Is GrapheneOS a net privacy gain over iOS in my situation?

spiral

User2288
I think everything you wrote is right on the money

Eagle_Owl

Just one addition about iMessage and its „Security”:
Your conversations with others is only save and private, as long no one uses iCloud for backups!
Because Apple adds your private key for iMessage to every iCloud backup!
Remember: Apple has the keys – so it's not really end-to-end-encryption. ;-)

If the authorities ask Apple for the key, they get it and can read everything (!).
From time to time, the transport encryption to iCloud is so lousy that someone with the appropriate knowledge/skills can break the encryption without Apple's key and help themselves.
If a customer then has unencrypted backups in iCloud, everything is completely unprotected.

Note: you have no control over that from your side ...

de0u

Eagle_Owl From time to time, the transport encryption to iCloud is so lousy that someone with the appropriate knowledge/skills can break the encryption without Apple's key and help themselves.

An assertion like this might benefit from a link to an outside source with details.

Eagle_Owl

de0u

Yes, I agree with you!
I should have mentioned the source right away.

Herewith: I like to use this web tool for more or less regular tests.
Since not too long ago, however, things have been looking very good for Apple again.
Let's see how long …
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=icloud.com&s=17.167.144.39

final

User2288 Is iMessages really protecting you that much? Is iMessage not subject to government hand over? (I ask cuz I actually dont know this one.)

"Limited" access to messages. It would honestly depend on your setup and it mainly boils down to the user backing up data on iCloud, primarily their messages. When I use iMessage I do not back up to iCloud.

See the leaked FBI document in this article about data they can access per app: https://www.androidauthority.com/fbi-document-messaging-apps-3069511/

Equal2024

A note about encryption in iCloud—enabling Advanced Data Protection will enable end-to-end encryption for iMessage: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303#notes

7. Messages in iCloud
a. Standard data protection: Messages in iCloud is end-to-end encrypted when iCloud Backup is disabled. When iCloud Backup is enabled, your backup includes a copy of the Messages in iCloud encryption key to help you recover your data. If you turn off iCloud Backup, a new key is generated on your device to protect future Messages in iCloud. This key is end-to-end encrypted between your devices and isnʼt stored by Apple.
b. Advanced Data Protection: Messages in iCloud is always end-to-end encrypted. When iCloud Backup is enabled, everything inside it is end-to-end encrypted, including the Messages in iCloud encryption key.

Here's a breakdown of the type of encryption used in iCloud for every class of data: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303#advanced

Someguyuphere

I've used apple mobile and Mac since iPhone 4, (my Mac has a cd drive in the monitor, just to age it for you)
I've recently moved to android this past 2 months with Graphene on a pixel 6 using the web installer. I'm interested and capable of PC use and basic understanding, but not a techie by any means.
Apart from the recent Aurora store issue, being able to connect the phone to a PC and just use it as such, as mention transparently, is great.
No more itunes, icloud BS.
Like others, getting over a decade of files and pictures out of apples grips has been painfully bananas.

In terms of your messaging, I've just recently through this thread realized Graphene doesn't support MMS? Am I to be corrected on this?
I was wondering why I could not send video getting the "attachment limit reached" message.
Other than that I have found no difference in messaging. Once Graphene was installed and put my Sim card in, me or everyone I contact hasn't had to do anything different to communicate through text.

I did convince my family and a couple of friends to go to signal when I tried a different privacy phone/OS and I couldn't even get consistent texting to work, so now I send any video to my family using signal. Why that works on Graphene, I don't know as I am not techie enough to understand.

The freedom you gain however knowing Apple is not privy to your every location, and probably listening to you and using their Bluetooth mesh network to keep track of everyone around you, is quite liberating.
I brought both phones with me for a while in case I needed access to any work files/contacts I forgot to transfer over, but I'm now apple free.
And it's beautiful.

matchboxbananasynergy

Someguyuphere In terms of your messaging, I've just recently through this thread realized Graphene doesn't support MMS? Am I to be corrected on this?
I was wondering why I could not send video getting the "attachment limit reached" message.

MMS works. If it doesn't work for you, please go through this page:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#carrier-functionality

[deleted]

Someguyuphere
I want to be apple free too, but I do not know how to do it!
I have a life time of photos, like 20k+ in the MacOS photo app (this is the primary issue for not leaving MacOS to be honest)…. And my iPhone, all these WhatsApp groups lol

matchboxbananasynergy

[deleted] Can't you backup your Whatsapp data to Google Drive and transfer it to GrapheneOS? Or is the backup functionality for Whatsapp Android exclusive?

Phead

[deleted]

As far as I know, you can open the MacOS photos library just like any other folder and copy&paste everything to your new machine. Might be wrong or outdated but you could try a Linux live system and give it a try.

