Motorola contains spyware - GrapheneOS censored it
27d 10h ago by lemmy.ml/u/rocksolid in degoogle@lemmy.ml from codeberg.orgRegardless of whether or not its worthy of discussion, this is heavily AI assisted at least, and GrapheneOS does not allow "walls of verbose text" (which this certainly is...) generated by AI.
Maybe if this person cared enough to follow the forum rules there could be discussion on this topic.
Yeah, a lot of this is undisclosed LLM drivel. Also, the "author" fails to mention or consider that none of the scummy logging/control services would be running in GrapheneOS in the first place. It's irrelevant.
I'm curious if anybody read the article and had a convincing point from it.
I scrolled down and was greeted with paragraphs about other phone manufacturers and carriers unrelated to Motorola. Not only is it slop, but additionally the author either doesn't trust their own evidence enough to keep it concise... or, worse, they didn't even bother to read it.
Samsung Electronics → Samsung Group Samsung is a South Korean conglomerate. While it is independent of Chinese state influence, Samsung ships its own extensive telemetry framework (Knox, Samsung Ads) on every device, and its carrier-customized firmware for prepaid devices includes its own extensive set of un-removable bloatware.
Digital Turbine, Inc. (NASDAQ: APPS) is an Austin, Texas-based publicly traded company. It operates the "Ignite" platform (com.dti.tracfone). Their business model relies on carrier contracts where providers like Verizon/TracFone allow Digital Turbine to preinstall software, charging app developers to silently drop applications onto devices as high-yield advertising delivery vehicles.
@rocksolid nice, opening a new account to try and shit on the one mobile operating system that is developed and maintained by brutally transparent devs. Nice try drone.
Curiously enough, for years and years the main criticism of GrapheneOS is that it only runs on Google Pixel phones. Finally, they announce they will work with another provider, Motorola. Some people proceed to simply forecast enshitification, spyware, and ads. I don't think this is sane at all.
makes sense that they'd remove it from their forums if it has nothing to do with graphene. not a single point relevant to the OS
We're really comparing a burner to whatever Graphene is developing with Moto? Also, points deducted for the "owned by China bad" talking point.
Yes Motorola and everyone else, why do you think most companies have their own flavour of ui? But it makes me wonder if they're gonna try to pack some hardware level way to spy on users
R u kidding me
Something to be cautious of, but we need more actual evidence. Hopefully several different groups with diverse political interests and localities audit the new hardware when it launches.
I have a 2 year old cheap Motorola smartphone because I needed a Googled normie Android burner for certain apps, and I don't like to mix work and private device functions. I will say stock Motorola devices come with an annoying customized version of Android with tons of bloatware out of the box. I was able to remove 99% of it with ADB after identifying the offending packages.
Obvs that shouldn't be a problem with custom De-Googled OS on Motorola hardware.
This is true, Motorola devices send really weird info to motpaks.com and motpks.com. Can't uninstall the PAKS application. That's why I use my LineageOS Xiaomi Redmi Note 9s.
Edit: some stuff from the app:
adb shell dumpsys package com.motorola.paks | grep permission
declared permissions:
requested permissions:
android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE
com.motorola.permission.ACCESS_PRODUCT_PERSIST
android.permission.READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE
android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
android.permission.ACCESS_KEYGUARD_SECURE_STORAGE
android.permission.DEVICE_POWER
android.permission.MANAGE_USERS
android.permission.CHANGE_WIFI_STATE
android.permission.OEM_UNLOCK_STATE
com.motorola.actions.provider.permission.READ_MODES
com.motorola.actions.provider.permission.WRITE_MODES
com.motorola.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS
com.motorola.permission.PAKS_BIND_PERMISSION
android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES
android.permission.DELETE_PACKAGES
android.permission.MANAGE_DEVICE_ADMINS
android.permission.MANAGE_PROFILE_AND_DEVICE_OWNERS
android.permission.START_ACTIVITIES_FROM_BACKGROUND
android.permission.INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS
android.permission.QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES
android.permission.INTERNET
android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
android.permission.MANAGE_NETWORK_POLICY
android.permission.MANAGE_ROLE_HOLDERS
install permissions:
com.motorola.permission.PAKS_BIND_PERMISSION: granted=true
com.motorola.actions.provider.permission.READ_MODES: granted=true
android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES: granted=true
android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE: granted=true
android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED: granted=true
com.motorola.actions.provider.permission.WRITE_MODES: granted=true
android.permission.MANAGE_ROLE_HOLDERS: granted=true
android.permission.DEVICE_POWER: granted=true
android.permission.MANAGE_PROFILE_AND_DEVICE_OWNERS: granted=true
android.permission.INTERNET: granted=true
android.permission.READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE: granted=true
android.permission.ACCESS_KEYGUARD_SECURE_STORAGE: granted=true
android.permission.CHANGE_WIFI_STATE: granted=true
android.permission.MANAGE_USERS: granted=true
android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE: granted=true
android.permission.INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS: granted=true
android.permission.OEM_UNLOCK_STATE: granted=true
android.permission.MANAGE_DEVICE_ADMINS: granted=true
com.motorola.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS: granted=true
android.permission.MANAGE_NETWORK_POLICY: granted=true
android.permission.START_ACTIVITIES_FROM_BACKGROUND: granted=true
android.permission.QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES: granted=true
android.permission.DELETE_PACKAGES: granted=true
runtime permissions:
adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.motorola.paks
Exception occurred while executing 'disable-user':
java.lang.SecurityException: Cannot disable a protected package: com.motorola.paks
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerService.setEnabledSettings(PackageManagerService.java:4308)
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerService.-$$Nest$msetEnabledSettings(PackageManagerService.java:0)
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerService$IPackageManagerImpl.setApplicationEnabledSetting(PackageManagerService.java:6340)
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerShellCommand.runSetEnabledSetting(PackageManagerShellCommand.java:2489)
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerShellCommand.onCommand(PackageManagerShellCommand.java:273)
at com.android.modules.utils.BasicShellCommandHandler.exec(BasicShellCommandHandler.java:97)
at android.os.ShellCommand.exec(ShellCommand.java:38)
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerService$IPackageManagerImpl.onShellCommand(PackageManagerService.java:6992)
at android.os.Binder.shellCommand(Binder.java:1068)
at android.os.Binder.onTransact(Binder.java:888)
at android.content.pm.IPackageManager$Stub.onTransact(IPackageManager.java:4374)
at com.android.server.pm.PackageManagerService$IPackageManagerImpl.onTransact(PackageManagerService.java:6976)
at android.os.Binder.execTransactInternal(Binder.java:1344)
at android.os.Binder.execTransact(Binder.java:1275)
The DNS calls:
Graphene is open source so what's up with your panic?
The base OS of Android is, but the widely dispersed version maintained by Google with the hardware drivers required for it to work with the actual hardware is not.
That's why projects like Graphene can't work on every phone. They have to rely on either reverse engineering hardware drivers or the manufacturers providing the drivers. For many years, Google openly released the drivers for all the hardware in their Pixel line of phones, which allowed Graphene and other customized versions of Android to easily work on Pixel phones.
Manufacturers usually don't release drivers separately and instead they're only available built into the manufacturers customized Android version. Android Open Source Project is the open source base, then Google builds their proprietary stuff on top as "Android", then the various phone manufacturers build their own versions on top of Google's "Android" with: manufacturer specific crud added, phone specific crud added, and often phone carrier specific crud added.
Very tangential, but Android source code is getting a heavily delayed release, and this is harming projects like Graphene