Understanding Wireless Emergency Alerts app

Ollie

I'm a several month user of GOS and love it. Best mobile OS going and I appreciate all the dedicated work the developers and other team members do for the rest of us.

I have made a post with similar content but I believe this is a better subject description. Maybe a moderator can delete the other one.

Here is my problem: I recently (at least a week now) made a 911 call to report a dead animal in the road and my phone has not been the same since. At first there was a notification regarding Wireless Emergency Alerts saying something about emergency service providers. I did not take a screen shot at that time and do not have notification history enabled. I looked around on the internet and found some info regarding 911 call centers and mobile devices and why they would want to make your location and callback line open for emergency response purposes. I tried to disable various WEA settings in Settings>Safety & emergency but could not make any changes. What I had read said either 2 hours or 48 hours is what Google phones keep WEA settings locked for. NP, I'll just wait a couple of days and turn all that crap off I told myself. But I still wondered just how that could happen on my GOS device. In between that time and now I downloaded Tor and Mullvad browsers and had an SMS conversation with my daughter about throwing off SE algorithms by alternating subject matter, and I did use some of these words, "search for plutonium then baby diapers, Chinese activists then puppies, Semtex then corn dogs, WikiLeaks then French fries." Now mind you, I may be curious about some of those things but I am in no way a bad actor. I'd publish my real name if anyone disputes that. I was only making a point to my daughter about how to confuse SE algorithms. And I only mention it because it may in some way be related to the next part of my WEA woes.

Being wary of how my phone had the ability to block me from turning anything off that I couldn't change on my own I kept digging around. I had noticed some slight performance slowdowns and that's never a good sign. Then I found another instance of WEA in Settings>Apps>See all apps>Wireless emergency Alerts. In that app when I go to Permissions and click the 3 dots to select All Permissions is where it gets ugly. The app has No Permissions Denied, runs at startup after boot, can disable screenlock and any other passwords, can read all SMS messages etc. I have screenshots of all this and pictures with a camera of those screenshots. I don't know how to copy and paste them into a window here on the forum. Please, someone help me with this. This App with these settings should not be there, correct? Did I garner the attention of some 3 letter agency by keywords and/or behavior (using GOS, Tor & Mullvad...)? Can they exploit GOS that easily? Iff so, is this all a waste of time? I have no idea how to proceed.

cyberparty

Ollie The "disable your screen lock" permission is required for displaying the alert notification on your screen while the device is locked, similar to how receiving a phone call disables the keylock on receiving a call and re-enables it again when the call is finished.
It runs at startup because if it doesn't, the device won't receive or display emergency alerts automatically without user intervention.

This is just how the app works. Are you in the US? About a week ago, the US did an Emergency Alert test. Would the notification you received be related to that?

deegz

I'd be more cautious with your title there, it is alarmist, and unwarranted.

As for your actual issue, the first step would be to look at what stock Android does in regards to WEA. It is useful to read some background on what it is, why it is there, how it is legislated and how it is implemented in AOSP. From there you can see if bug or feature. I'm sure others may have more useful info to add to this.

The correct approach to any issue, is to describe what happened, in technical language, without any assumptions, paranaoia, emotions or speculation. Provide facts, and try to research on own and try to understand the issue firsthand.

Finally, unless you are actually a legitimate person of interest, the three letter agencies have no interest in you, and don't just go back-dooring peoples phones because they typed a few words!

Ollie

Thank you and I apologize if I have taken the wrong approach to this issue but it certainly alarmed me that any app can bypass my screenlock and any other passwords security for any reason. If my title was too alarmist I apologize for that too. Please, any moderator change it if it is wrong. I'm new here and I need all the help I can get. I will follow this post but do more research and only respond to questions until then. I am an honest law abiding citizen that is only looking for privacy and security. Thanks for any and all help you more experienced and knowledgeable men and women can give me.

matchboxbananasynergy

To further elaborate and expand on what @cyberparty is explaining above, the app you're seeing is completely normal and part of AOSP. The permissions it has are completely normal as well.

No, your phone is not "compromised" or "backdoored". This app handles emergency alerts (think natural disaster alerts, AMBER alerts and other alerts.)

As part of doing that (it flashes a screen on your phone whether it's locked or unlocked, and depending on the type of alert plays a loud siren as well), which is why it has the permissions it has.

Now, some general information about these alerts (and therefore the app you're referring to here which is responsible for them):

https://twitter.com/flawedworlddev/status/1709321281500221609

Ollie

Thank you so much for clearing that up for me. Thanks for changing the title as well. I plead ignorance and lack of research before making the post. I regret posting without seeking knowledge first. The next time I post a question I'll try to do it right and make you guys proud.

matchboxbananasynergy

Ollie No worries at all - happy we could clear these things up for you and help!

DrOfNothing

I think something got missed here. There is still not an answer as to why WEA NEEDS to read ALL SMS messages? I've researched and found absolutely nothing. It's an alert system that appears to be digging into messages. Needs to send messages, sure. Even if there is some esoteric app related function to check messages to verify receipt, ok, but emergency messages are tagged differently to the app (so they can sound the klaxons) so I don't see why they need to read every SMS. I find it weird there is nothing that comes up on this permission in any of the searches I've done (admittedly I don't go past the 3rd or so page of results but I do multiple different search terms, a total of ₂₀ searches so far).

matchboxbananasynergy

DrOfNothing It seems like you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. The permission to read your SMS messages is just part of having to grant it the SMS permission, which is completely normal. You'll notice that if you check every app which asks for the SMS permission, you'll find that there. It's not malicious, it's how the SMS permission works.

It is unfortunate that AOSP still lists permissions in that way, though tucked away in a menu because it confuses folks.

The WEA app needs to be able to send those alerts and be able to handle them so that it can activate the siren if it's a presidential/national alert. It is also important to put this in context. Wireless Emergency Alerts app is a system app. It being able to read SMS doesn't mean it's broadcasting that anywhere. It's part of AOSP and therefore part of GrapheneOS. It's harmless.

X-fill

Here's what I have found out this is absolutely a "backdoor" being used by numerous three letter agencies all the way down to local state agencies "NOT COOL" basically has ruined the whole reason that I purchased a new pixel and installed this software we as free people worldwide deserve the right and the ability to not be tracked and spied on by state actors or anyone else for any reason I'm sorry 9/11 and the patriot act are b.s. and that's not enough of a legitimate reason to be able to spy on individuals I know for a fact that they have full access to the whole phone through 911/ wireless alerts I have been told this by L.E. personally the reason I am saying something is because I want wireless emergency alert software removed from graphene o.s. or the ability to remove it myself at least why do you think they mandated it on every cell.../ made it a law/ go figure it's a backdoor they can see and watch everything and shouldn't be able to if anyone knows if there is an o.s. that's willing to do the right thing let me know until then guess I'll keep searching.../ by the way here's how you can tell if they've been in your phone look under network and internet go to app data usage and you will see wireless alerts in the list and if you haven't called 911 guess what yep they've been in your phone

other8026

Locking this 2+ month old thread because it's already been settled. Many misconceptions are already covered above by @matchboxbananasynergy.

I'll just reiterate: all of the code is open source. There is no back door.

Without concrete facts to support claims, this kind of discussion can easily turn into us vs. our imagination. In these scenarios, we can never win. Let's please stick to the facts, not our imagination, when discussing things here.