• General
  • PIXEL 9 Event on 13th August :]

de0u satphone coords can easily be tracked. With precision beyond 4G equiv accuracy levels. Wide open surveillance threat.

GOS would be well advised to take this seriously and employ rigorous counter measures, if it's able.

    GeorgeSoros do you think the satellite hardware could be reliably disabled via the OS like the gps is now in GOS? Or is it more passive?

      GeorgeSoros satphone coords can easily be tracked. With precision beyond 4G equiv accuracy levels.

      Is it possible to present a source supporting this claim?

      In particular, what is true for, say, a dedicated satellite phone such as Iridium may not be true for the current efforts to tweak LTE protocol parameters so that LTE service can be extended to satellite "towers":

      If there is a source indicating that an LEO satellite moving at 17,000 mph can use LTE signals and protocols to track an LTE handset with greater accuracy than an LTE cellular tower, is it possible to share that?

      GeorgeSoros GOS would be well advised to take this seriously and employ rigorous counter measures, if it's able.

      I think the first step in "well advised" might be a detailed claim with a solid source.

        20 days later

        Roger P9's sat connection would need to be disabled by GOS in both passive/otherwise. At least a feature to toggle on/off.

        The fold 2 better be good and available in my country! Grrr

        VAULT increased security features up from P8 would be the only justification to get P9 given its enhanced AI and invasive sat features.

        Will let others share their opinions if P9 improved on P8 baseline sec...

        • de0u replied to this.

          GeorgeSoros increased security features up from P8 would be the only justification to get P9 given its enhanced AI and invasive sat features.

          Please present a source supporting your claim that satellite features would be "invasive", as previously requested (de0u).

            I've seen a leak today with images of the new models, particularly the google pixel 9 pro fold. Curious to see one, a phone and tablet in one device, thats not too bulky or heavy, with GOS installed would be amazing 🙂💥

            de0u You really think Satphones don't passively emit signals?
            Those of us familiar w/ this already know the answer, but I'd like you to respond publicly for audience' sake.

            • de0u replied to this.

              GeorgeSoros You really think Satphones don't passively emit signals?

              All radios emit spurious radiation, including radios that people think of as receivers. For example, the BBC used to drive vans around with detectors for unlicensed television receivers (source).

              Land cellular phones and satellite phones both contain radios; both land cellular and satellite phones inherently emit both intended and spurious radiation; both can be tracked by their intentional and spurious emissions. For example, here is a paper on tracking LTE and 5G phones to help find people after a disaster: "Mobile Phone Passive Positioning through the Detection of Uplink Signals for Search and Rescue".

              If there is evidence that adding one or another form of satellite service to cellular phones makes those phones more trackable in a way that would be more "invasive" than the current trackability of current cellular phones, that would be of interest.

                Can't wait to see the desktop mode improvements.
                A first step towards a GrapheneOS PC 😎

                  Manna assuming gos does enable that 🤷

                    Desktop mode is part of the OS, not part of the device. And the new Android 15 is already available as preview:

                    And it has already been shown that there do not seem to be any significant new changes in regards to desktop mode for Android 15, for example here:

                    Doesn't necessarily have to mean that there won't be any changes for desktop mode in the future, but seems unlikely for the initial Android 15 release at least, considering that it almost reached release candidate status already.

                    de0u more trackable in a way that would be more "invasive" than the current trackability

                    Not only greater location precision but new P9 satphone capab will make you now targetable even in the most remote and rural areas, including open seas, hence vessel trackers employ satph tech.

                    • de0u replied to this.

                      d4er

                      They will : https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1795161400580469158

                      Once the desktop mode and hardware virtualization are more mature, GrapheneOS will be quite usable as a desktop OS using DisplayPort alt mode, USB mouse/keyboard, etc. from a phone/tablet. No reason we couldn't support a laptop if there was one meeting the requirements.

                      But as qp5235 has indicated, it's unlikely that desktop mode will be fully functional for Android 15, at least at the official release. We'll see in few weeks...

                      GeorgeSoros Not only greater location precision but new P9 satphone capab will make you now targetable even in the most remote and rural areas, including open seas, hence vessel trackers employ satph tech.

                      There's a fair amount to unpack.

                      It is absolutely true that a satellite data network can be very useful when a device wishes to voluntarily share its position, as derived by GPS, with remote parties. So a ship at sea may very well use an Inmarsat or Iridium device to voluntarily report its position. Or an Australian rocket might do the same (source). That's not the same thing as the satellites determining the position of the tracked object.

                      Historically, satellites were used to determine the positions of vessels in distress (likewise aircraft), but not with great precision. That approach has been replaced by emergency locator beacons that use GPS to determine location and satellite data networks to relay the GPS-determined position (source).

