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Researchers uncover Android zero-day exploits affecting billions of devices, used to unlock a protester's phone in Serbia (techcrunch.com)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

I really don't like how Graphene users will hate all over MicroG. MicroG is a great project but there are so many misconceptions that were started by the Graphene OS core team.

Honestly Graphene OS feels like a trap.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

As another user stated in reply to you earlier, this is debatable. Debating does not equal hate, I used to use MicroG a ton (I was a CalyxOS/LineageOS user before). But, you must acknowledge that MicroG still communicates with Google, and you can't disable this at the OS level. That's the primary benefit of sandboxed Google Play - you can take away full access and many apps will continue to function, and on top of that, the sandboxing layer ensures that the rest of your phone is secure.

MicroG is fine, it's great, even. But it's not infallible, and depending on your threat model, that's something to at least consider.

Can you explain more about how it's a trap, though? This is an open source project that you can build yourself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

MicroG only communicates with Google if you tell it to. It is very configurable and you can configure and customize it to your likening.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

How do you configure it to do that, then? Because calyx's docs only say that it's either disabled, enabled without a Google account, or fully enabled. The last two send some data to Google regardless. I'm genuinely asking, because this is the main reason why I left Calyx for Graphene. I saw my phone hitting Google services when I wasn't even using it. Graphene lets me disable network for apps entirely, something that wasn't a thing for Calyx either (at the time).

Does Calyx allow you to disable your USB port as well?

Also, I'm still curious about what you said earlier about GrapheneOS being a 'trap'. Can you elaborate?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I agree. It's actually why I chose CalyxOS. The CalyxOS users and team will suggest a degoogled aosp depending on the posture you provide them, while the grapheneos team and users tend to only ever suggest grapheneos. It feels a lot like the Mac fans of the past. I wasn't diggin it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Calyx is not as degoogled as it claims to be (at least it wasn't 2 years ago, see below). I know this is a bold claim, but the only ROM comparable with Graphene was DivestOS, which was a one human project and was dicontinued last year. And even Divest had the problem where updates were delayed by a few days or weeks.

Obligatory eylenburg link, and there's this blogpost I like to link to. It's written in German, but I'm sure it's a good read if you put it through a translator.

The conclusion of the CalyxOS analysis in English:

"CalyxOS has reconfigured Android to avoid Google's spyware and tracking." However, I only see this to a limited extent. To be truly privacy-friendly, the project would need to modify more parameters/source code of the AOSP standard and provide users with more options/freedom (Captive Portal Check, Key Provisioning Server, SUPL Server) for customization. The mere omission of Google Play Services is not enough to consider a device "de-Googled". There is still room for improvement.

Overall, CalyxOS is certainly not a bad custom ROM, but rather offers a coherent overall package that users who want to significantly reduce their dependence on Google should have a good starting point. However, one should also consider the drawbacks: the delayed provision of (security) updates and an external presentation that does not quite match the results of this analysis.

Take this with a grain of salt since it's been two years since this blogpost was published.

Here I deleted a whole paragraph in which I sounded like a Graphene elitist haha. I would say using CalyxOS is a lot better than stock Android or Lineage. Please don't choose your OS based on vibes. If you need any of the features Graphene offers that others don't, please use it (edit: like the protester mentioned in the article). If you don't, don't.