This is the second time I’ve come across this story.
If you look closely, random people are not being taken aside for being seen with a Pixel as the headline would have you believe.
What is true is that Graphene OS on a Pixel is a popular, easy setup that can’t be cracked open with Cellebrite et al., and that makes the piggies very sad. Methinks someone wants readers to fear using Graphene OS.
Also, Graphene has that duress mode, you set a pin/password that when entered locks out storage, does a wipe, while leaving grapheneOS in place. It seems US citizens maybe needing this in the future.
Where can I find these hacktools ? I have a whole damn bunch of android 9 phones I can’t root because their bootloaders are non-unlockable and that pisses me off.
Back in my day, hackers would just publish that shit in 2600 zine, now they’re all corporate sellouts selling on 0day to the fucking fed.
xda probably has that
Should have put Hannah Montana Linux on their phone instead. SMH my head
Headline is not true.
A police spokesperson from one Spanish region told that they suspect of people carrying google pixel phones because they are commonly used by drug dealers with GOS installed. It was made more as a comment than as a serious threat.
I have heard nothing about any actual confiscation based on phone OS being made.
In fact, I remembered incorrectly, the Pixel phones that were seized were put in packages that prevented data from being deleted remotely.
Spanish police are allowed to hack phones to counter illegal activities
In the particular technological war between drug traffickers and the police, an important element has recently come into play: Trojans. With judicial authorization, the police infect traffickers’ phones and thus gain access to most of the applications, images, and documents on a device
All this comes from one quote
Every time we see a Google Pixel, we think it could be a drug dealer
There’s a paywall that can be removed with the element zapper of uBlock
Oh of course it’s not because you carried a Pixel, but when your Pixel showed up on the tower, we started sniffing your shit and the people you associate are quite unsavory persons so we’re going to audit you and maybe if find some illegal drugs or porn near something you own, you’re going to spend some quality time in out concrete buildings until we come to some arrangement. We will have an offer you CANNOT refuse for you.
Statists speak only one language and it comes out of a 155 millimeter mouth.
I think I need to look into installing that OS. :)
Nothing less to expect from a neo-fascist country like Spain, tbh. They also deny Cataluña the right of cultural self-determination, to the point of not even being able to use signage in their own language.
Oh btw: Proton collaborates with them.
Let’s dissolve the Spanish state, let’s convince spaniards they’re just a language not a country, and that the Spanish state is just another brainhacking egregore they need to purge themselves from, maybe kick out Europe too, also buy nuclear bombs ASAP.
What? Sauce?
Not OP but there is few sources on that :
https://www.androidauthority.com/why-i-use-grapheneos-on-pixel-3575477/
Thanks!
Turns out that OPs heading is a little bit exaggerated, as nobody is confiscating anything.Barbaric
Kinda how in some countries using any circumvention tools are a means of arrest and suspicious behavior
Those articles don’t really support the claim? At all?
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-organized-crime-preferred-phone-3573578/ is unsourced but, taking at face value, seems like what one would expect. People aren’t getting stopped at checkpoints and forced to divulge what OS their phone is running and being taken to a black site if they run GrapheneOS. But someone holding up a pixel in a sea of cheap motorolas DOES raise some eyebrows. Same as someone with a ridiculously expensive rolex walking around The Hood and so forth. And, presumably, people who have been arrested for other reasons raise even more eyebrows if their phone isn’t running a stock OS which…
Look, with a just police force (ha!), that actually is a very reasonable stance. Back in the day it was having a Blackberry. For a decade or so it was having two phones until people learned to not do anything personal on a work phone and that became kinda normal. There are activities that are generally associated with “weirdos” and “criminals” and I think even the GraphenOS devs would acknowledge their userbase fall firmly into the former. If you see someone with a Blackberry hanging out leaning against a 7-11? You maybe hang out across the street for an hour and keep an eye on them. Arrest someone and they have three burner phones in their pants pockets? Maybe you look a bit deeper.
That is actual investigative work. Of course, the problem is that it instead becomes “That gameboy looks like a drug dealer’s phone. We are going to stop and frisk you and maybe sexually assault you in the back of the cruiser if we are bored”.
I’m keyed in on a lot of “high level” protest discussion as well as what investigative journalists need to do for actual safety. And one of the biggest topics that regularly comes up is the idea of “the burner”. In theory, if you are crossing a questionable border or think you might be stopped, you bring a completely blank burner. If they hack into it, you are safe, right?
Wrong. Because you are now an anomaly. NOBODY has no social media and NOBODY has no documents on their laptop. So what are you hiding? Let’s beat it out of you.
Which is why general best practices are often considered to have a real device that you actually use everyday and take through those checkpoints and on the riskier protests. But you make damned sure there is nothing incriminating or sensitive on there. Optimally through having your “burner” be the one you do said activities on, but also through just removing it well before you get on the plane or get in the car.
And a lot of that applies to device choice too. That cool ass Linux Phone might seem like a great idea but now you stand out from the crowd quite a bit. Same with taking your top of the line iphone to Korea where Samsungs grow on trees and so forth.
