I need your help to understand something.

Fresh pixel 6a with grapheneos. Disabled Bluetooth, wifi, nfc....only mobile data is active. Vpn with blocked connections enabled. Location service off. After installing briar and creating an account -> settings -> connections -> connection method for Tor Network -> Automatic based on location. The only permission the app has is network. Timezone on the phone differs from actual country.

Now when you go back it shows the country I'm at. And this is with a friend's device in his country exactly the same.

How is this possible?

    This is almost certainly because it is detecting your SIM's country code. All apps can find out the two letter country code of the SIM that you've put in the phone.

    This is known and tracked here:

    https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/502

    To be clear, this is not a bug. It's fully documented and intended. For example, this is how an app like Signal knows your SIM's country when you're registering and changes it to that before you ever type in the number.

      Nuttso Vpn with blocked connections enabled. [...] connection method for Tor Network

      I've read it's better to not use TOR and VPN together. For apps like Briar or Tor browser is it better to switch VPN off ?

        So new fresh install. Everything turned of. No location service. Nothing except wifi. No sim card. VPN is set to block connections. VPN exit is set to USA. The phone is in France. Briar shows it is in France. Wtf. How do they do this?

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          • Post #7

          matchboxbananasynergy So you are saying that even if i am on a VPN, if i install a proprietary app that i want to use by limiting it as much as i can, can still detect from which country is my sim card?

              Nuttso
              Are you sure ? Because you try with "No sim card" also and @mlario said "Only deactivation of sim or removal of sim from the phone" hide country code.

                  Hat you have to use airplane mode. It still can get the network info. Without a sim you can do emergency. Just tested with a fresh phone and airplane. Didn't show the location

                    a year later
                    9 months later

                    If you set the language of the Android device in settings to a different one it will change the country's name in Briar as well, (after logging out/in again) it seems to be based on that, not on any network discovery.

                    5 days later

                    have you asked Briar?