate for individuals was 91%, increasing to 92% for 1952 and 1953, and reverting to 91% 1954 through 1963.
Since that time, the income tax rate has declined, especially for the higher brackets. From my perspective, it kinda just sounds like wealthy people got greedy and they were able to advocate for income tax changes. Back then, they couldn't pull as much funny business as they do today with high compensation modalities ($1 trillion for Musk?) so they opted for marginal tax rate reduction. But there's no evidence from what I can see that the the money was about to "run dry." Quite the opposite it seems. Even in nordic countries, the money is not "running dry". They have great support systems in large part because of the high marginal tax rates.
Assuming "we" means the United States, this isn't really true. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has been remarkably stable, not just since the 1980s, but since the end of World War II [1].
The long-term average since 1945 is 16.85%, the average in the 1970s (i.e. the decade before the 80s) was 16.76%, and the average in the 2020s is 16.96%.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S
In the US at least, that’s the perception because the tax cuts get a lot more publicity than the increases; everyone know that Reagan passed what was, to that time, the biggest (at least in aggregate nominal terms) tax cut in US history, fewer know that he followed it with the biggest increase.
But what has actually happened is a series of tax burden shifts (often, downward from the wealthiest, though some have been the other way or largely orthogonal to wealth.)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
Maybe consensus shifts (or goes away) about which problems are the domain of government, buy ultimately it's about efficacy against those. The rest is a distraction.
Extending this reasoning, we should not blissfully put our data into anyone's hands.
Government mission at least have a veneer of public servants, as opposed to private hands whose only real motivation is fiduciary obligations towards the shareholders.
The latest example: https://en.zona.media/article/2025/08/27/irin
That said, no matter how secure GrapheneOS may be, for this particular threat a permanently clean phone is a necessity.
But countries that have fallen that far off the path are not worth saving anyway.
Governments that public force to kidnap, torture, murder, "disappear" their own citizens, are bad. Plenty of examples to go around, both historically and currently: China, Russia, México, North Korea, Belarus, the balcans, plenty of African governments, etc.
It shouldn't matter that "34% of my neighbors" want me sent to a concentration camp, personally I wouldn't want to end up there.
The example you're giving, the whole "it really depends on people's views, ..." is a bad government.
And the truth is that it's easy to be a good government: don't be bad.
Edit: fixed a word.
At what point does the "good" cross over into the "bad"? Is it ok that having a highly regarded government comes at the price of dead children? How about the sizeable group of people (e.g. in the US and Israel) who don't believe there is any genocide at all? Doesn't that make the whole thing subjective?
No it does not. It depends on peoples morals.
> No it does not. It depends on peoples morals.
Morals are a kind of views.
Of course there is, compare the government of Finland to that of North Korea. Just because there are shades of grey and human institutions are generally susceptible to corruption greed an power politics doesn't mean there aren't governments that are different not only in degree but in kind.
To some degree it feels like bits and pieces of anti-intellectualism getting into folks brains: rejecting the idea that folks can think about things at all.
https://grapheneos.org/build#setting-up-the-os-build-environ...
One of the things I like the most about GOS is the web installer, and how easy it is to use. If I need a custom build, to run my own server, and sacrifice performance for it, it doesn't seem worth it. It would also be good to know what a debug build entails, how exactly it is "less secure", and so on. Since this is unlikely to be documented by the GOS team, a 3rd party guide would still be helpful.
As for the possible way, you answered yourself already (custom keys and images) :)
How so?
On Linux, I can add an account to the sudoers list, and have the flexibility to configure the level of security appropriate for my use case. I have yet to experience any security issues (that I'm aware of). Why isn't this possible on my mobile device as well?
This absolute stance is not right. Security is not binary, but a spectrum. I should be allowed to have full control over my device without this being a security risk.
I don't think having authorized temporary root is inherently insecure, but on the other hand making sure it is secure could be a huge time sink.
Now, the original request here, modifying user app (I'd assume it's not system app) data, is reasonable. Designing a properly authenticated way to allow doing so would be an interesting challenge.
Qubes OS solved this problem. I don't see any flaws in their security model relying on vurtualization.
And it looks like this is the draft, and it was published on the author's blog here: https://telefoncek.si/2024/05/2024-05-30-grapheneos-and-fore...
Is it true that Pixels are more hardened against brute forcing the security module and that iphones (and other phones) are easily bypassesed by these hacking tools?
