• Development

  • Using GrapheneOS as a base for a consumer product

Foggy Thanks for the the reply. We are not builing the phone itself. We are going to use new (if we can get them) or refurbished Pixel phones (or possibly another existing low cost phone supported by GrapheneOS)

    N1b Yes. That is basically what we are doing. The problem is how we can handle upstream updates and security patches/fixes, etc

      de0u

      Thank you for your comments.

      de0u Building one's own "dedicated hardware encryption chip" is a mixture of prohibitively expensive and unwise. I believe that using somebody else's, at present, means getting one less good than Google's or Apple's.

      Yes. We have realized that this is not feasable and we will go with the phones (probably a Pixels) built in encryption utilizing a combination of hardware and software-based encryption mechanisms to secure data on the device and make use of the device's main processor (CPU) to handle encryption and decryption operations (the way the phone handles this by default )

      de0u What does "anonymous SIM card" mean? Can you provide an example?

      Absolutely. The phones is shipped with an anonymous sim card that is not registered to any person or company. It can still be used like a regular prepaid sim card but no name is connected to the sim card.

      de0u Physics doesn't work that way. Any time a phone transmits, every tower that can hear it can estimate distance (and angle) if it chooses. Combining more such estimates improves the position estimate, in a way which is not controlled by the mobile device. Cellular networks are fundamentally tracking networks. Device firmware tweaks at the margins don't change the fundamental nature of cellular networks.

      Yes, you are probably right. If there is any other way to make "triangulation" estimating a location of a phone more difficult please share what you know about it.

      • de0u replied to this.

                [deleted]

                [deleted] Wouldn't that make your device pretty useless? Even enterprises at least let their employees download third-party apps

                No, on the contrary this is an extremely important security feature for us. Allowing installation of third part pass open upp multiple attack vectors and is a huge security issue.

                Our users are extremely sensitive to anonymity and privacy (think journalists under repressive governments).

                      [deleted] Native code debugging - Many banking apps enforce weak checks and use some random runtime self-protection solutions, so you'll need to let users enable this.

                      Since we are not allowing users to install any other apps this should not be an issue right?

                      [deleted] Also note that many banking apps enforce Play Integrity API's MEETS_DEVICE_INTEGRITY, which is more of a integrity/compatibility check rather than security check, So users using your device may not be able to use their banking apps; You would have to convince the Bank(s) to support your device.

                      See above answer. No other apps then the security hardened version of signal is installed and no other apps can be installed by the user.

                      Think of the product as strictly a secure communication device where users can send messages (and use voice in a future update).

                      Everything not required for this should be disabled by default and hidden/removed from the OS (depending on what is most manageable when keeping up with the upstream branch).

                      Any ideas, comment och other thoughts are much appreciated.

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                            • Post #15

                            pixpot how many of such devices are you aiming to redistribute roughly? Straight question. Straight answer.

                                de0u What does "anonymous SIM card" mean? Can you provide an example?

                                pixpot Absolutely. The phones is shipped with an anonymous sim card that is not registered to any person or company. It can still be used like a regular prepaid sim card but no name is connected to the sim card.

                                I am skeptical that it is possible to have SIM cards that will be recognized by cellular carriers without being registered to "any person or company". If that is possible, can you provide an example of some company or organization that is offering those today?

                                    pixpot If there is any other way to make "triangulation" estimating a location of a phone more difficult please share what you know about it.

                                    I'm afraid that what you (and many others) want is in opposition to not only physics but also economics.

                                    Wireless data sure is convenient! But in the universe we inhabit, radio has certain inconvenient properties. High-frequency RF is great for carrying lots of bits per second, but it's shorter-range and more easily locateable. Lower-frequency RF is harder to pinpoint but can't carry lots of data.

                                    People could spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build high-speed wireless networks with pretty good anonymity, but those networks would be immediately and continuously abused by griefers, so it's not likely that people will spend money that way.

                                    If your business model is "pay us extra for a seriously locked-down phone", that could be implemented, though it's not immediately obvious who would want one. But if your business model is "pay us extra for a phone that enables you to use a cellular tracking network except without tracking", I agree that sounds cool but suspect it isn't going to happen any time soon. Maybe eventually somebody will invent quantum entanglement communication devices, and cellular microwave networks will fall into disuse, but I'm not holding my breath.

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                                      • Post #20

                                      All I can tell you is, I am one of those privileged to use Graphene OS (while stock lasts). I would not change it for the world, even though AOSP keyboard gives me grief and that is a fact.

                                        [deleted] We are starting with a prototype of course. But then we have pre orders for 200 units.

                                        After that we will see

                                          Skyway

                                          Skyway Reminds me of the anom phone .

                                          Aha. No way. We are a small team not using any state of the art tech. Our business model is to build an affordable phone using open source code and make it as secure as possible.

                                                Blastoidea You presently have users?
                                                I may be confused.

                                                No, we are still in the prototyping faze but we have a pre order for 200 phones.

                                                  de0u I am skeptical that it is possible to have SIM cards that will be recognized by cellular carriers without being registered to "any person or company". If that is possible, can you provide an example of some company or organization that is offering those today?

                                                  It's absolutely possible. Despite the lack of direct identification, mobile network operators still allow anonymous prepaid SIM cards to access the internet and communicate over cellular networks. The network identifies the SIM card based on its unique International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) and the authentication keys stored on the SIM card. The IMSI is not directly tied to the user's identity during the purchase process, making it more challenging to trace back to an individual.

                                                  We have a source (it's not hard to find) on how to get these sim cards. I will not post the source on this public forum.

                                                  • de0u replied to this.

                                                      Blastoidea Are you in a position to define “affordable” at this time

                                                      Yes, I can try. But it depends on a couple of things.

                                                      • The phone we choose (Pixel 4 costs about 200 USD)

                                                      • The amount of time required to prepare each phone

                                                      Out target price is around 500-600 USD

                                                          [deleted] I understand that you don't want to change the OS. We, however, are trying to use it as a part of a product that we are bringing to market and that requires som changes.

                                                            Thanks for all the replies. Eve though I tried in my original post to define what we are doing I'll do a summarize pit project and business model here:

                                                            We are building a phone that needs to be as secure, anonymous and privacy oriented as possible using small means and a limited budget. We aim to make everything as cheap and easy for the end user as possible.

                                                            • The phone will be using a custom security hardened version of an OS (hopefully GrapheneOS)

                                                            • The stripped down OS will include only one app, a custom version of Signal and will be using the official Signal infrastructure.

                                                            Once we have a working prototype we will buy cheap phones in bulk and flash them with our custom build and then sell them to consumers anonymously.

                                                            I came here to see if I could find some advice on if using GrapheneOS was a good fit for our product and in my OP I asked som more technical questions that I hoped to bet some answers to.

                                                            Im also happy to answer any question you might have (or even to collaborate). We do have funding and a business plan in place.