Switching to Graphene or not..

Fjjfjf

Hello everyone,

Due to recent developments in the USA, I finally want to make the switch to Graphene, but I'm encountering a few obstacles/uncertainties:

Family iCloud Photos:

The media library contains about 800GB of family photos/videos that should remain accessible to all members with the same convenience.

I want to avoid hosting services myself, primarily because the rest of the family is technically inept and it should work even if I drop dead tomorrow. ente.io is the only thing I've found in this regard.

General Trust:

Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable for me, but I now exclusively use online banking on my smartphone. I consider the probability that Graphene could be compromised by a "bad actor" on the developer side to be quite low, but the question keeps nagging at me:

What if it does happen, and banking apps are compromised, leading to accounts/deposits being emptied?

I could imagine that this could be held against me in court. Along the lines of, "You did not operate the device as intended by the manufacturer with the original system and are therefore to blame." I understand that this can generally be mitigated with Chiptan. However, I am with c24 and want to stay there since the rest of the family uses it too. Shared accounts, etc.

The next question also concerns banking: I have read that there is now a new Google certification that assesses the security of the device, and if app developers use this, the app simply won't run on Graphene anymore. I would be reluctant to change everything and migrate the photos only to find out that my most important app (banking application) won't run in a few months.

How do you generally handle trust in apps? With the big companies, there's a horde of developers, and you can at least assume that everything is fine in terms of security (privacy is another matter).

Thank you for reading and for your responses.

raccoondad

Fjjfjf I could imagine that this could be held against me in court. Along the lines of, "You did not operate the device as intended by the manufacturer with the original system and are therefore to blame."

No, thats not how banks work. If you didn't authorize a transaction you can dispute it, FDIC protects up to $250,000 if I'm not mistaken.

Many bank apps don't work on GOS for this reason, as the bank would be held responsible for the fraud if an unauthorized transaction were to occur.

"and you can at least assume that everything is fine in terms of security"

No, more people does not equal a more secure device. Apple has to prove its security, same with Samsung, which they do at different levels.

As for the production chain attack concern, I feel this would be an issue regardless of device, since anyone with the correct clearance can push an update. Regardless, you would hear about it

groove_untie145

Fjjfjf
Ente photos (Cheaper, better E2EE) is likely your best bet if you want convenience and data security without self-hosting. It's the same as iCloud but open source and better.

Could GrapheneOS be compromised by a rogue developer? It's highly unlikely, development is public and transparent anyone can audit changes. Compare this to proprietary systems where you simply cannot see the code. No system is 100% secure or will ever be. I was an IOS user previously but I would never go back after switching.

Aeon

Fjjfjf

for banking apps you can check https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/

to see if your banks apps are working on GrapheneOS :-)

thmf

Fjjfjf However, I am with c24 and want to stay there since the rest of the family uses it too. Shared accounts, etc.

As a workaround you could use your bank in a web browser. Vanadium is a very good choice, but if you need to use a popular solution just to convince a hypothetical court, you could install Chrome (maybe in a separate or a private space profile) and use it just for the bank.

Fjjfjf The media library contains about 800GB of family photos/videos that should remain accessible to all members with the same convenience.

For photos Ente is a good option and works with same shared family photos simultaneously on Android and iOS. 1000Gb plan costs €10 per month (yearly billing cycle) and can be shared with family members.

angela

There's no indication the GOS developers are motivated by money and would exploit people.

Many of the GOS developers are probably in fact genius level developers who could make extremely good money doing something for a large corporation.

Example: constant updates.

So if the GOS developers were in this for money, there wouldn't be constant updates. Constant updates means more work. Why create more work if you have a secret agenda motivated by money? People who hack for money like hacking but are lazy, that's why they steal. GOS developers create extra work for themselves so people are more secure. It's just not likely.

The constant updates suggest an extreme awareness of security issues to an abnormal degree. If they were pretending to be secure, the updates would be quarterly. Instead it's all the time, each one tested, reviewed, hours and hours of effort, for only some security increase (instead of waiting to do it quarterly).

Hackers could easily fool people by doing what GOS developers are doing but doing quarterly updates instead. Also, GOS is open source which means the code can be read, and many paranoid and/vigilant people with technical expertise use GOS. There wouldn't be a way to easily pull a fast one on the GOS userbase for financial exploitation.

