• Tehdastehdas@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    Apart from fixing the small privacy leaks in Lineage, ∕e∕OS doesn’t seem to offer much extra in the way of security hardening.

    With /e/OS, the bootloader can be relocked on Fairphone, Shiftphone, Teracube, and Google Pixel, and they are sold locked by Murena.  https://community.e.foundation/t/list-devices-where-bootloader-can-be-relocked/48424

    This means a pickpocket or airport security control can’t take a copy of your system image via USB and brute force your few-digit passcode in a virtual machine without guess rate limiting. If they crack it, they can start using your user accounts and whatever information is on the phone.

    With LineageOS, relocking is not so rosy:  https://wiki.lineageos.org/faq#canshould-i-relock-my-bootloader 

    Few devices allow for it and even less work properly after that. Relocking can result in actual unusable devices, so be warned!

    https://forum.fairphone.com/t/relock-fp5-keeping-lineageos/108723

    If you plan on installing LOS and want to lock your bootloader you’ll have to build your own images, that’s not supported by default.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/n7yo7u/a_discussion_about_bootloader_lockingunlocking/

    https://xdaforums.com/t/solved-can-i-re-oem-lock-my-bootloader-after-installing-lineageos.4692135/#post-89707810

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      With /e/OS, the bootloader can be relocked on Fairphone, Shiftphone, Teracube, and Google Pixel, and they are sold locked by Murena. https://community.e.foundation/t/list-devices-where-bootloader-can-be-relocked/48424

      this was one of the things i’ve been waiting for! i was leaning towards graphene because of the bootloader lock, but i don’t want a pixel.

      the next problem i have to wait for is better support for the network bands in north america. i know from experience that the bands that fairphone supports are the same that my chinese phones supported in the past; which meant that i got no signal inside of large buildings and had to rely on wifi. i’ve never heard of shiftphone nor teracube, so i hope that their band support is better.

      • Tehdastehdas@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        GrapheneOS still does more for security:

        • Even if an attacker disassembles a Graphene phone and reads everything off the memory chip, all data will be encrypted with your unlocking passcode. Then it’s just up to how long it takes to brute force it open on a server farm. I’m not aware how exacly /e/OS is encrypted.
          On the other hand, Google Pixel phones have suspicious hardware:
          https://lemmy.world/post/27344091

        Hardware-level components like Titan M can execute processes that users cannot audit or disable, raising concerns about opaque data collection.

        • Graphene installs security updates against online attacks the fastest of all. /e/OS promises “typical relaxed vendor pace”.
        • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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          8 hours ago

          pixels are non-starters for me; i don’t want to make google any richer than i already have by being stuck in their ecosystem and my main concern is privacy from commercial entities.

          i can recognize that i would be hopelessly outmatched by the american or isreali governments who have ultimate weaponry like prism or pegasus no matter what i did.