Comment by onli
9 months ago
You are exactly right. To summarise for those who do not want to watch a video, the video shows communications with Graphenes lead developer in which he was extremely hostile and threatened Rossman. It also goes into how said developers hallucinates being attacked by specific other sites, like a Linux YouTube channel that obviously did nothing to him. His goons then attack those projects.
You have to be aware that you give that person root when you use Graphene. All possible technical improvements aside this is a very big risk. He claimed he would step back after the video released, then called that a lie and continued with everything.
Calyx seems to be the best alternative right now without such a risk factor.
I second this opinion, with some additional nuance.
While I don't think the developers necessarily hallucinates being attacked (i.e. given the nature of the project, I would expect them to be persons of interest, be it from surveillance agencies, or even state actors), the main issue with Rossmann is their claim that he is either personally directing harassment against GOS, or colluding with and encouraging other communities to harass (mainly Kiwifarms, Techlore, CalyxOS, and other Android related FOSS projects). This claim seems to originate then cascade from Rossmann leaving the comment "Informative, but unfortunate" on TechLore's video criticizing GOS's leadership. This is taken as explicit support of TechLore community's / KiwiFarms alleged harrassement on the lead GOS developer, and this has somehow been cascaded and blown out of proportions, and considered by GOS developers as evidence of Rossmann's wrong doing against them.
As mentioned somewhere else, I am using GrapheneOS since 2 or 3 years now, based on Rossmann recommendations. The software is very good, pretty much native Android experience, but without the extra alleged Google snooping / root access. Rossmann himself seemed to have stopped using it as his main device because of fear of retaliation given that the GOS devs could potentially target him. Better safe than sorry. I still use it because I am not that high profile of a person, and generally will use throwaway when it comes to discussing anything GOS related at this point. The overall leadership however, based on Rossmann's and later my personal interactions with them however, did leave a bad after taste.
> Rossmann himself seemed to have stopped using it as his main device because of fear of retaliation given that the GOS devs could potentially target him.
But he didn't. It's clear in his later videos that he was still using GrapheneOS, I believe even for months after the video.
> Better safe than sorry.
People who are familiar with how GrapheneOS updates work wouldn't agree. No identifiers are sent to the update server, so targeted updates aren't possible that way. Also, update servers only host static files. If Rossmann was really that worried, all he'd have to do is use a VPN. But that was all just a huge dramatic act so his video would get more views, and possibly to entertain his fellow Kiwi Farms members.
> > Better safe than sorry.
> People who are familiar with how GrapheneOS updates work wouldn't agree. No identifiers are sent to the update server, so targeted updates aren't possible that way. Also, update servers only host static files...
We are literally talking about an OS here. It has an almost total control over your phone - what does it matter if the updates can be targeted? The GOS could snoop on their users and turn into malware only if it figures out that this is Rossmann's phone.
This is what is keeping me from installing GOS too. Interaction from the developers seems very aggressive towards the competing OSs, which doesn't inspire much trust. Who is reviewing the GOS changes? Are they really all benign? In the end you need to trust someone, but I'm not sure GOS is more trustworthy than LineageOS (which has a bigger community, more developers and /e/os building on top of them).
Happy to be convinced otherwise.
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> But he didn't. It's clear in his later videos that he was still using Graphene OS, I believe even for months after the video.
Emphasis on "seemed to have stopped using it as his main device". For all we know, he kept it as secondary device (its just that good) after removing anything he deemed critical. Again, he never said "don't use GOS", or "GOS is not secure". He said he was did not feel safe enough because of the hostility from the lead dev.
> People who are familiar with how GrapheneOS updates work wouldn't agree. No identifiers are sent to the update server, so targeted updates aren't possible that way. Also, update servers only host static files. If Rossmann was really that worried, all he'd have to do is use a VPN. But that was all just a huge dramatic act so his video would get more views, and possibly to entertain his fellow Kiwi Farms members.
