[patchtopic]

GrapheneOS says

"European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're something for criminals. GrapheneOS is opposed to the mass surveillance police state these people want to impose on everyone"

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784469162979608

State employees in their official capacity making inaccurate claims to media about GrapheneOS to smear it as being for criminals and as the users as largely being criminals is a state sponsored attack on the GrapheneOS project.

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114813613250805804

[chasil]

I have never been to Spain, and I have only slight familiarity with issues in Barcelona and greater Catalonia, but this gives me pause:

"There’s a bitter irony here, too, as GrapheneOS recently pointed out in a tweet. The Spanish region of Catalonia was at the center of the massive Pegasus spyware scandal in 2019.

"Pegasus, a sophisticated surveillance tool sold exclusively to governments, was reportedly used to hack phones belonging to Members of the European Parliament and eavesdrop on their communications. Yet, police in this very region are now scrutinizing savvy Pixel and GrapheneOS users for hardening their devices against unlawful surveillance and other attack vectors."

[FirmwareBurner]

All this surveillance tech and law enforcement still don't know who the child abusers on the Epstein list/island were.

Something tells me domestic surveillance is only applied to peasants not the wealthy and powerful.

[johnisgood]

And at the same time:

> GrapheneOS is not immune to exploitation, but the fearmongering done in these ongoing attacks on it is very clearly fabricated. They feel threatened enough by GrapheneOS to engage in coordinated attempts at convincing people that it's unable to protect their privacy and security.

So... they (cops and friends) are saying that GrapheneOS is for criminals, AND that it does not work at protecting anyone's privacy and is not for security. Amazing.

See: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784553445461948 and the rest.

[kspacewalk2]

Fridges are for criminals too. The very good ones can keep the severed body parts cold for longer, thus preventing spoilage and reports of foul odours from downstairs neighbours. Will Frigidaire and Bosch stop selling this criminal technology to criminals?

[t_mahmood]

It's like my bank's application, your mobile with all the latest security update is prohibited, because the bootloader is unlocked. But your 6-year-old mobile that received its last security update 3/4 years ago is fine!

[qualeed]

I think people are misinterpreting your comment? Or I am.

What I think you are saying is:

The police are arguing both sides (in typical fashion). On one side, the police say that GrapheneOS is for criminals because of its privacy, etc. However the police are also trying to convince people that GrapheneOS is not private or secure, in an attempt to sway people from using it.

[hluska]

This whole thing is quite the stretch. Someone who clearly has no idea what they’re talking about acted like a know it all on a forum. I don’t see how that’s evidence of a coordinated attack. Police saying dumb things about security tech is nothing new either nor is it a smoking gun.

Occam’s razor applies even when we want to believe a cool story.

[giantg2]

This is basically the ploy with many secure phones - say it's for criminals but actually have a backdoor for law enforcement. I wonder if there's some exploit on the Pixel or Graphene that law enforcement is now aware of.

[NoGravitas]

> “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” - Umberto Eco, Ur-Fascism

[reverendsteveii]

well if it doesn't work for protecting your data it doesn't work for protecting criminals' data as well, right? or is this a lot less about making rational sense and a lot more about manufacturing consent to violate our rights?

[benreesman]

Knowing my chosen configuration of phone stymies law enforcement overreach enough that criminals use same one? I chose wisely.

Cops think I did something wrong? Show up at my house with a warrant.

There are all kinds of ways that its easy to tell if someone is acting like a criminal, like trying to get and serve a warrant for their arrest.

Can't get a warrant without a warrantless wiretap? Fuck off then.

[PicassoCTs]

So, can i be the voice of reason here? The Panopticon is unavoidable! Everyone who has a spark of self-preservation in himself, knows it already. Technology has given the individual insane powers to take down state-level actors (drones in shipping lanes) and soon the whole planet(mirror life etc.). We can no longer afford privacy, as sad as this is.

Privacy was a luxury we had, while we could bribe the better angels of our nature with the surplus of the past and while technology was something, that did not scale.

Now a terrorist could take a army of tanks while besieging a city. All the other justifications for a Panopticon are flimsy, but the fact that technology - our savior from savagery, has turned around and bit the hand it was supposed to feed, justifies the thing.

[s_dev]

Basically the same old argument that Linux is used by black hat hackers.

It probably is but it's focus on security and privacy makes that so not that it's designed with nefarious purposes in mind. To us this is obvious but to lay people the nuance is lost.

[qualeed]

>(all) european governments are terrorist organisations

I'm all for criticizing government actions, trust me, but can we try to make thoughtful criticisms that represent reality?

Or, at the very least, if you're going to use terms as heavy as "terrorist organization", can you provide some more rationale? Like, how do you arrive at equating all EU governments to terrorists?

[csomar]

All governments are authoritarian in nature. Some are just better to live in than the others.

[KingOfCoders]

"being criminals is a state sponsored attack on the GrapheneOS project."

Yes, I know, age of hyperbole, but a state sponsored attack on the project is mass arrests, blocking of funds etc.

Graphene does their PR, the police does their PR. Both have different views on the world.

[Forgeties79]

That's a very high bar for "state sponsored attack." I'd say the various internet ID verification laws being rolled out qualify as a state sponsored attack on our privacy/individual rights writ large.