https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117537776055163844
There’s a major state sponsored misinformation and smear campaign towards GrapheneOS in the Netherlands and Germany. The misinformation campaign includes unsubstantiated security claims not holding up to scrutiny to scare people away from it. They’re also heavily misrepresenting who uses it overall.
These smear campaigns conflate GrapheneOS with forks and modifications of it sold by shady companies. Those usually include a device management app to remotely manage the devices of their customers as if they’re employees. These are largely not GrapheneOS devices or have preinstalled malware apps.
France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands are becoming increasingly authoritarian surveillance states with an ongoing crackdown against privacy. It’s happening throughout the whole EU and it’s likely both secure devices and end-to-end encryption without backdoors are going to end up outlawed.
There are a bunch of companies based in the EU selling phones with drastically worse privacy and security than an iPhone including Jolla, Volla, Murena and iodé. These products are effectively backdoored by not providing standard privacy and security patches/protections while misleading users.
gos really needs a social media guy, who doesnt rant all day. it is also unhealthy to shit on other custom roms like that.
GrapheneOS is becoming a bit weird. Then again, maximum security/privacy thinking kinda requires that.
Did they also post sources for their claims? Cause I am using a eos/murena phone so that would be interesting, althought comparing murena to iphone means that murena is at least better than base android?
Some developer(s) at Graphene OS are basically at war with almost every other project of either degoogled Android or completely alternative operating systems for mobile devices. This kind of language is nothing new, certainly towards e/OS and Jolla. They are routinely not differentiating between security and privacy, while both depend on each other to some extend, they are not the same. If security is your aim, but you don’t care about privacy, Android is probably better than e/OS. If you don’t mind having Google hardware (Motorola is still not a thing and if it will cost a fortune) but want security and privacy, Graphene OS is your best choice, if you don’t mind the toxic rants of some of its developers.
e/OS is fine if you don’t need a hardened phone but want to be more privacy focused than with stock Android, while having a more repairable and ethically produced phone like with a Fairphone. The question is if you are worried about hacking attacks by private or state actors, are rather by the perfectly legal mass extraction of personal data by Google.
Thanks, yeah thats what I guessed. I got a fairphone and mainly want some privacy and create some dark patterns (I think thats how its called) for people that need it. If the state turns hostile I am fucked already…
I unfollowed the GrapheneOS account because 1. They are now taking AI code and 2. They post these huge rants on a platform not designed for it spamming anyone who follows them. 3. They always sound paranoid as fuck. But hey, maybe they have reason to.
Completely honest opinion here as a software developer, if you don’t use AI in coding now, you are probably not working effectively. That’s the unfortunate reality. To be clear, I am not talking about vibe coding, that’s something completely different.
Saying “I don’t follow GrapheneOS because they accept generated code” is your view, then you probably can’t use any piece of software that is still actively maintained.
To me it’s ironic that you mention GrapheneOS account is too paranoid, while being paranoid about AI code yourself, just because it has “AI” in it
Completely honest opinion here as a software developer, if you don’t use AI in coding now, you are probably not working effectively. This is because really understanding and reviewing code not written by oneself requires a lot of time, and GenAI can (so far) not selve the very difficult problem of keeping a large codebase with a lot of changes and drift in requirements consistent.
If you do use GenAI to generate code, it is extremely hard to both review the output thoroughly, and be faster than writing it by hand.
For some cases, like code auditing, it might not matter. But for much of software engineering, a substantial part of it is a continuous learning process - learning requirements, constraints, specs, what the code should do, its structure, and so on.
And GenAI short-circuits that - you invariable understand less of the code. This is not different from a student of physics or high-frequeny electrical engineering which does his or her homework on Maxwell’s equations with ChatGPT: They might get a result quickly, but at the cost of really understanding the matter.
Again, there might be cases where this does not matter. For a throw-away web page or a script used once, it might be good enough. But in most cases, understanding what you do does matter.
This is why on the rare occasion I ask AI to solve a problem I use a fake scenario. Then I still have to generally rewrite the output and understand it. Usually I just want to solve a new problem I’ve not encountered and im just looking for the basic concept. But I generally agree with you, any short circuiting understanding has bad longterm consequences.
yea, AI is fine as long as we use it to write annoying boilerplate and dig up random bullshit in massive old codebases.
Just don’t use it to code a whole feature without ever looking at the code afterwards and you’re good…
I hate how AI operates in general, and I wish my company didn’t pay a subscription for the fuckers and just allowed us to get local-only tools…but on the actual coding side AI is fine.
