It feel like we’re losing to Google, day by day. They aren’t killing AOSP
directly, but they are making it useless step by step. Now it’s Google Play
Services, Play Integrity checks, installation source checks… more and more apps
just refuse to run without GMS. Banking apps? Most of them don’t work. And it’s
only getting worse. I run vanilla AOSP on my main profile, no Play Services. I
keep GMS only in my work profile for the apps that absolutely need it. But now
even some regular apps that don’t need any play services won’t work on my main
profile anymore. They simply block your from running , like le chat. Maps is
google’s most important app there is no way to run without play services. Sure
we can use webview or gmaps wv, but they don’t provide turn-by-turn directions.
Earlier maps used to work without play services, but two years ago, an update
stopped it from working. Now that old version is out of date and no longer
works. Google is slowly making GMS very important to run. The problem with GMS
is they require to run as system app and has to have all the permissions by
default. Hope EU puts pressure to make google allow apps to run independently
without GMS or atleast install them as user apps(like graphene os sandboxed play
services). If we keep going on like this, AOSP can only run fdroid apps in the
future.
Of the largest android sellers, only samsung requires gplay. Xiaomi, vivo, oppo, realme, honor, are all chinese companies that require non-bundled google play for their domestic (and maybe other countries?) releases. Google can’t alienate these sellers, and if they did, all of these companies would create their own AOSP fork (or just switch to HarmonyOS)
I recently bought a xiaomi android tablet that doesn’t have google play services luckily.
Comrade dessalines, shilling chinese corpo slop instead of the standard open-source solutions.
Famously not always. Apple has proved numerous times they have no access to iphones once the user encrypts them. It’s also an added expense and increased attack surface anyway, at the hardware level which is constantly changing, so if there’s no legal requirement to do it, why bother? No one gets a prize from the FBI for doing that, and its costs money and time and there would be designers at every individual company who would be able to point directly to the back door. There’s no incentive - and there’s no evidence of it ever happening. No criminal case has ever shown someone using with Lineage or Graphine on an Adroid phone had their phone hacked by any government for the sole purpose of accessing data on an individual.
It’s kind of a moot point though - at this point commercially available spyware can get in at the software level. It’s more so a question of if you think you’ll be a target, and targeted by whom? The only 100% sure thing through is that the CCP does have access, with any OS, to any device made and sold by a Chinese company.
Well, snowden files showed that big tech corpos need to provide access to gvt for all data, there is a graph when each big tech company provided it. Looking at that I conclude simillar thing for hardware is happening, it’s not in law as in china, but it exists, we just need some new snowden type event to happen.
No one gets a prize from the FBI for doing that, and its costs money and time and there would be designers at every individual company who would be able to point directly to the back door.
Prize doesn’t matter, if the state wants something from a company they wiil get it. It’s just not made public.
No criminal case has ever shown someone using with Lineage or Graphine on an Adroid phone had their phone hacked by any government for the sole purpose of accessing data on an individual.
And if lineage is on xiaomi, or redmi then chinese state also has access or not ?
It’s kind of a moot point though - at this point commercially available spyware can get in at the software level.
I agree on that, imo threat modeling is most important and custom ROM have their own place and are not always needed. My point is that US either state or companies is not better than China ones, they just have better marketing in many ways and also there is lot’s of propaganda aginst China or anyone US considers threat in some way. Which creates illusion that US or EU or the west is better than China.
And if lineage is on xiaomi, or redmi then chinese state also has access or not ?
Yeah, the Chinese law demands hardware level backdoors. So flashing a new ROM doesn’t change anything other than making you more suspicious-looking probably. In Western countries that’s not an explicit demand, and Apple has shown more times than not that such a thing doesn’t exist as a blanket requirement.
But it’s all private companies, and maybe the signals three-letter agency has their own resources, that get into this because it’s profitable. Cellebrite exists not because a government (directly) created it, but because forensics investigation companies are a thing. One of the best tricks of the 20th century is relying on contractors to do the dirty work, because they’re disposable and a government can, if they want, classify their work as secret and make themselves the only customer. When the company messes up, they’re booted and all the researchers get new jobs. Typically this doesn’t ever mean real secrets remain secret (unless you’re a UFO conspiracy person) more than a few years, and both FOIA requests and court cases reveal the info occasionally.
Case in point - the fact that data brokers and third party doctrine allow for invasive surveillance we all “consented” to by having devices in the first place. All the proxy means work just fine, and are cheaper, easier, and more adaptable to dynamic environments. All that PRISM stuff is so out of date. it’s quaint at this point.
So a lack of evidence is not evidence of the inverse. You just need to not think that everything is a monolith to understand how it fits together.
And Apple was in prism since at least 2013. And if PRISM is outdated that only means “better” ones are in use. You sound to defend apple a lot.
My point is US hardware and companies are just as bad as Chinese ones. If it’s officially mandated in China that show that China is just more transparent in surveliance than the US is.
I’d still use Xiaomi rather than Apple any day now if they are my only choices. I see Apple is shilled by lot’s of people in privacy circles. Find it a bit sad.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues here.