[deleted]

matchboxbananasynergy
It’s more about using the app itself. Defeats the purpose of moving to a more private system when your data will still be handled by Facebook

matchboxbananasynergy

[deleted] Disagree.

I think this reply here sums up my thoughts on the matter:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/4926-using-mainstream-apps-on-graphene-still-worth-it-for-privacy/10

tango

[deleted]

As matchboxbanana has hinted at you would be much better off using it on GOS. You can lock it down much better compared to stock and now with the great new addition (contact scopes) its even better as you dont need to share all your contacts for it to function properly. Apart from the who messaged who metadata and phone number they would have very little data compared to stock.

As for your Apple dilemma you could get a Proton account and use Proton drive to store everything. Might be a bit time consuming (like all privacy efforts are) but changing over is simple.

[deleted]

tango

Phead

Copy pasting is not the real problem. The photos app has an export function so it can export to an external drive for example. The thing is that you would loose all album categorization done for years.
Also I do not know of any program that would allow browsing your photos like the photos app in Mac. A simple folder structure can do the job for ad-hoc viewing but doesn’t get close to the same experience. That is, as far as I know.

Panda-na

tango As for your Apple dilemma you could get a Proton account and use Proton drive to store everything. Might be a bit time consuming (like all privacy efforts are) but changing over is simple.

At the moment you can't get more than 500 GB of storage in Proton Drive (as far as I can see), maybe that is not enough for this user. Also, Proton Drive is just a pure storage solution, not a media management software.

I think Piwigo seems very promising, especially if you host it yourself on a TrueNAS system (they have direct support for that) https://piwigo.org/
Then you have a very powerful photo manager. Please note that I have not tried this my self.

Aaron

Depends on what you looking for.
SMS while not encrypted is not directly visible to Big Tech nor Big State. Big State requires a court order to access SMS, Call Logs, Wiretapping, cell network information on your imei, etc. There is no way around this court order level of surveillance, if Big State deems necessary. Of course your Cell provider has all of this data, but they operate fundamentally differently than Big Tech (Goog, AWS, Apple, Meta).
Big Tech platforms (including Apple) sell your information to Big State (US, China/CCP, Walmart, Amazon,...) - literally anyone that will buy it with the caveat that it's "anonymized". Do note that Big State (city, county, state, federal) IS purchasing Big Tech platform information on us. Are they tracking you specifically? No but they can mine the data now or sometime in the far distant future if they so choose, all WITHOUT a court order since you Opted-In. This data can then be statistically narrowed down to "un-anonymize" you specifically. How many people live in your neighborhood, sleep at your address, travel consistently with your wife's phone, visit your parents neighborhood, .AND. spend working hours at your workplace?

With GrapheneOS and unconnected FOSS apps, the Big Tech platforms never have your data to begin with.

EvilMole

Aaron Just a word of caution on this: I don't know which country the OP is in, but it's not true that every jurisdiction requires a court order to access much of that information, particularly metadata rather than the content of SMS's. Until the Supreme Court ruling in Carpenter vs US in 2018, law enforcement could -- and did -- access that data without a court order. As another example, in Ireland there was a law in 2011 which gave police access to any phone metadata without a warrant, something which was only ruled illegal last year. So do be careful saying the state requires court orders, because even in democratic countries that's not always true!

EvilMole

Renewably3997 It depends ultimately on what your biggest priorities are in terms of privacy and security.

If you move to Graphene and can't persuade people to use something that's E2E encrypted then your messaging is going to be less secure, because it will default to SMS. There's not much you can do about that. iMessage is E2E encrypted, and, if you enable Advanced Data Protection in iCloud, the backups are also encrypted. If message security is the most important thing to you, and you can't get people to move to Signal, you will be better off staying on iOS.

HOWEVER... if you are more concerned with device security and privacy than just messaging, Graphene is a better option. To caveat this, Apple has done a lot of good work in this area. iOS is generally more secure than stock Android, and, thanks to features like App Tracking Transparency, more private - except, of course, to Apple itself. But Graphene is, in my opinion, more secure and more focused on privacy.

Aaron

EvilMole THANK YOU for the clarification.

Resurr

Renewably3997 The only proprietary services that I’m currently reliant on are Apple Maps and iMessage. I’m aware of the map options on GrapheneOS and that isn’t a concern to me.

Magic earth is excellent, it is better and better at every new update. Offline maps, traffic informations.. Etc

Phead

[deleted]

I see. You're probably right, the categories would be lost. Another reason why it might come in handy to avoid this type of software in the first place, I guess. Not helpful, though. You could choose the lengthy path to enlightenment and export each and every folder/category/you-have-it separately. And learn to avoid proprietary software in the future when they give you no way to choose a different software to work with your data.

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