Original GrapheneOS responses to WIRED fact checker

not-a-rola

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.

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?

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

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

not-a-rola 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

@not-a-rola 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

not-a-rola 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.

fonixmunkee

Dang, I hate seeing a battle of words clouding an OSS project's credibility like this. I've been a supportive and grateful GOS user for years, and now all the people who have listened to my advice to switch to GOS are asking me where I stand on this news.

And the answer is, "I don't know."

The WIRED article was difficult for me to understand who the players are and what their stance is. Likewise, GOS' official response to the questions is equally confusing. I'm usually able to discern who the "bad person" and "good person" is in situations like this. When stories are written better, they give me some direction on where to start to do my own research and figure out if my assessment is correct or not.

With this WIRED article and GOS' response, I can't tell who is who. So I'm going to have to go purely on instinct here:

I still believe in GOS and its products.
I believe that the contributors to such a great (F?)OSS project should be compensated by the consumers of their labor (ahem, me).
I stopped my monthly GH donations to whomever 'TheStinger' is because I don't know if this is the "bad person" or not in this saga.
I did switch my donation to the PayPal method (as much as that pained me) because the payment email looks like it's for all of the GOS team (foundation?) and not one of the individuals wrapped up in this saga.

I'll be following closely along with this saga, as I'll be using my wallet to cast my vote in this matter. I hope I'm able to better discern who's who and what they're supposedly doing. Until I have better fidelity, I won't let a great (free!) product made possible by the work of many be overshadowed by the alleged actions of one...especially in this terrifying time in history, where the product I choose to support provides a peace of mind I desperately appreciate.

userofgos

fonixmunkee donations to whomever 'TheStinger' is because I don't know if this is the "bad person" or not in this saga.

TheStinger is Daniel Micay's github account, he is the original creator of GrapheneOS and still to this day. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have this incredibly private and secure mobile OS.

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