←back to thread

Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking

(arstechnica.com)
446 points akyuu | 1 comments | 30 Oct 25 23:12 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
derbOac ◴[30 Oct 25 23:39 UTC] No.45766747[source]▶
They couldn't answer the question most on my mind: "We’ve reached out to Google to inquire about why a custom ROM created by volunteers is more resistant to industrial phone hacking than the official Pixel OS. We’ll update this article if Google has anything to say."
replies(10): >>45766778 #>>45777056 #>>45778032 #>>45778056 #>>45779079 #>>45779102 #>>45779404 #>>45780503 #>>45781099 #>>45783125 #
IncreasePosts ◴[31 Oct 25 21:45 UTC] No.45777056[source]▶
Is grapheheOS actually harder to hack or does cellebrite just not put a lot of effort into supporting it because the very low odds of LEs running into one in the wild?
replies(5): >>45777082 #>>45777144 #>>45777155 #>>45779084 #>>45779157 #
markus_zhang ◴[31 Oct 25 21:48 UTC] No.45777082[source]▶
I read from an old HN post that three letter agencies hate graphen OS. The author heard it from defcon or some similar conference. I couldn’t find the post anyway :/ I think it is buried under one of the posts that discuss Defcon and Blackhat.
replies(1): >>45778143 #
overfeed ◴[01 Nov 25 00:19 UTC] No.45778143[source]▶
Wouldn't it be a total mindfuck if it turns out that Graphene is less secure[1] than stock Pixel, and this is all part of an ANOM-style honeypot operation that has Feds hyping it up, to trick interesting targets into adopting a less-effective security posture.

1. Such as via slower 0-day responses, for instance. This is a thought experiment, I'm nor alleging that this is what it is.

replies(9): >>45778164 #>>45778257 #>>45778894 #>>45779099 #>>45779207 #>>45779908 #>>45779962 #>>45780866 #>>45783723 #
tranq_cassowary ◴[01 Nov 25 03:46 UTC] No.45779099{5}[source]▶
Those honeypot phones clearly use marketing aimed at criminals and make all sort of false promises and clearly aren't technical and transparent projects like GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS community doesn't tolerate discussion of crime or implying you are a criminal on their official community chat rooms and forum. Doesn't make sense for it to be a project aimed at luring in criminals.

Anyway, GrapheneOS ships security patches very quickly, often bumps kernel versions quicker than the stock OS etc. Security isnt only reactive, also proactive. Some features like MTE even outrule entire classes of vulnerabilities.

replies(2): >>45779893 #>>45786238 #
1. deaux ◴[01 Nov 25 07:43 UTC] No.45779893{6}[source]▶
The biggest difference is that the honeypot phones come with their own custom apps all claiming to have completely secure communications. That's their selling point, the set of apps, or even a single one, which they claim is unbreakable. The criminals buying these phones aren't interested in just GrapheneOS on its own. Clearly they don't consider something like Signal secure enough, even if run on GrapheneOS.