[d3Xt3r]

Ubuntu Touch (or any Linux distro for that matter) offers drastically more freedom than GrapheneOS or any other Android distribution. Some people care more about freedom than so called "security", and I don't know about you, but I'll take freedom any day.

[gf000]

Freedom to get a stroke from an incomplete toy OS?

Snark aside, desktop Linux userspace (or gnu Linux, call it how you want) is nowhere near production ready. And even for the more general point, giving out root willy-nilly is not more freedom. It's more like letting your child play on the 5th floor of a half-constructed building that's about to be exploded. Your kid can enjoy their time just as much in the safe forest trail.

[d3Xt3r]

Not everything needs to be "production ready". And giving out root willy-nilly is freedom. It's my device, I should get to decide how I want to use it and not have artificial restrictions put on my be by someone else. If I want to rm -rf /, I should be able to do just that.

[gf000]

You can, but maybe don't make it an easy to accidentally invoke default.

Like even `rm` added a flag to not do that without explicitly asking.

Also, there are plenty of immutable OSs now among Linux distros, are they also limiting your freedom?

[akimbostrawman]

>there are plenty of immutable OSs now among Linux distros, are they also limiting your freedom?

By definition they very much can. For example SteamOS wipes all non system application (except flatpaks) on updates unless you disable read only mode.

I use and enjoy GrapheneOS but there is no question that the security comes with the trade off of freedom.

It's up to the user to decide if they prioritize one over the other for there use cases. I take GrapheneOS for mobile because of it's security and GNU/Linux on desktop for its freedom.

[gf000]

What about Fedora?

Good security is about allowing everything you might want to do, but limiting what you don't want happening. Of course it's easier to just put up our hands and don't care about it, but I think we should strive for better security as we are no longer running 3 hand-started processes in a terminal, but 10s of thousands of unknown ones. Even if the processes themselves are trusted, they can easily have vulnerabilities that paired with malicious data can cause real harm. We are just lucky that desktop linux is not a popular target.

Also, I don't think a dead man’s switch on a lawn mower has reasonably limited anyone’s freedom, but it probably saved a few arms and legs.

[akimbostrawman]

>What about Fedora?

You still have sudo don't you? So still less secure but also more freedom than GOS.

>We are just lucky that desktop linux is not a popular target.

Its not only that. The fact that software is expected to be mostly installed and updated from trusted, vetted and signed repositories instead of google or root not being used willy nilly by all applications. Both of these basic usage differences are the reason why for all its security features windows will still be much less secure for the average user than even the most basic linux distro. 90% of security is low hanging fruit.

>I don't think a dead man’s switch on a lawn mower has reasonably limited anyone’s freedom

I'm very sure there have been not a small number of cases where such switches did limit freedom, even if you think they do more good than bad they are still there to limit something. The switch could prevent usage when faulty or otherwise prevent unofficial uses or just repairability.

[lucb1e]

> giving out root willy-nilly is not more freedom. It's more like letting your child play on the 5th floor of a half-constructed building that's about to be exploded

I take it you don't use desktop OSes anymore of any kind and call child support whenever you see a parent letting their kid use one? Better protect them from themselves in case they can't handle sudo / UAC prompts and give access (xkcd.com/1200) to the wrong process

This sort of logic really boggles my mind to see on hacker news

[Cider9986]

How can you be free when you're not private or secure?

Grapheneos is fully open source and comes with 0 Google services.

>so called "security"

Grapheneos is widely recognized as one of the most secure operating systems.

[lucb1e]

> Grapheneos is fully open source and comes with 0 Google services.

And calls the open source microG a threat while encouraging people to install google mobile services, conveniently provided from their preinstalled app store, which most people will need for at least some of the apps they need in daily life, so everyone ends up with GMS installed in their main profile. A real bastion of freedom and choice.

[HybridStatAnim8]

MicroG requires privileged access. It also downloads and runs proprietary google code within this privileged context. MicroG additionally has very poor app compatibility and has had severe privacy issues in the past.

Sandboxed google play does not grant google code any kind of privileged access. It is confined to the same app sandbox and permission model as all other apps and can be installed and uninstalled like any other app.

Note that apps with google libraries grant google the same, unprivileged access google services gets on GrapheneOS. MicroG fails to meet the privacy, security, and usability requirements GrapheneOS has in place when it comes to google play compatibility.

So, you can pick MicroG, which is bundled, privileged, poorly made, has poor compatibility, and trusts an additional party...

Or, you can pick sandboxed google play, which is not bundled, optional, unprivileged, fully sandboxed, and does not trust additional parties. Oh, and you can uninstall and reinstall whenever.