Does it matter ? Rossmann is a layman when it comes to software. What he perceives is that "lead GOS dev is hostile against me and has essentially full control over the project". First, he is under no obligation to spend hours learning how GOS updates work and audit the code every release, whether or not some identifier is being tracked or not (and by the way, you can still get identified and tracked even if you use a VPN). The damage was done once that lead GOS dev persist in toxic behavior, for the lack of a better word.
> But that was all just a huge dramatic act so his video would get more views, and possibly to entertain his fellow Kiwi Farms members.
Unsubstantiated claims. We cannot read his mind, and I have yet to see any evidence that would support these.
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Calyx has lackluster security practices, and even removes signature checking so they can sell microG as Google Play Store to apps. This is an objective statement, graphene OS is leagues ahead of anything on the market in terms of security, while calyx is basically just a custom ROM to tinker with.
As for the personal aspect, the lead developer is definitely not the best representative of the project from a communication perspective as he might not have that kind of social skills (based on his posts). [1]
But he (Micay) is an excellent security researcher, and has an excellent track record when it comes to prioritizing his users. There was a sponsorship in the beginning, where the legal entity, CopperheadOS tried to hijack the whole project. But Micay rather kill the project, than let the users' security suffer and revoked the signing keys. And I'm sure such a betrayal would cause anyone to lose a lot of faith in others' actions.
> Give that person root
Complete bullshit, what root?! And if anything, you are the one who are trying to discredit a project here, by sharing some dumb clickbait video.
[1] I see that there is now a project manager doing most of the communication, which is an excellent solution!
Do I have to explain what root is, or what are you not understanding about the concept of the software provider having complete control of the software on your phone and thus having root rights?
Your CopperheadOS description is one perspective, one that does not look all that believable now after his mental illness became clear.
I did not share the video, but I would and it is not clickbait.
I will not further respond to you, I don't think this would lead to a fruitful discussion. Kindly think about what kind of trust is necessary to trust in the proper functioning of a device as personal as a modern phone, and think about attack scenarios that could occur when the main developer of your OS is not trustworthy in the slightest.
> after his mental illness became clear.
Here you are again in yet another comment repeating these baseless claims about mental illness.
> think about attack scenarios that could occur when the main developer of your OS is not trustworthy in the slightest.
First of all, he's not the main developer. There are multiple developers. The other developers do most of the development work these days.
But to say that the OS is untrustworthy is completely false. You say GrapheneOS's founder has a mental illness based on watching a video where someone turned malicious toward the project recorded a conversation where the founder was extremely upset after being swatted multiple times.
The update client doesn't send identifiers when checking for updates, and the update servers only have static files saved to them. You're making stuff up here, and clearly trying to turn people off of using GrapheneOS by repeating baseless claims that the founder is crazy and fake worries of being targeted by them.
Can you elaborate on why this is a risk factor? What do you mean by saying we're giving him root? If a person is paranoid of being chased i would expect them to put even more effort into the security of the OS he develops, not to add backdoors. But please expand your own reasoning.
To put it simply, the (at the time) lead developer of GOS and Rossmann had some disagreements.
At the time, Rossmann was mainly using GOS, but due to what he perceived as hostile behavior from GOS toward him through their communication, he opted to stop using GOS (at least on his main device, as he claims).
His rationale was that the behavior of said lead developer was not "rational" and "scary", and since the developer has not only edit access to GOS code but also update publishing infrastructure, Rossmann's data or himself could be targeted through malicious code pushed via an update, for example. While GOS is opensource and malicious code or exploits could be detected by the community, he himself did not have confidence to audit the source code to make sure it was safe, hence his decision to stop using.
By risk factor, I think the grandparent suggests that something similar could happen to someone else using GOS, the risk factor being essentially at the mercy of GOS developer, would they wish to harm said user.
So rossmann literally feared of a patch that was like this getting into graphene
if (user is rossmann) {
}
makes me think who is paranoid here.
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> Rossmann's data or himself could be targeted through malicious code pushed via an update, for example. While GOS is opensource and malicious code or exploits could be detected by the community, he himself did not have confidence to audit the source code to make sure it was safe, hence his decision to stop using.