Yeah - it’s a unrealistic to try to avoid “AI code”, whatever that may be. We know that Microsoft is using it for Windows. There are patches in the linux kernel that were generated with the help of AI. Google is using it for Android development. And Apple, too. So this user here is going around smashing a small, independent OS for using AI while posting from a OS that was created with AI.
We’re AI purists around here. 🙄 And yes, it’s silly to expect any given code to be free from all AI use.
Got stuck on a PowerShell script. It was apparently an odd use case, only found one page that said anything about it, and the documentation wasn’t great. Used ChatGPT to write it, and of course it didn’t work, BUT it gave me an idea I hadn’t considered and showed me a path I didn’t know was possible.
Spent 8 hours banging my head before thinking about an LLM (this was 3 years ago). Took another 30-minutes to get it working after some help. You’d be a fool not to use AI for cases like that.
But you wouldn’t be doing the work would you. No, you would just be using someone else’s work.
Tell me you don’t write code without saying so out loud.
There’s a difference between copying code from git, forums, or stack exchange and having a autocorrect bot that hallucinates (coding agent)
Im neither in the pro or anti ai game nor did i program anything since i finished school so i dont know if or how much ai uses someones elses code… But in general why do you think it is important to do the same work again if somone already found a solution? I mean for example in 99% of the cases you wouldnt expect someone to reinvent the pythagorean theorem? I dont think that the original coder cares too much about who uses the code after they get paid (if its paid work) and if there are problems, ai cant find or steal you still need to let money flow to some coder? The second thing i think about is that you dont have a chance stop ai anyway so why not trying to find solutions to the problems that come with it?
So the end justifies the means, great argument.
didnt mention any “mean” but wanted to ask you what you think the mean is, because you wrote about that. I also didnt mention any “end”? Just wanted to understand why you think what you said was a bad thing, thats it. I dont even have an opinion on that topic i just found it interesting how you come to your conclusion (because i heard about that opinion also in many non ai topics before and never got it. I have the theory that its something about equality on effort? Idk maybe you can tell me why you see things that way).
I don’t think you understand what ends and means are. It seems to me that you are arguing that the efficiency gains (ends) constitute a justifiable use of AI (means).
I know the expression and didnt talk about any gains (or methods to reach them) of ai in my first comment. Just wanted to know why kiwitb thinks what he/she said is a bad thing. Kiwitb concluded that i think that the gains of ai justifiy the means, which is not was i was talking about at all. So i asked kiwitb what he/she thinks the means are, that kiwi thought i was refering to in her/his comment
But hey, maybe they have reason to.
They do, but they also just spout bullshit sometimes. Not mutually exclusive those two things.
They are now taking AI code
Isn’t that every Android variant because Google is using AI to develop it since quite some time already?
Anything with Linux at it’s core. Doesn’t mean you can’t work too reduce the vibe
Anything with Linux at it’s core.
Linux kernel has some AI code, Google’s Android components’ new code since years is mostly AI.
Doesn’t mean you can’t work too reduce the vibe
A small team cannot compete against Google to replace that code. That’s impossible.
If you want as little AI code as possible, both Android and iOS are lost causes. Maybe you can live with a Linux kernel because AI code there is not everywhere but depending on maintainer per sub-project, Nura (ex postmaerketOS) may be the way to go for you personally but for Graphene as an Android distribution that ship has sailed.
The GrapheneOS people always sound like everyone is out to get them. Maybe many are out to get them, but maybe the people are just stupid, or a mix of both.
Journalists just parrot what the police tell them because they don’t have access to experts, don’t want to do the work talking to them or think the police must be the experts.
GrapheneOS is a great project and I’m sure many politicians and surveillance state actors want them to fail. But a big part of why GrapheneOS is slandered is that the common person doesn’t understand their privacy geek talk.
Journalists just parrot what the police tell them because they don’t have access to experts, don’t want to do the work talking to them or think the police must be the experts.
They don’t bite the hand that feeds them stories.
Yep, sadly.
Considering how morally bankrupt fascism and big tech propaganda is, I have zero doubt Google and other surveillance fascism corporations are funding smear campaigns against the project that has great potential to severely impact their dragnet surveillance capabilities and profit margins.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by the greed and psychopathy of the profit motive.
There’s a major state sponsored misinformation and smear campaign towards GrapheneOS in the Netherlands and Germany. The misinformation campaign includes unsubstantiated security claims not holding up to scrutiny to scare people away from it. They’re also heavily misrepresenting who uses it overall.
OP seems to conflate technological illiteracy and incompetency of Bureaucrats with malice.
Not that the outcome cannot be the same, I just don’t see any Central European government to be competent enough on technology matters.
