Thoughts on google service notifications tracking?

AliCoil

Saw a user post this

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments-spying-apple-google-users-through-push-notifications-us-senator-2023-12-06/

I've seen numerous people here use services for notifications for proton mail, numerous apps.

Myself included, does no one know about this? Or is graphene some how blocking it?

Apparently they an even see the metadata of notifications and grab some info on messages and emails

de0u

AliCoil Saw a user post this

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments-spying-apple-google-users-through-push-notifications-us-senator-2023-12-06/

That piece is nearly two years old.

AliCoil Does no one know about this?

I believe a lot of people know about it by now.

AliCoil Or is graphene some how blocking it?

If a GrapheneOS device doesn't have Google Play installed, it is very unlikely that FCM push notifications are active, since that would require some app to internally reimplement the protocol. If a user chooses to install Google Play and chooses to install apps that use FCM push notifications, then the notifications sent by the app's servers will be relayed by Google to the app on the device. If the notifications were blocked, then the app would be unaware of status changes on the server, which is the point of the notifications, so there would be no point in GrapheneOS blocking the notifications.

There is no way to wave a magic wand to turn a privacy-invasive app into a privacy-respecting app, so GrapheneOS is not that way. It is important for users to make careful decisions about which apps are installed and which information is shared with which apps.

When this issue was raised roughly two years ago, there was a fair amount of discussion on the forum. Here is one thread containing some comments from the GrapheneOS project account: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/9407-governments-obtaining-push-notification-metadata-from-applegoogle

Byku

AliCoil It seems to depend on how an app implements these notifications. Signal for example uses them without any content only to wake up the Signal app.

DeletedUser495

de0u There is no way to wave a magic wand to turn a privacy-invasive app into a privacy-respecting app, so GrapheneOS is not that way. It is important for users to make careful decisions about which apps are installed and which information is shared with which apps.

This simple true statement should be highlighted and stickied, many people don't realize this thinking just using GrapheneOS will take care of their privacy issues.

AliCoil

de0u For sure, I guess at this point it's about who you care having your data..

Apple or Google, because I'd say majority of people definately need notifications

de0u

AliCoil I guess at this point it's about who you care having your data..

Apple or Google, because I'd say majority of people definately need notifications

I'm not sure, but I think Molly supports UnifiedPush?

If the situation is that people need apps that support only Apple notifications or Google notifications, then maybe they need to lobby the app authors.