This isn't even possible given how updates on GrapheneOS work. The update client doesn't send identifiers to the update server, and the update server only hosts static files.
Rossmann either doesn't understand this, or he made it up to get more views, or possibly to entertain fellow Kiwi Farms members.
To be honest, I don't think that he didn't understand that he couldn't be targeted. He continued using GrapheneOS for months after the video. As I understand it, it was clear in a few videos months after the initial video was published.
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Well, he can do everything to your phone, software and data by pushing software updates. When there was a dispute in the former project copperhead he deleted the cryptographic keys, blocking software updates. Paranoia could result in just making the system more secure, but why not add a backdoor to find the spies in your userbases that communicate with the black suited men that secretly run our government? After all it is easy, they all play a specific game where they communicate via secret messages in chat.
You just don't know what will happen is what I'm saying.
The "he has root" is also a reference to ubuntus shuttleworth.
> when there was a dispute in the former project copperhead
You mean who tried to hijack the project in a very questionable direction, harming their users, he rather lighted the project on fire then let the users' security be compromised?
If anything, that is the greatest compliment you could give him.
Also, this is fud that he can push any kind of code, like you can easily check any part of the pipeline.
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This is on a level of "5G causes autism" understanding of the topic. Maybe learn how reproducible builds and cryptographic signatures work.
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Wow. Reading and responding to your comments in this thread, I can see you are very motivated to trash GrapheneOS and its founder.
> Well, he can do everything to your phone, software and data by pushing software updates.
Other developers are doing the bulk of development work these days, so this is nonsense.
> Paranoia could result in just making the system more secure, but why not add a backdoor to find the spies in your userbases that communicate with the black suited men that secretly run our government?
Again with the baseless claims that he's crazy. Your argument here is that "he is crazy, so maybe this happens too." It's nonsense. There are no backdoors, and if there ever were any backdoors, they would be found. GrapheneOS isn't some small project that nobody knows about. It's famous for being very secure, even famous people have said publicly that they use it or others should use it. Cellebrite cannot even hack into it. Backdoors wouldn't go unnoticed. This is also nonsense.
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There's way much more to it than what you said here.
> extremely hostile and threatened Rossman
At the time, he was very upset. You know, because he was swatted multiple times. Of course he was upset when Rossmann showed his true colors and was trying to talk to him. Rossmann saw this as an opportunity and recorded it as it was happening. He tries to portray Daniel as crazy and people who attack the project and his friends on Kiwi Farms lap that stuff up.
It's not true that he stopped using GrapheneOS, though. He continued using GrapheneOS for months after that video, which you can see by watching his later videos.
> hallucinates
Repeating baseless claims that he's crazy.
> You have to be aware that you give that person root when you use Graphene.
What? This is a very strange way to say it. Either way, it's literally impossible for someone on the GrapheneOS team to target someone like what was claimed in the video. GrapheneOS devices don't send identifiers when they contact the update server. The update servers also only host static files.
> Calyx seems to be the best alternative right now without such a risk factor.
The "risk factor" is completely false. It's all made up to attack GrapheneOS, making the founder look like a crazy person, then people are scared of using the OS. CalyxOS is not a hardened OS and rolls back security in some ways. It's not the next best alternative for people who care about these things.
Nothing I said is baseless and contrary to you, I do provide sources.
> Of course he was upset when Rossmann showed his true colors
I saw the chats. You lie. Showing his true colors = not accepting that there is an evil conspiracy and asking for proof. You are completely brainwashed and I will not continue this discussion.
If Calyx is not the next best alternative be invited to link to what you think is the best alternative. I still think it's Calyx.
…you haven’t provided any sources at all.
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> I do provide sources.
You provided exactly 0 sources in all of the comments I've seen posted by you so far.
> Showing his true colors = not accepting that there is an evil conspiracy and asking for proof.
"Evil conspiracy"? You say that someone else is paranoid and yet you are saying things like this? It's kind of ironic.
> You are completely brainwashed
Okay. If you say so.
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