Also, for real hackers, they either go for easy targets (people who have cognitive impairments, gullible people, people with really outdated or bad software) or go for very high value targets. It's just unlikely what a hacker would try to go after. Why break into Fort Knox (Graphene OS) when they are millions of idiots with their doors unlocked and valuables inside (those running Windows 10 with unpatched vulnerabilities)?

It's a good question, but Grapheme OS is designed to protect from the real threats (top tier hacking gangs including Nation State hacking gangs).

The GOS team is somewhat small and very... (don't ban me please) particular? They would never just let some random person do dev work on GOS. It's not like Linux desktop distros where there are so many developers that someone could try to sneak in to do something sneaky, which happened before for desktop Linux.

You could just keep an iOS device and GOS Device if you want to keep iCloud.

Murcielago

The next question also concerns banking: I have read that there is now a new Google certification that assesses the security of the device, and if app developers use this, the app simply won't run on Graphene anymore. I would be reluctant to change everything and migrate the photos only to find out that my most important app (banking application) won't run in a few months.

thmf

As a workaround you could use your bank in a web browser.

Even if this is a good option in principle, it may not work across the board:

In Europe, for example, the "Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2)" obliges banks in the EU to carry out "strong customer authentication" for certain processes (e.g. transactions, login to online banking) (which is a good idea for security reasons).

Even if it could also be secured with other methods (e.g.OTP in an app like Aegis), many banks - at least in my country - seem to do this with PushTAN using their own proprietary app.

Even if there aren't any indications see also, that you can't use C24 bank right now, I can understand the concern that Play Integrity API might become a hurdle for online banking with GrapheneOS im some countries if enforced in the future.

thmf

Murcielago In Europe, for example, the "Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2)" obliges banks in the EU to carry out "strong customer authentication" for certain processes (e.g. transactions, login to online banking) (which is a good idea for security reasons).

Good catch. I wonder what happens if a bank client states they don't use a smartphone (for whatever reason, like constant antenna radiation and such), but instead chooses to use a computer with 2FA via email or any other 2FA means.

Let's leave the fact a lot of banks still use SMS for 2FA for some stupid reason :)

Murcielago

thmf

Let's leave the fact a lot of banks still use SMS for 2FA for some stupid reason :)

Supplementary (in case it wasn't quite clear from my last post): Not only SMS 2FA works on GrapheneOS but also the majority of banking apps (for me personally: all of them. And none of my banks use SMS).

thmf

Murcielago Not only SMS 2FA works on GrapheneOS but also the majority of banking apps

Same for me, GOS is awesome.

Murcielago And none of my banks use SMS

Good to hear we're moving there. Unfortunately, my banks still don't want to do that even as an alternative to SMS 2FA. I guess the data they sell about me is more valuable if attached to a phone number.

schweizer

Fjjfjf What if it does happen, and banking apps are compromised, leading to accounts/deposits being emptied?

It is a good idea to have a cash and food stock at home for such cases. Why would a person capable to hack your banking app only steal your money? It is much more likely they steal the money from all customers. Or they perform attacks that lead to long failure of service such as DoS or ransomware.

It is so easy to steal money with phishing or false CEO orders and love scam. I never read about sophisticated technical attacks on single users in newspapers recently.

raccoondad

schweizer "It is a good idea to have a cash and food stock at home for such cases. "

While this is true, what's even more important is to call your bank.

The entire point of a bank is to protect your money, if they make an unauthorized transaction, they are at fault.

If someone hacked your bank app to make unauthorized transactions, its going to be obvious once you file a dispute.

Obviously, losing your money and having to file a dispute isn't an amazing experience, but it happens, and it can be filed and fought off.

schweizer

raccoondad If someone hacked your bank app to make unauthorized transactions, its going to be obvious once you file a dispute.

Why would it be obvious? It may vary from legislation to legislation but here in Europe if you have been hacked your money is generally gone. Attacks like man-in-the-middle look like you had authorized the transaction from the bank's side.

That is why I use the safest user friendly OS for banking which is GOS in my opinion. It is a bad idea to think you are safer on a windows desktop computer sepecially if you download cracked software.

dhhdjbd

schweizer
Are you sure that you are talking about people who have been hacked, and not just about scams?

All the reports i hear about, where people did not get their money back / or did not get it back easily, are almost always some type of scam and not a hack.
(Mostly phishing)