It is evident which option gives the user freedom, and a choice.

[lucb1e]

Thanks, but there's no way anybody here hasn't already heard all of that. GrapheneOS' statements are inevitably reposted to every thread and subthread that touches on the topic.

Yes, I knew it's in a sandbox at the time of writing my comment above; no, that doesn't make it a privacy paradise compared to microG.

The sandbox still needs internet access for a lot of GMS' functions and lots of apps send information into it. For example, Signal will actively reach out for notification bundling, so Google gets to know who runs Signal, what IP address they're on, with who else they share that address as they go to school and work, build a social graph... So while the sandbox is definitely very useful and I'm glad it exists as open source software that other Android distributions can be inspired by, it doesn't definitively solve fundamental problems with running unwanted software on your device

Do you know what privileged context means? As in, what access this grants concretely? I tried to look it up once, ended up in Android source code trees, and left more confused than I went in. It looked like it gets no extra file access at all, which is strange right? What does privileged mean if not that? I tried su'ing to the user ID of GMS and this confirmed that the GMS user can't access other apps' data folders. So I'm no longer sure what to even make of this wording. Is it maybe about syscall hardening that isn't applied to privileged apps or so, so like exploit protection rather than normal permissions? The benefit of that would be protecting from exploits that Google could send. Do we think they'd legit do that, short of receiving an NSL that compels them?

Rather than running the unwanted proprietary (but necessary) software wholesale and attempt to sandbox it, I'd much rather substitute as much as possible with open code (where we know what it does) and have a much smaller set of proprietary components that need to be kept around in a sandbox and active only when necessary. For example, microG will replace Gmaps with Mapbox, reducing how much data is sent out about you to Google (they don't get to see which city you are probably in while using the map in Too Good To Go, for example).

It seems fairly obvious to me that less data sharing plus less proprietary code (that needs to be sandboxed) is better than letting Google go wild and installing their apps as-is with self-updating functionality (in said sandbox). What threat would sandboxed microG pose that sandboxed GMS doesn't? Is there any logic to GrapheneOS not wanting to build upon microG to get the remaining proprietary parts properly sandboxed, rather than starting over from scratch?

[lucb1e]

note where I wrote:

> su'ing to the user ID of [another app]

Look, I have root, so you can hack me! And my bootloader is wide open, too! In your words:

> > Root access and an unlocked bootloader are insecure, even for low threat models. These devices are vulnerable and should not be used for any sensitive data.

I'm serious that anyone should feel free to prove the point by sending me a responsible disclosure notice about having found a way in, but the threat clearly isn't serious enough for that to actually be concretely possible. Which is not to say that it's never relevant, but "such a device shouldn't be used" is not valid as a blanket statement

[HybridStatAnim8]

For context, GMSCompat is Google Mobile Services Compatibility. GrapheneOS installed the google play store and services as normal apps, and worked backwards to make it behave. There is no google specific sandbox, rather it uses the standard android user app sandbox. This means google is bound by the same rules, as special casing anything creates more maintenance burden and attack surface. GMSCompat is fully open source.

> "Thanks, but there's no way..."

Its reposted because the information is accurate, and misinformation regarding it is very prevalent.

> "Yes, I knew it's in a sandbox..."

Relative to MicroG, sandboxed google play is much more private, secure, and usable. I would not describe it as a privacy paradise, but MicroG does not improve upon this, and instead makes these aspects worse.

> "The sandbox still needs internet access..."

Most google libraries operate independently of google services and do not depend on them to function. FCM is an exception due to how push notifications are optimized (by using one app for the connection). MicroG does not avoid this.

> "For example, Signal will actively reach..."

You do not need to provide an identity to google. This can also be avoided with a VPN, and is not specific to google. There is the concern of metadata but Signal sends empty notifications without any identifying info. They are only used to wake the app up to fetch its own notifications.

> "So while the sandbox is definitely very useful..."

It confines google services to the same rules and restrictions as all other apps. MicroG does not. MicroG also does not avoid running unwanted software, referring to the google libraries in apps and the google code MicroG downloads.

> "Do you know what privileged context means..."

MicroG violates the security model by necessitating signature spoofing, which puts it in a position to receive data it was not intended to receive, there is also attack surface exposed by having access forbidden by the app sandbox. Sandboxed google play is bound by the same app sandbox as all other apps, and would not be any more or less capable of exploiting the device than any other app. The idea that google would try to exploit the device is nonsensical though. But granting both google and a 3rd party privileged access is still unacceptable.