Chinese hardware level backdoors are vulnerabilities to be exploited anywhere you are on earth, and you ONLY have that issue alone if you flash a new ROM. Stock Xiaomi’s OS MUI is definitely more riddled with CVEs that make it far less secure if you use the regular OS. Apple’s security only relies on their proprietary lockdown of everything, which means no privacy guaranteed other than data encrypted at rest. They’re both very bad options. Arguing about which is super bad terrible and only very bad terrible doesn’t prevent you from choosing a bad option.
So a lack of evidence is not evidence of the inverse.
This statement is true but within context of information asymmetry this is the best we gonna get it.
People who do the crime control the evidence, we are unlikely to be privy to the evidence. Hence why we have to rely on circumstantial evidence or patterns to create working theories.
With japan sumo wrestler case, statistical analysis exposed them for fixing matches.
Famously not always. Apple has proved numerous times they have no access to iphones once the user encrypts them. It’s also an added expense and increased attack surface anyway, at the hardware level which is constantly changing, so if there’s no legal requirement to do it, why bother? No one gets a prize from the FBI for doing that, and its costs money and time and there would be designers at every individual company who would be able to point directly to the back door. There’s no incentive - and there’s no evidence of it ever happening. No criminal case has ever shown someone using with Lineage or Graphine on an Adroid phone had their phone hacked by any government for the sole purpose of accessing data on an individual.
Meanwhile, in China, it’s a legal requirement from the government that hardware level backdoors exist.
It’s kind of a moot point though - at this point commercially available spyware can get in at the software level. It’s more so a question of if you think you’ll be a target, and targeted by whom? The only 100% sure thing through is that the CCP does have access, with any OS, to any device made and sold by a Chinese company.
Well, snowden files showed that big tech corpos need to provide access to gvt for all data, there is a graph when each big tech company provided it. Looking at that I conclude simillar thing for hardware is happening, it’s not in law as in china, but it exists, we just need some new snowden type event to happen.
Prize doesn’t matter, if the state wants something from a company they wiil get it. It’s just not made public.
And if lineage is on xiaomi, or redmi then chinese state also has access or not ?
I agree on that, imo threat modeling is most important and custom ROM have their own place and are not always needed. My point is that US either state or companies is not better than China ones, they just have better marketing in many ways and also there is lot’s of propaganda aginst China or anyone US considers threat in some way. Which creates illusion that US or EU or the west is better than China.
Yeah, the Chinese law demands hardware level backdoors. So flashing a new ROM doesn’t change anything other than making you more suspicious-looking probably. In Western countries that’s not an explicit demand, and Apple has shown more times than not that such a thing doesn’t exist as a blanket requirement.
But it’s all private companies, and maybe the signals three-letter agency has their own resources, that get into this because it’s profitable. Cellebrite exists not because a government (directly) created it, but because forensics investigation companies are a thing. One of the best tricks of the 20th century is relying on contractors to do the dirty work, because they’re disposable and a government can, if they want, classify their work as secret and make themselves the only customer. When the company messes up, they’re booted and all the researchers get new jobs. Typically this doesn’t ever mean real secrets remain secret (unless you’re a UFO conspiracy person) more than a few years, and both FOIA requests and court cases reveal the info occasionally.
Case in point - the fact that data brokers and third party doctrine allow for invasive surveillance we all “consented” to by having devices in the first place. All the proxy means work just fine, and are cheaper, easier, and more adaptable to dynamic environments. All that PRISM stuff is so out of date. it’s quaint at this point.
So a lack of evidence is not evidence of the inverse. You just need to not think that everything is a monolith to understand how it fits together.
And Apple was in prism since at least 2013. And if PRISM is outdated that only means “better” ones are in use. You sound to defend apple a lot.
My point is US hardware and companies are just as bad as Chinese ones. If it’s officially mandated in China that show that China is just more transparent in surveliance than the US is.
I’d still use Xiaomi rather than Apple any day now if they are my only choices. I see Apple is shilled by lot’s of people in privacy circles. Find it a bit sad.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues here.
Chinese hardware level backdoors are vulnerabilities to be exploited anywhere you are on earth, and you ONLY have that issue alone if you flash a new ROM. Stock Xiaomi’s OS MUI is definitely more riddled with CVEs that make it far less secure if you use the regular OS. Apple’s security only relies on their proprietary lockdown of everything, which means no privacy guaranteed other than data encrypted at rest. They’re both very bad options. Arguing about which is super bad terrible and only very bad terrible doesn’t prevent you from choosing a bad option.
The broken clock should be right twice a day tho…
If it ain’t that’s a statistical anomaly. Kinda like they sort out that Japan sumo was rigged.
How do you mean?
This statement is true but within context of information asymmetry this is the best we gonna get it.
People who do the crime control the evidence, we are unlikely to be privy to the evidence. Hence why we have to rely on circumstantial evidence or patterns to create working theories.
With japan sumo wrestler case, statistical analysis exposed them for fixing matches.
How do you mean?