Cellebrite doesn't publicly publish the latest support matrix so we have no real idea what progress if any they've made against recent iPhones and iOS versions, nor any real detail on how something like Lockdown Mode influences outcomes for their software.
Nor does this show anything about Pixel 9 or Pixel 10 and the newest variants of Android OS (which for Pixel 10 makes sense given (2024), but for Pixel 9 does it?).
What we do know as both companies disclose this is that Apple implements particularly with Advanced Data Protection enabled significantly more E2EE than Google, and both companies invest significantly through i.e. Apple's SEAR into the security of their hardware, software and platforms.
That GrapheneOS exists is great but I don't think this post helps much.
One reason GrapheneOS fights these threads is by doing what Google doesn't want to do out of user friendliness, like disabling USB in AFU mode. Unlike Google, Samsung, or Apple in non-lockdown mode, GrapheneOS doesn't need to deal with upset users when they need to unlock their phone before hooking it up to their car/display/flash drive/3.5mm jack converter/etc.
GrapheneOS also enables security features when compiling the OS that have a performance impact but mitigate security risks. They end up with a slower phone with less battery life that's protected better against extremely uncommon attack vectors.
GrapheneOS explained how these security features would've prevented at least one targeted attack from leading to exploitation: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114081909020398165
We don't know the current state of Celebrite's capabilities, but the fact they struggled for at least three years last time intel leaked out does paint a good picture for GrapheneOS. I'm sure the GRU and NSA have exploits that can hack even GrapheneOS, but at least they're not the type that makes it into commercially available exploit kits as of now.
"Their documentation has explicitly listed GrapheneOS for years due to the high demand from their customers for breaking into it. It shows they were last able to exploit a GrapheneOS release with a 2022 or earlier patch level.
We have their June 2025 documentation and could obtain the newer documentation if we ask for it, but we have much bigger priorities than that right now and we would have been contacted by the main person providing it if anything relevant changed."
https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1965464817914831070
I'll admit that big companies may have some incentive to protect their users' privacy; but they are an easy legal target. If tomorrow the US or EU pass legislation that mandates a backdoor in all mobile devices, the entire world is screwed.
I bought a cheap refurbished Pixel 7 Pro off eBay for $250 and installed GrapheneOS on it. Threw an eSim $20/m plan on it and use it as my phone when I leave the house and go IRL.
If I ever lose it or it gets taken while traveling, who cares, its secure af. I just cancel my eSim and buy another phone to install GrapheneOS on all while my main phone Pixel 10 Pro is still safe and at home.
And you know what else is cool? If the screen gets cracked or something doesn't work, you can take it to an independent repair shop and they can fix it.
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There are others e.g. Motorola ones or Fairphone, that also allow this but it's a good idea to focus on a specific set of devices keeping maintenance as low as possible and security focus as high as possible.
There are alternatives like /eOS/ or CalyxOS supporting more devices and I experienced exactly this "no longer supported" issue with my Xiaomi A2, which suddenly disappeared from the list of supported devices (see https://calyxos.org/news/2021/03/29/mi-a2-ten-firmware/).
https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
> These devices meet the stringent privacy and security standards and have substantial upstream and downstream hardening specific to the devices
It still seems strange. A big part of GrapheneOS is to provide a safeguard from Googles data hoarding, yet it works primarily on Google phones.
That's the most confusing part. IMO GrapheneOS is not mainly about "provide a safeguard from Googles data hoarding", instead this is more like a side quest.
GrapheneOS is about creating a mobile OS that is more secure against advanced threats [0] than anything else, including stock Pixel OS and iOS.
[0] Currently my rule of thumb is, anyone who can find and write exploits for new memory corruption bugs for the wanted attack surface, or who can buy such capability, qualifies as advanced threat. Hence Cellebrite qualifies as a borderline "advanced threat".
[1]: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/23886-partnership-between-g...
Libertarian rant aside. Governments fund these kinds of operations in secret so they can "effectively do their jobs". There's a ton of subcontractors working on AWS platforms that do analysis of this UFED "dump". (just a zip file of your phones directories). Emails, Phone logs, Carrier settings, Browser History, Text Messages, Cookies, Apps, App Logs, App Data, if it's on your phone, it's in the zip.
According to TFA GrapheneOS can disable the USB port too
> Cellebrite admits they can not hack GrapheneOS if users had installed updates since late 2022.