Original GrapheneOS responses to WIRED fact checker

pizzadequeso

Right under the Wired article's title:

_"There’s a lot of love all over the world for GrapheneOS, the gold standard of mobile _security."__

This is all we need to know. Thanks GOS team!

datsyuk

Micay's name were mentioned about hundred times. It almost felt like those answers were not written by Micay. :D Nevertheless, good response.

DeletedUser787

GrapheneOS handled nearly all of the communications with WIRED over months

Just curious: why did it take so long?

DeletedUser787

GrapheneOS Donaldson began to focus on the idea of changing the nature of CopperheadOS from an open source project to “closed source” software. In his view, this would allow Copperhead to sell licenses to CopperheadOS, since support contracts were not lucrative enough for Donaldson’s liking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification it could have been.

keycap_puller

If Donaldson was a cartoon character
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Heinz_Doofenshmirtz

GrapheneOS

datsyuk The answers above were written by our lawyer, community manager and CFO. Daniel internally provided them with answers to the questions which were used to write the official response. WIRED didn't receive answers directly from Daniel. We put a lot of effort into giving high quality answers and were very disappointed that it was largely not incorporated into the article. Small bits of it were added as side notes in parentheses. We put a lot of work into assembling those answers including paying for our lawyer's time and it makes sense to publish it instead of having it nearly entirely go to waste. Our community also spent a massive amount of time on interviews with WIRED which were nearly entirely discarded. This isn't a unique experience but rather quite representative with our experience with tech publications as a whole.

The article should have been substantially improved based on this instead of having a few little bits and pieces of what we said incorporated in parentheses as side notes. The content itself is fundamentally flawed due to being heavily based on Donaldson's claims and other problematic sources of information. WIRED wanted to make an article about Daniel and we didn't trust them so we didn't enable them to do it. It was definitely the right choice considering how this turned out. They led us to believe they would make an article about GrapheneOS not focused on the history of the project or on Daniel instead, but clearly didn't end up doing that. Nearly all of what we spent time on was omitted from the article with it not covering the GrapheneOS features or most of the other things we talked to them about. Donaldson shouldn't be getting a platform like this. He's not a credible source at all and he very clearly wants to cause harm to Daniel and GrapheneOS. WIRED could have gotten proper sources to explain the history of the project.

They ended up making an article that's largely about the conflict between ourselves and Donaldson which is a sensitive subject and wasn't given the care or research which should have been done at all. They sourced it nearly entirely from him and then barely gave us any input in the final article. Our responses were turned into side notes in an existing article structured around Donaldson's inaccurate history.

areaman

Does anyone have a Wired subscription? I wonder if respectful comments on the article linking to this forum and noting that GrapheneOS strongly disagrees with the content of the article would be helpful.

Nyte

areaman I uploaded an HTML archive on Discord: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1176434676311797760/1496188293468131398/They_Built_a_Legendary_Privacy_Tool._Now_Theyre_Sworn_Enemies___WIRED.mhtml?ex=69e8f96e&is=69e7a7ee&hm=0b498f4ab963434922d0b4cab3e7b32a341da36810843901cebcc75f4bd11d9e

You can download the article yourself by quickly pausing the JavaScript execution quickly using the debugger in the Chromium DevTools, and then just saving the page to a file

TacticalCheddar

Is there any way to see the article without a subscription? I'm not going to make an account just to read one article.

EDIT: someone found a way already.

GrapheneOS They ended up making an article that's largely about the conflict between ourselves and Donaldson which is a sensitive subject and wasn't given the care or research which should have been done at all. They sourced it nearly entirely from him and then barely gave us any input in the final article. Our responses were turned into side notes in an existing article structured around Donaldson's inaccurate history.

Are you guys planning to contact them for a follow-up article?

GrapheneOS

This thread has been posted on Hacker News where many of the usual suspects are attacking GrapheneOS and our team with fabrications. These attacks should be opposed instead of letting a vocal minority dominate the narrative by investing substantial time in lying about GrapheneOS.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47849854

GrapheneOS

DeletedUser787 They did a whole lot of research into GrapheneOS including long interviews with @spring-onion which resulted in nearly no content being included in the article. WIRED's editors wanted the article to be about the history of GrapheneOS and Daniel from the beginning. The article was going to be far different than what was published but was forced into being this way instead to provide what WIRED wanted from it. They had a clear idea of what they wanted to see from the beginning and that's what ended up happening despite all the effort we put into providing them with a far better article. They wanted to resurrect thoroughly debunked claims from James Donaldson to push this narrative and that's what they did. They didn't give us any serious opportunity to respond to it and barely incorporated our responses after it was already written.

