The UK is currently demanding that Apple install mandatory OS level client side real time scanning malware on every device, bypassing all security and encryption to monitor everything. Its an insanely evil and completely unacceptable demand.
Apple should withdraw from the UK until the UK government learns to respect encryption and privacy.
- Which party do I vote for to reduce the attacks on encryption?
- Which party do we vote for if we don't want the government to keep pushing digital id?
- Which party is committing to stopping facial recognition trials at London Underground stations?
Conservatives and Labour both push for the same things. With Reform's anti-immigration stance, I wouldn't bet on them finding some magical solution that doesn't involve even more demands for constant identity verification to prove you're allowed to be here.
Since last year, you now can't register a company in the UK without having your face scanned. Face scans are also now a very common requirement to open a bank account, get a tech job, buy a property, rent a property. I don't recall being asked to vote on that?
If you vote Democrat next election, will the US stop taking the fingerprints of every visitor upon entry?
All the political parties are completely apathetic about these sorts of issues.
The notion of democracy is used to justify and legitimise things that people don't get to vote on.
Apple is a private company. They don't have to comply with these demands if they don't agree with them.
I'm a Brit and I've advocated that Apple pull out of the UK over this. It annoys me that these companies seemingly have no principles and will just comply with our government's authoritarian demands. As a citizen there's nothing I can do, so it's really annoying that those who could be doing something choose to do nothing for a little extra profit.
It locks down devices like ransomware, permanently restricting functionality of web browsers, messaging apps, and other apps until the user submits to age verification. Its mandatory if you want your device to function normally without restrictions.
I'd love to see the GrapheneOS team gaining enough resources to hire developers who can work to increase the number of supported devices. The more devices that are supported (even if security is not at the same level as Pixel/Motorola hardware), as the more popular GrapheneOS becomes, the harder it will be for governments to target it.
My understanding is that the problem is not on GrapheneOS' side. We need more manufacturers to care and build devices that meet GrapheneOS' requirements.
My hope is that Motorola will be very successful with that. GrapheneOS currently has half a million users and growing. The more users it gets, the more interesting it is for manufacturers to actually consider it.
Google being Google, if Motorola gets a relatively cheap phone to run GrapheneOS (the flagship is quite expensive IMHO), I think people will flock away from Pixels (I definitely will, and I will tell everyone and their dog that they should when they renew their phone).
> GrapheneOS currently has half a million users and growing
That is a total install base right? Unless all 500k of them are upgrading yearly, this number is miniscule. You are underestimating the R&D required to put out a new phone each year only to have 30% (high estimate) of users buying it. That's 150k devices, which is not worth any volume.
It’s selling an additional 150k flagship devices. They are selling the Signature line with Google-certified Android by default and those 150k would buy a Pixel to run GrapheneOS otherwise. For smaller OEMs, selling 150k flagships extra yearly is a pretty sizable increase.
Also, the GrapheneOS user base is really growing rapidly, plus I’ve seen quite some people who want to run GrapheneOS, but don’t want to give money to Google, so they might switch when there is a Motorola alternative.
Outside raw user numbers, I think there may be other motivations for Motorola. First, the way they pitched it, the seem to want to position Motorola + GrapheneOS as a secure alternative for business users (so, they may bring in new users themselves). Plus there may be strategic reasons for them to do that. Google has been tightening the grip on Android. Supporting GrapheneOS as an alternative could also be a message to Google - we have an alternative if you tighten the grip too much. Kinda similar to how Samsung has their own App Store, etc. as a message to Google.
> For smaller OEMs, selling 150k flagships extra yearly is a pretty sizable increase.
It is but the cost of making that phone is nearly the same for Samsung and Motorola. You're discounting the fixed costs here.
If it takes $10M to produce a phone, the numbers need to make sense before it makes profit. And you need to have deep pockets to keep doing it until it becomes good.
So yes, 150k in first year might be red, but you must be willing to put up another $10M next year and another .. to slowly get to say $500k in year 5 before it turns profitable. Will Motorola have that appetite? maybe not.
For a smaller manufacturer (e.g. Fairphone), that may mean a lot. If I remember correctly in 2021 Fairphone was selling 100k phones per year?
Also I am genuinely interested: is it that hard to meet GrapheneOS' requirements? Feels like it shouldn't take years of R&D for every new iteration. And also that it's about getting the right deals with the suppliers, which is not really an R&D issue?
Hardware-wise it seems to be doable now that more and more CPUs have MTE. (And secure processors exist, most OEMs outside Google/Samsung are just too cheap to add them.)
What does add ongoing cost is doing monthly driver/firmware/kernel/etc. updates. But IMO they should be required by law. Just doing the minimal ASB patching is not keeping your users secure.
Sub 200 is immediately off the table but a refurbished pixel last time I checked was about $400 post tax. They have long (7 years now) support windows now which is also a bonus.
Based on how easy it is to make these watermarks encode personal information, its basically guaranteed that people are going to use it for privacy violations and surveillance.
The BBC is a good outlet, but their big blindspot is that it's pro-establishment. Now, when your government isn't a flaming pile of dogshit, this is less egregious of a bias than in the rare contemporary time when your President, say, wants to build monuments to himself and rapes children.
It's a whiff, here, for sure. But that's the reason why: the government is Good, and it certainly won't screw up spectacularly.
They can do both of things. There's no law against leaving a country for not respecting human rights like privacy and encryption.
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