> "Rather than running the unwanted proprietary (but necessary) software..."

Google play services runs in the android user app sandbox. It is not an "attempt", it is successful at doing this. MicroG being open source does not matter in regards to privacy or security. It did not change how MicroG has leaked location to apps without location permissions, it does not change how it downloads and runs google code both privileged and outside of its own APK, and it does not change how other apps are running google libraries anyway. Note that the proprietary code it downloads is not confined to the app sandbox.

> "For example, microG will replace Gmaps..."

Im unsure if you are referring to the app Google Maps, or google maps integration. GrapheneOS reroutes googlefusedlocation requests to the OS, rather than google services. You can use an app other than google maps, and apps with google map integration can simply send your location to google directly, independent of google services or MicroG.

> "It seems fairly obvious to me that less data sharing..."

Googles access to data is not limited by using MicroG, relative to sandboxed google play. And the size of proprietary code is irrelevant, that code can be anything. It can be malicious with 2 lines, or benign with 2 million. Access is what is vital, not size. Google is not permitted to "run wild", and is granted no additional access compared to any other app. Im unsure what you mean by self updating functionality, but for apps from the playstore, nearly all of them are signed with a key that google holds, and MicroG can do nothing about this. GrapheneOSs App Store is responsible for updating google play and google services, it cannot update itself.

> "What threat would sandboxed microG pose that sandboxed GMS doesn't?..."

Using MicroG necessitates GrapheneOS violate the android security model, trust a 3rd party unnecessarily, cripple 99% perfect compatibility, use code that is not near as battletested as play services, run google code as privileged, and run a software that has had serious privacy violations in the past. Not only is the base insufficient, but any finished product based on it still would not compare to GMSCompat. The logic is that GrapheneOS wants the best compatibility, the least changes to the android app sandbox, 0 privileged google components, no violations to the android security model, and no need to maintain a reimplementation when google services and store are already maintained by a huge organization.

[d3Xt3r]

> How can you be free when you're not private or secure?

Are you serious? Have you even seen the state of modern operating systems compared to the operating systems of the 80s and 90s? I've had way more fun and learnt lot more about computers messing around with OSes that let you did whatever the hell you wanted to. Modern OSes have sacrificed a lot in that name of security.

As for privacy, that's a completely separate topic. You can have privacy on a OS which offers freedom, depends on what "privacy" you're taking about.

[Cider9986]

You can't have privacy without security.

[d3Xt3r]

That is a vague, meaningless statement. What sort of privacy are we taking about? What sort of security? What's the target? What's the attack vector? What's the environment? What's your threat model?

Without all of those details, your statement is meaningless.

[lucb1e]

Privacy is when nobody is looking, whether that's because they cannot look or because there's nobody that looks.

Security is the former: actively denying someone or something the ability to look in a situation where they are trying. GrapheneOS does that by encouraging a locked bootloader (preventing physical attacks) and letting you deny sensor access (preventing malicious apps from accessing unnecessary info), for example. I think we agree so far?

But you can also have privacy by just not installing apps that violate your privacy. Such a device could be as open as any Linux laptop where you log in with root:root. It lets you do whatever you want and access whatever you want. It's yours through and through. That's freedom without security, which may or may not have privacy depending on who you let look: if you leave it unattended at a hacker conference or have sshd with password login enabled, yeah that won't stay private for very long. But that's your choice right? You can just not invite anyone in or, in this example, bring it to someone who would do something malicious

An official GrapheneOS release has a lot of features baked in against actively malicious actors (be it apps or people at border checks), but users need to work within the boundaries and limitations of the sandpit that's provided to them. They're not granted much freedom, and that limits what privacy measures you can enact. Making a backup of /data, modifying firewall or traffic routing rules, signature spoofing to substitute an untrusted app with a trusted implementation, intercepting and faking Android API responses... a lot of things are off-limits: you don't have the freedom to shape the environment to suit your needs, for example to create privacy or security

The axes (privacy, freedom, security) all influence each other, but they are still separate enough that you can have one or two without the other. I can see what you mean if you say that your threat actors are skilled exploit developers and you can't have privacy without also thwarting these constant attempts. (Paranoid as that may sound, I'm sure it's true for some people.) Most people would gain more privacy from doing something about the pervasive adtech than about exploit developers they're not likely to run into. For them, LineageOS could be more private and provide more freedom while being less secure in some ways (e.g. they need to watch out which processes they grant access, for example something claiming to be backup software that turns out to be ransomware) and more secure in others (e.g. data availability by getting to make backups)