You think in the age of age verification and constant attempts to force backdoors into encrypted apps that it’s just incompetence that has them slandering Graphene? No, they’ve been advised well enough to know exactly what they’re doing here. They’re intentionally discouraging people from using secure devices.
You think in the age of age verification and constant attempts to force backdoors into encrypted apps that it’s just incompetence that has them slandering Graphene?
Advocating for backdoors while at the same time believing that those very same backdoors cannot be used against their own government is 100% incompetence.
Oh, they’ll get more secure options. They’re special. But yes, it will definitely open the populace to attacks by other actors. That’s just a secondary concern to being able to spy on you.
Oh, they’ll get more secure options.
If you think that European countries will get backdoor-free versions of US software, you’re dreaming.
Europeans? Oh god no. European politicians? Definitely.
European politicians? Definitely.
Definitely not. The US are spying on European politicians: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-nsa-spied-on-merkel-cell-phone-from-berlin-embassy-a-930205.html
If there will be a version without backdoors, the US will have exclusive access.
Considering that the German far right AFD had their entire Email history leaked like a month ago since all of it was stored unencrypted, I honestly doubt they get anything more secure working.
You giving authorities the benefit of the doubt removes any credibility you have in truth.
Sounds like someone has lost their marbles at GrapheneOS. They don‘t seem to understand the German state or German law at all. Germany is one of the countries with the tightest privacy laws on a constitutional level. So if you‘re looking for someone who‘s out to get you you should probably look somewhere else. Because if you‘re accusing Germany you better have receipts.
Germany is one of the countries with the tightest privacy laws on a constitutional level.
The German government tries to undermine these laws pretty much every year in favor of “keeping the kids safe” and “catching criminals” by forcing a state mandated backdoor on every chat service. It gets stopped by some court before the law gets officially enforced, but some form of it was passed multiple times already.
Not to say that the graphenos claims are true, I haven’t heard anything like that as of now. But most German politicians and the current government especially don’t like the uncompromised privacy that such projects offer.
I’m not arguing one way or another on this particular topic, however, I will point out that constitutions get ignored, or their meanings twisted, without constant vigilance. The USA’s constitution has been ignored or misinterpreted ever since its inception and especially so in recent years.
Didn’t Germany change their minds and is now in favor of ChatControl (the latest Danish proposal)?
Sounds like someone has lost their marbles at GrapheneOS
It’s been pretty well known for years that one of the main devs is a bit of a weird character, so to say. He supposedly stepped back from social media but it’s still his style of writing in a lot of the posts from the official accounts.
Very generous description. People can view that louis Rossmann video about them to see how they do PR. Even after that guy supposedly stepped away from the pr like you mention nothing really changed.
Need that meme of the guy ripping off his headset anytime someone says “graphene says”
Sounds like someone has lost their marbles
Some people think that one of the founders has the keys to the social media accounts and they also say that person is paranoid. I feel like many adjacent communities have similar toxic behaviours or can be too heavy-handed with responses to criticism.
spoiler
Like the PrivacyGuides community
Removed by mod
The real mistake was mentioning it at all. They are the best at what they do, but even compliments rub them and their horde of online defenders the wrong way.
A completely harmless comment like this should be ignored:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50381570
But, like clockwork, in comes the “they have the right to defend themselves.”
I’ll probably regret posting this even though I am on their side.
If an article about your product is bad, or you think it is bad, you make a single post and say “We deny the statements.” That’s it. Don’t Streisand effect yourself.
Also, that new phone is hella expensive! That isn’t being negative to the other OS. Stating that Motorola works (or has worked) with Oracle and law enforcement isn’t painting the OS in a negative light. Everyone knows that the other OS is the best choice for anyone who takes security and privacy seriously.
‘Somewhat opinionated’ is what comes to mind for those last two paragraphs.
I know the makers of GrapheneOS are effectively privacy activists, so that is to be expected. I not sure what to think of this kind of alarmism however. ‘Chat Control’ is largely rejected and laws regulating security have been altered specifically to acommodate FOSS projects. I also really dislike the way they shit on companies and other third party OSs. They may be right, but it feels like a weird way to go about this
They shouldn’t be surprised imo. We all know the tor network is used by two very different groups: journalists and human rights activists on the one hand, and criminals on the other. Not saying they deserve a smear campaign, but saying that if you build something with high privacy, you can expect the criminals to be interested.
It is a bad thing though these ‘free countries’ become less and less free, I do see that.
“The government is reading your messages! Yes, I’m talking to YOU personally! Look behind you. The government is looking over your shoulder, checking your screen as you read this comment! This is what EU wants. Soon you want be able to unlock your phone without the government shoulder surfing with you. The only solution is to throw away your phone. Do it! Do it NOW!”.
this but unironically
