Interestingly this seems to be an attack against the modem. I had thought modems were well separated from the rest of the phone by now.
Hmmm. Install the update that will enforce the sideloading restrictions, or risk pwning… 🤔
Play Services are updated separately from the rest. I am pretty sure the install restrictions will be Android 8+.
You have a Pixel. Put Graphene on it. No more sideloading restrictions, and you get the update.
https://grapheneos.org/install/web (needs Browser that supports WebUSB, meaning Chromium based. CLI Installer is also available.)
Sideloading restrictions will still affect the people who make the apps though.
It is an insane power grab
Yes, I do, and I have. But I also manage my wife’s phone and my mother’s phone and Graphene is a bridge too far for them. And it would be less painful for me to get them on iPhones.
They rely on apps that currently must be installed manually or from f-droid. I’ve been considering apple nonsense for them because the ability to (relatively) painlessly use software of our own choosing is the only distinguishing feature left for their use case. And there are actually apps on the store there that address their needs.
I get it. I have my brother and mother on it, and sandboxed play is enough to make it mostly transparent to them, but I guess if they rely on the Google components of the Pixel ROM a lot, switching might be difficult for them.
Graphene, for the lay person, seems to me indistinguishable from Android, if you get them a decent launcher. You can still install anything they need from F-Droid and put Aurora Store for anything commercial they would like.
The difference under the hood is what makes it interesting.
Yes. GrapheneOS isn’t a bridge too far for anybody. It’s a modified Google Android. It’s in the background and out of mind; it’s an operating-system for mobile-computers; it is Android. It’s like saying, “A Samsung is a bridge too far”. It doesn’t even make sense. Family members are used to Android mobile-computers? Guess what? GrapheneOS is Android.
It’s blatantly absurd to ditch Google’s Android out of a concern about monopolistic abuse and buy an Apple product… I’m sure they can twist themselves into knots attempting to explain it, but it probably comes down to, “I want an iPhone.”
I want to state clearly: all of this bullshit is collective. Have a fucking spine. Use free-software on your computers. Stop letting Microsoft/Google/Apple fucking rape everyone. That’s capital being slurped up only to further cement their monopolies and fuck everyone else over. Your decisions matter. If your point is that your family-members are drop-kicks and don’t know how to use a computer how can you explain your decision? Let Google or Apple look after them? Hello? We’re kind of in this situation from that trajectory… Knuckle down and let’s continue then. Nothing changes.
Graphene teams recommends to use google play over third party or even Aurora.
And restrictions due to securenet will be noticeable when it impacts banks and some weirdly picky apps. Some apps even refuse to run if installed from Aurora instead of google play.
No such thing as side loading - it is just installing
Sadly, it’s never just been “installing”. If it isn’t on “the store”, there’s always been a hurdle to getting it on your device. They just keep putting bigger and scarier hurdles in place.
Yes and using their terms like “side-loading” is another introduced hurdle. Using that term reinforces that new, imaginary hurdle. It’s new-speak. It’s your personal-property; it’s your computer; you have every legal-right to install what you want on your computers. Google is attempting to do something new: dictate absolutely your private-property. That’s absurd. Don’t even try and defend it.
Weird, it seems “just installing” requires so many more steps…
Steps that are nothing more than an artificial barrier enforcing Google’s control over the OS.
Well half the problem people have is all the hurdles Google puts in the way.
If I install a game on my PC through Steam or by downloading the files directly instead of the Windows Store then it’s still just installing no matter if Microsoft put a thousand "are you sure?"s in the way.
Those are installing, yes. But I think there’s no such thing as sideloading vs installing, since, sideloading is a way of installing stuff.
for instance, if I wanted to install an app on my BlackBerry Z30, I needed a special tool running in your browser to do so. So a 2nd device, with a protocol. That second device surely then “just” installed my software. But I would call that sideloading, since I needed a 2nd device that has the way to install stuff on my phone.
if I can just click the apk on my phone to get it installed… then that’s installing. But if I need my PC and a special tool (e.g. adb) to do the installation for me (again, 2nd device, custom software etc… and there’s no other way) then it’s sideloading again.
Installing from Steam or Windows Store is not sideloading, since you don’t need anything special. And using a tool that’s already on your target device is nothing special IMO.
If Steam would need to run on a seperate device to install games on your PC, that surely can be sideloading. Also, if I buy a Switch game from Nintendo Store and tell it to install it on my Switch, it’s sideloading again.
This is how I like to thing of the word sideloading, at least.
But overall, sideloading is installing - so in the end, there’s no such thing as sideloading anyway.
Steam Games require Steam
The point of this new term “side-loading” is to de-legitimize normal, legally protected behavior: installing software on your own private-property: your computer. There is no side-loading. Tell Google to fuck off with their new-speak.
This term is pretty old, not a new thing
Doesn’t make what he is saying untrue.
Which devices though? All Pixel devices? Just a specific subset? Which specific modems have this vulnerability? No specificity at all, just Pixel devices, and also this is happening while they are slow rolling their updates being accessible to GrapheneOS and co.
Modern tech journalism at its finest! This is how every fucking article is now. Vague slop put together for clickbait with no actual specifics on what you’re talking about. Maybe a person wrote this idk but zero time was spent on it or they would have managed basic information like which phones rather than vaguely naming an entire line of them.
They probably are. But everyone can talk to the modem via the cellular network or the internet.
It is interesting, since GrapheneOS claims good modem separation. Perhaps it’s a good idea to disable baseband altogether, or not buy devices with baseband.
Yeah but no amount of HW hardening can guarantee SW without bugs.
True. So WiFi only airplane mode on GOS is reducing the attack surface. MiFi routers with AP can provide connectivity when traveling.