Well, in my region it typically is already sufficient to look Arabic to become the guest of a “random” police control.
Compared to that, having a closer look at people running GrapheneOS on their phones sounds relatively well-grounded and almost reasonable.
At least not totally crypto-racist (although I have the feeling that still comes on top…)Oh I 500% assume racism is a big part of this too.
Not familiar with Catalonia but I assume there are at least a few ethnic groups that are associated with “rich” and this is a way to group them in.
Which, funny enough, was also kind of the deal with Blackberries. Yeah, Dealers had them. Because Dealers like buying expensive shit (See also: really expensive Rolex in a neighborhood where everyone is on food stamps) AND because they were ridiculously ahead of their time tech wise. You know who else had them? Business and (proto-)tech folk. And cops LOVED to say that the kid who actually made something of themselves going back home to visit family must be a Dealer because they have the same phone all their co-workers do.
Which gets back to: As part of an investigation, it is good. It is one part of a potential puzzle. In the reality of ACAB… ACAB.
associated with “weirdos” and “criminals” and I think even the GraphenOS devs would acknowledge their userbase fall firmly into the former
What a fucking absurd statement.
I am about as “normal” as you get. I am a middle-aged white male, and I use a Pixel 6 Pro with Graphene OS installed. I switched to Graphene OS for security in the wake of an ugly divorce involving a campaign of stalking and harassment when I began to suspect my prior phone had been compromised.
But “searching for an answer” and “actually implementing the answer” makes you not a normal person.
To be fair, most people are stupid and trust the shitty system they are born in, so they don’t look for their own freedom, as they are convinced they are free.
Yeah. GrapheneOS is focused on security against external agents, so its userbase is prosecuted people, like journalists.
Which are not normal people, aka weirdos.
The good kind though
Same with taking your top of the line iphone to Korea where Samsungs grow on trees and so forth.
Fun fact: iPhones are really popular in South Korea, especially for younger generations and considered more cool than boomer’s Samsung, though Samsung is gaining some traction with newer flagship models recently, so yeah it won’t make you stand out.
Fair enough. I was mostly just thinking back to when I was researching luggage tags and the general guidance was “airtags have the best coverage in the US and some Western European countries. For East Asia, it is generally fine but a lot more hit and miss as most countries vastly prefer Samsung Androids”. And my experience in Japan and Korea lined up with that where my luggage had ridiculously high fidelity with a samsung tag or whatever they are called.
But the point still stands. If you have a high end phone that basically nobody around you will have, you’ll stand out.
Has everyone on this site forgotten how to do a web search? Literally the first article if you search for Google Pixel phones being confiscated in Spain:
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-organized-crime-preferred-phone-3573578/
It’s not about saving ten seconds of typing. It’s about supporting OP’s claim with credible sources. And I have to stress credible because mainstream journalism has a tendency to turn unverified or downright false claims into a woozle.
I do know, but I also refuse to do OPs work for him.
Would be minimal effort to post a link together with a click-baity (and wrong - nobody is confiscating anything) heading.
Confiscated for having GrapheneOS? What?
What do you think about the fact that Google Pixel phones are being confiscated in Spain if they have GrapheneOS installed?
I think that’s fucking wild, is what I think.
One thing is certain:
The day the related news story got viral, champagne corks must have been flying in the marketing department at GrapheneOS…What the duress password was built for tbh.
So if we don’t want Google monitoring our stuff we are going to be considered criminals, fuck this world is going south. I wanted to find an alternative OS with this bologna about side loading apps coming forth with Android but I haven’t figured out what kind of phone yet. If this spreads I guess Pixel won’t be the option
Pixel’s aven’t the first choice for custom ROMs any more anyway, as Google recently has stopped making the device trees public for developers.
So say hello to Fairphone and similar companies, that are still caring about openess!Until Fairphone can support GrapheneOS, Pixels are still the best option.
If you need GrapheneOS, that is right.
But if LineageOS or eOS is sufficient for you, Fairphones are a solid option with long term support.And in the long run, GrapheneOS might also have to look for other options, as the good developer support for new Pixel devices will not be given any more.
Are the fair phones working on cellular bands in the U.S.? I was hoping at this point someone just launches a small handheld gaming device I can install a Linux distro on that I can put a sim card in/esim but I haven’t seen any hit the market. I figure maybe even just have a flip phone and forward the number to VoIP on the handheld.
The Steam deck is to big to carry, and isn’t a mobile device in my opinion because it can’t work soon as you walk out your front door, it is just a cordless device in my opinion. The GPD 4 is a bit big as well, and still isnt mobile.
If someone launches a $500-$800 handheld that maybe flips like a 3DS size and is mobile I’m sold lol (Steam deck Mobile Mini)
I was looking into this, T-Mobile seems to be the carrier for the Fairphone.
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/16674972235537-Murena-Fairphone-in-the-USA
It’ll probably be the next step when my Samsung bites it.
I don’t think fairphones are directly available in the US, but in principle they should work in the local 5G networks without problems.
