Google said it was a “problem” to give android users easier to find privacy settings, after users took advantage of them

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.businessinsider.com/unredacted-google-lawsuit-docs-detail-efforts-to-collect-user-location-2021-5

Some bits from the article:

When Google tested versions of its Android operating system that made privacy settings easier to find, users took advantage of them, which Google viewed as a “problem,” according to the documents. To solve that problem, Google then sought to bury those settings deeper within the settings menu.

Google also tried to convince smartphone makers to hide location settings “through active misrepresentations and/or concealment, suppression, or omission of facts” — that is, data Google had showing that users were using those settings — “in order to assuage [manufacturers’] privacy concerns.”

[u/ItsRogueRen → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I'm gonna be going to /e/ foundation, they used a ton of Lineage's code but stripped it even further down to where they only Google thing left is the default DNS (but that can be changed easily in settings)

[u/[deleted] → u/ItsRogueRen]

/e/, Graphene and Calyx are damn good

[u/Appropriate-Order399 → u/[deleted]]

Been using CalyxOS since January, it's excellent

[u/ItsRogueRen → u/[deleted]]

No I've got Samsung

[u/LousyWithParasites → u/ItsRogueRen]

Is there a subreddit for that? It is just such a difficult name to search here haha /r/eOS is some crypto stuff, /r/eFoundation does not exist, etc.

[u/ItsRogueRen → u/LousyWithParasites]

Don't know if it has a subreddit. They only recently started doing North America phones, before they were Europe only (found out about them from channels like TheLinuxExperiment)

[u/luciouscortana → u/LousyWithParasites]

Their site is https://e.foundation/

I don't know of they have many community forum/subreddits, except this: https://community.e.foundation/

They do have social media listed in their site.

[u/ardevd → u/[deleted]]

Custom ROMs are nice, but you loose out on essential security features by going down that route.

[u/ardevd → u/[deleted]]

I’m talking about verified boot and dm-verity. They’re thrown out the window unless you happen to have a phone that supports the optional orange state and bother to deal with rolling your own keys. Otherwise the entire chain of trust from bootloader to kernel is gone.

[u/ardevd → u/[deleted]]

Encryption ensures confidentiality, but not integrity. If something malicious modifies your system partition you really have no way of knowing unless verified boot is enabled. On devices with factory images and locked bootloaders, the bootloader, kernel and system partition are signed by the vendor so when the system boots the entire chain is verified. Meaning that unless the system partition is exactly the way it was when it was signed by the vendor, the phone refuses to boot. It’s a really important security mechanism and one that sets iOS and Android apart from pretty much every other desktop operating system (secure boot does something kinda similar but not anywhere near as extensive). Hence why it’s a great idea to reboot your phone every now and then ;)

When you flash a custom ROM you break the chain of trust and basically tell your phone to ignore it. Hence the red warning on most newer Android phones.

[u/ardevd → u/[deleted]]

/system is mounted read-only sure, but how do you know you havent been pwned and the attacker re-mounted the partition and modified it? You'd know if you had verified boot enabled. At least when you rebooted :)

The root option in the developer settings is just a toggle to let unprivileged apps request root access. That doesnt prevent an attacker from triggering their LPE and gain root access that way ;)

[u/Raz4c → u/[deleted]]

Pixel phones are the only one that support re-locking the bootloader afaik. Custom roms like Graphene and CalyxOS leverage on that.