Comment by BoppreH
6 days ago
This is actually useful for smartphones. Sometimes smartphone malware is capable of infecting a device but not persisting, so reboots clean it back up.
At least if you trust the NSA's advice: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21018353/nsa-mobile-d...
On GrapheneOS, restarting also brings the device to a BFU state, which makes it loads harder for an adversary with physical access to unlock it.
yep, and this is the case for both major mobile operating systems
fun thing is that graphene had the feature to automatically reboot on a timer after inactivity for a while, but now ios also ships it :D
Huh, interesting. I wanted to see how to enable this on iPhone, and the answer is that it’s built into iOS 18+ and will happen automatically after 3 days of no usage.
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I remember something where on maybe mainstream Androids you'd have to fully turn off in order to turn it into BFU, but maybe it does just by restarting now.
This isn't some magical GrapheneOS feature. iPhone and Android both do it as well.
You may be unfamiliar with its history. It was, for several years, a GrapheneOS feature. ("Magical" is up to the reader.) After much encouragement from the GOS team, Google, and separately Apple, implemented it years later.
GrapheneOS's implementation of it still remains the most robust. More info:
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113450215897626825
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/300621/20240115/grapheneo...
https://www.simplymac.com/ios/new-apple-security-feature-reb...
https://9to5google.com/2025/04/16/android-auto-restart-secur...
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The same reason I barely restarted my iPhone for a few years. The `checkra1n` jailbreak had to be reinstalled each time (though it was easy):
https://checkra.in/
This is one of the features I appreciate with OneUI, I can set it to automatically restart it in the mornings.
The people that I know, in the security field, restart their phones, multiple times per day.