is grapheneOS 'worth it'?
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Eirikr70 It's clear to the French police. 100% trust me too.
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Eirikr70 The guys for merhad fired only one round while they were taking a deluge, the Bataclan only 11 rounds fired despite the deluge too ... At least we're sure never to have a swating problem in our country.
Eirikr70 I see your points, its more legal than technical. But imo it seems that the west as a whole is having an issue with police distrust so it would be fair to be a little skeptical for any police force right now.
OK, I am kinda convinced it seems pretty cool. Some say that phones are just a tracking device by default and just to understand- is this due to the whole IMEI/IMSI thing with phones? If so, is there any way to mitigate this bc some replies here claim it is possible. This is the only thing really holding me back at the moment
Cellular/sim tracking is the one thing I can’t get over. That part seems to make the phone a constant location surveillance device
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applesbana If you're that up in arms about it, then don't use a smartphone.
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Every little bit helps, as they say. The opposite of striving for more "agency" in the realm of smartphones is walking into your local telco branch and walking out of there with whatever numeric Redmi series phone they had on sale that week. If running GrapheneOS requires substantial compromises (need Google Pay or Android Auto) or mental energy on your part (how do I sync X with Y), you might be better off going with stock Pixel or an iOS device as they're good enough. It's worth it for me, YMMV.
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It is worth it, it's the best that you can use, nothing even comes close. If something really important doesn't work for you, then just use stock OS on a Pixel.
The best advice that I can give you is to not go into a next level of copium and get an iPhone for privacy. Just use Pixel devices.
throwingAway France very recently announced some kind of legal framework to permit accessing a phone's cam and mic and geolocation by force and I am not optimistic that any mobile solution will stop something like this, regardless of OS- some tracking is just too powerful.
France government doesn't have the power to force their way through the phone's security. Anything implemented through LEGISLATION will thus require the phone vendor to implement controls to be made available to the French government, or to stop selling their phones in France. What this means is that FUTURE phones sold, and possibly future system updates, will enable this functionality, and this functionality will NOT be implemented in GrapheneOS, therefore GrapheneOS will protect you from this.
can the cellular tracking be stopped by just not connecting to the mobile network e.g. not using a sim and/or having airplane mode on?
throwingAway You need to turn on airplane mode to stop that.
I believe so. Unfortunately that takes away some of the benefits of a cell phone. When I’m around Wi-Fi (home/office) I generally use a laptop vs a phone.
I read a good post on this forum yesterday.
To avoid getting IMEI-tracked use this:
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-e750/
And when changing SIM make sure to first use this:
https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle
Seems like a solid solution to not get an IMEI connected to you.
Of course, this is to be used with burner SIM-cards.
csis01 I think just the opposite : France does not have the power to force vendors to leave backdoors, so they will use 0 day weaknesses implemented by spywares. GrapheneOS might protect from those ... or not. Anyway, I'm not concerned about that rule since it applies to people charged for more than 5 years. I might think about it if I were a whistleblower on a sensitive domain (or if I were involved in organised crime).