                      None of the above is directly relevant to current efforts to add satellite service to regular cellular phones. As mentioned earlier (de0u), those efforts center on basically picking up a regular terrestrial LTE base station and putting it in orbit, and then tweaking LTE protocol parameters so that it works. Lofting a terrestrial LTE base station into orbit does not automatically improve its ability to localize handsets beyond the baseline ability of the millions of existing LTE base stations that are already localizing LTE handsets.

                      So:

                      1. Satellites can be used to localize objects, but not all that well compared to using on-device GPS to localize and using a satellite network to voluntarily relay the position determined by the device.
                      2. Adding "satellite" capabilities to regular cellular phones is about extending LTE service to orbital platforms. It is not the same set of capabilities as Iridium or Inmarsat service.

                      If you are in position to cite sources supporting the claim that tweaking LTE protocol parameters to enable communicating with in-orbit LTE base stations would somehow pose a privacy threat, perhaps because an orbiting LTE base station would be better at localizing a handset than all of the existing fixed LTE base stations, sharing that information would be great.

                        de0u If you are in position to cite sources supporting the claim that tweaking LTE protocol parameters to enable communicating with in-orbit LTE base stations would somehow pose a privacy threat,

                        As you know full well (or maybe actually don't) comms tweaking exists, and am not going to get into that here.

                        Glean OSINT.

                        GOS, if serious, at very least must employ toggle option for P9 that works to block passive satph emissions and clandestine connectivity.

                        • de0u replied to this.

                          GeorgeSoros As you know full well (or maybe actually don't) comms tweaking exists, and am not going to get into that here.

                          Light sterile neutrinos exist (or maybe they don't). If light sterile neutrinos do exist, they may or may not pose a privacy threat. Lots of things might or might not pose a privacy threat.

                          GeorgeSoros GOS, if serious, at very least must employ toggle option for P9 that works to block passive satph emissions and clandestine connectivity.

                          That is your opinion, which you have expressed repeatedly, but repeatedly without citing any sources.

                          What if I started asserting, without citing anything, that the under-screen fingerprint sensors in modern Pixel devices allow Google to take secretly take pictures of what's happening near a modern Pixel device, and then started saying that "the GrapheneOS project, if serious, at very least must employ a toggle option to block clandestine fingerprint-sensor photography"? (To be clear, I literally just made that up; I have no reason to believe under-screen fingerprint sensors can take pictures, or that under-screen fingerprint sensors would be better at taking pictures than back-of-phone fingerprint sensors.)

                          The forum moderators have expressed distaste for unfounded allegations.

                          I'd like to start off with a couple of things.

                          First, the discussion about Pixel 9's rumored satellite connectivity is drowning out other discussions in this thread. I'd appreciate that any further discussion on the topic be in its own thread.

                          Second, what I say here is my own take on the subject. GrapheneOS developers or others who make decisions may have a different take, so please don't consider what I post here the project's stance on the matter. I'm not sure if the functionality will even work on AOSP, so we should wait and see what happens after the Pixel 9 is released.


                          Anyway, I'm more inclined to agree that satellite connectivity isn't as big of a privacy threat as it's being made out to be. We already know that carriers have the ability to triangulate a subscriber's position using cell towers. It's not clear how satellites can make their tracking capability more privacy-invasive. In areas with decent coverage, land-based towers can already triangulate the phone's position without satellites. So, for most people who live in or are in areas with coverage, adding satellites to the mix changes nothing.

                          When it comes to a phone connecting to a satellite, I've read the owner will have to hold the phone at a certain angle, maybe even moving around to get a better connection or clear view of the sky. So, clearly satellite connectivity might not be stable or even guaranteed, even when the owner is trying to connect.

                          Arguably, new or more cell towers in a given location would be "worse" (in terms of tracking) than satellites. Considering the fact that a satellite connection wouldn't be stable, I think it's unlikely the newer phones will start attempting to regularly communicate with satellites just because they can, but they definitely already do that with regular land-based towers.

                          When using GPS to get my own location on Earth, my phone has to "connect" to multiple satellites to even get a decent fix on my location. It only makes sense that a phone would have to connect to multiple satellites and/or towers for a carrier to figure out a device's location.

                          Last thought: considering costs, bandwidth, battery expenditure, etc. I don't think it's likely phones will connect to satellites just to spy on people in remote areas. (Is that data even useful or desired?) It's more likely that the user would have to intentionally use an app to use this functionality. I think this feature really is intended for use in emergencies only.

                          Overall, I don't see how this new rumored functionality really changes anything in a way that matters all that much.