Grapheneos updates

Klingerman01

I was recently reading a story that suggested that disgruntled employees at Google were using the find my device feature to wipe phones of people they didn't like. It got me to thinking how secure is graphene from malicious os updates and remote blocking from the grapheneos team?

de0u

Klingerman01 I was recently reading a story that suggested that disgruntled employees at Google were using the find my device feature to wipe phones of people they didn't like.

Such a thing is theoretically possible, but such employees would risk lawsuits or even criminal charges. So it would be interesting to read the report. Is it possible to cite a source?

locked

With GrapheneOS, You have the option of disabling the updater app from the owner profile. Furthermore, you can disable GrapheneOS default App updates from the app store. Then you can side load ALL updates yourself. Any malicious update, regardless of how it was done would require the GOS signing key, so this scenario you are envisioning is highly unlikely..

GrapheneOS

The update system doesn't support targeting updates to a specific device, especially if people use a VPN. We don't recommend disabling or heavily restricting updates, but they can be disabled or restricted to specific conditions such as while charging.

Klingerman01

de0u This is not the article i was reading but its close. https://www.newsweek.com/google-digital-dystopia-wipe-phone-rebecca-rivers-ice-1473747

wizoatk

Klingerman01

The most relevant quote from the newsweek article is:

FYI: we've done enough fact gathering to determine what happened. [redacted] had previously added her work account and Device Policy to personal device, later removed the work account, but did not remove Device Policy. When Google suspended access, it triggered Device Policy.

The newsweek article references gizmodo as a source.

https://gizmodo.com/did-google-wipe-its-employees-personal-phone-1840005639

de0u

Klingerman01 Thanks for providing the link. That article suggests that it wasn't disgruntled Google employees wiping devices, but Google deliberately wiping one device of a suspended employee.

Klingerman01

de0u yeah I couldnt find the article. so I posted the closest I could find. that's why it wasn't the one I was reading.