GrapheneOS

@DeletedUser787 No, our community should be helping instead of expecting Daniel to defend himself and make himself into even more of a target.

ShoulderSurfin

Linus of Linus Tech Tips did a video on GrapheneOS *including mentioning sping-onion, and it was a huge factor in myself installing GrapheneOS. Combined with knowledge gained from several other YouTube people .. I have not for a single second regretted my choice to install GrapheneOS. I am also Canadian and there is some pride knowing that GrapheneOS and its founder is too. I have seen a lot of BS about GrapheneOS online and I personally ignore it and recommend it to everyone.

spring-onion

DeletedUser787 The schedules of the people involved in the piece didn't align very well, for example when 2025 was coming to an end and the holidays were approaching we agreed to continue next year, except that only happened well into the new year. The actual piece you got to read is also not at all representative of what we covered in our calls. There's essentially no content about GrapheneOS' features or any of the other many topics we went over. We spoke about things like what is it that draws people to use something like GrapheneOS, the philosophical aspect so to speak. Also about whatever interesting events that were taking place at the time. The writer even bought a Pixel to try out GrapheneOS for herself and yet, someone decided her personal experience was not worth sharing... which sums up the trend here in general. I offered a near infinite palette of content to cover and it was all discarded.

Pocketstar

It is quite shocking to hear it went as far as it did!
It must've been and undoubtedly still is an incredible burden for Micay to see the 300K Donaldson ripped off the project and into the hands of someone trying to actively sabotage the project and even try to sell it out to a defense contractor above all things!
I greatly respect Micay's capacity to maintain his composure on this matter as much as he did, and his work on correcting the misinformation that was spread. The way Donaldson tried to undermine the project and risk its developers and users is extremely calculated and foul, and the harm he caused to the team and its contributors is utterly disgusting! It is done in a similar way like the people that are attacking paramedics who are trying to keep victims safe from harm.

I must say that I am extremely grateful that Micay held on to the signing keys and kept the project open source so it did not fall into the hands of those who wanted to abuse the project for their own gain. Without Micay the project would be compromised a long time ago and many people's lives would've been at risk. Dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists, demonstrators and more are using the project for their hard-needed protection.

Furthermore, I do hope they catch the sick people who called the swat, so they r@t in jail for the attempt of murder and using law enforcement as a weapon, I hope Micay has made some appointments with the officers at the police department so it won't happen anymore, I'm sure they can be reasoned with.
I wish the team and its contributors great strenght and fortune in the foreseeable future and I will keep donating once every year, you've earned every penny and more. Thank you for keeping us safe for so long!

Man, at times like these I wish I had the power to chance things for the better, I feel so powerless.

pixel---fold

Shocking that wired would do such a hit piece, but then again not long ago they had an interview with Alex Karp from Palantir and he had almost no pushback.

So I would like to take the opportunity to thank graphene OS team and all those that contribute to it. I switched and donated to the project. Absolutely love the project. Currently posting from my pixel fold.

Thank you!!

DeletedUser822

pixel---fold they're critical of GrapheneOS and fine with palantir? Sounds like a us government propaganda company then. Loving mass surveillance and hating privacy/security is a specific flavor of corrupt.

benzo301

GrapheneOS Nevertheless we all love you GOS team and support you unconditionally!

The press has always been bought out by people with interests against our privacy, the same people who push mass surveillance and modern digital slavery, therefore we should not be disturbed by their defamation attempts as there will always be plenty. No matter which side they say they are on, it's always the same agenda being pushed, shaming every opposition that stands for digital (and general) freedom.

Stay strong!

DeletedUser1041

Daniel did the right thing deleting the keys back then and everything that followed, WIRED wanted a hit piece and clicks from the beginning, it was never about honest reporting. I hope Motorola doesn't try the same nonsense Donaldson did, although I'm sure GrapheneOS wouldn't allow it to even become a thought for them.

GrapheneOS

DeletedUser1041 Motorola is providing devices for us to support and providing us with what we need to support those. It's not an exclusive partnership and it won't be the end of support for Pixels. It's not a similar situation as the exclusive partnership with Copperhead where Copperhead was trusted to host a bunch of infrastructure and handle donations to the project.