This week-end I saw a post on the Matrix channel about a German company named Protelion. She proposes secure communication for governments with mobile phones based on GrapheneOS as stated in this PDF. Note the the solution more global and does not rely only on GrapheneOS security.

Today, the Cyber Security Council Germany excludes Protelion on "allegations of influence of Russian intelligence services" through her relations with the Russian Infotecs company, funded by an ex-KGB employee. The information comes from a German TV show: ZDF Magazin Royale. There is a blog post here and probably more in German but Ich spreche kein Deutsch.

Disclaimer: I do say that GrapheneOS is influenced by any Chinese's spy of the Russian FSB through a secret NSA program ... I have no idea of the relations between Protelion and GrapheneOS, if there are any relations. It is just that I saw 2 news about Protelion and in a short period of time, so I thought it could be of interest to the GrapheneOS community

  • Hulk replied to this.

    oligraph please re-read your post. You might have mistyped a few things

    Interesting. But this kind of thing makes something very clear: just because a company can say "powered by GrapheneOS" doesn't mean that it's safe, private, or secure. A tampered with GrapheneOS isn't GrapheneOS. This is why using the Auditor app on real GOS is a good idea.

    GOS is open source, and it's far better to rip off GOS and use their name to seem credible. Also, having used AOSP, which is not so great from a user experience perspective, GOS is actually pleasant to use. Very smart, FSB agent.

    And it seems like this Protelion thing is mostly focused on their VPN. If I were a government, I'd stay the hell away from this company too.

    Is that a branding/trademark violation for them to claim "powered by GrapheneOS"?

    If they want to be credible, they should work to upstream their enhancements, otherwise it appears to be just a bunch of trickery to promote their own services.