this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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TLDR: Drug dealers in Catalonia have started to adopt GrapheneOS en masse leading to Catalan police suspecting anyone with a Google Pixel is a drug dealer

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[–] racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Isn't it likely the police is kind of right?

I mean, how many people in that community used grapheneos phones before the drug dealers figured out how good they were for their purposes? So in that community, it's indeed very likely that a grapheneos user is in a drug gang.

Does that mean that grapheneos is an issue, or bad? Not at all. But i see a lot of digs at the police here at how dumb they are. But if literally most grapheneos users there are drug dealers, is it dumb? It's just a plain observation that's pretty correct.

And it's kind of logical that proper open source tools that are not full of spyware are better for also such purposes. Doesn't make these tools a problem. If a politician would now start a crusade against such operating systems, that i would agree is dumb.

But i don't see an issue with police somewhere realizing that drugdealers use a specific tool, and focusing on that. Of course sucks for the couple of regular users there that just do it to have control over their device....

[–] icegladiator@lemy.lol 7 points 1 week ago

I think most of the criticism towards police is because they are discriminating based on Google Pixels, which is a completely normal car that you can install GrapheneOS on. It would be like targeting anyone driving a Kia because of the Kia Boys

That really depends on what they do with that information. If people get arrested for having a pixel, that's a huge issue. If someone merely gets a closer investigation if they're suspected of another crime, that's fine.

The article is light on details.

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[–] nroth@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hey, the security is nice, but I really like the detailed control over notifications, GMS prompts, and network access. When I used PixelOS, my phone did things I didn't want it to, and it was hard or impossible to make it stop. On GrapheneOS, the defaults are a pretty good experience. I even recommend it to non-techies since they can use it with the Google apps and its still a more respectful experience, even if they don't need or want the level of control that I like.

[–] nroth@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

TL; DR-- There are many good reasons for regular people to prefer GrapheneOS

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[–] AlexLost@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can confirm. Own pixel, deal drugs.

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[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

TLDR: Drug dealers in Catalonia have started to adopt GrapheneOS

Gonna guess that's probably a lie.

[–] icegladiator@lemy.lol 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] tourist@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't doubt the claim, but I would imagine others do because there's a relatively minor technical skill hurdle on replacing a phone's operating system which would turn most people away.

I never used a Pixel or Graphene OS, but when I installed Lineage OS on a Redmi, Xiaomi made me wait a week to unlock the bootloader. Huge pain in the ass.

Or there might be a better "drug-dealer-friendly" OS. I only know of Lineage and Graphene as open source alternatives, so I could just be speculating.

Also, all my former drug dealers used WhatsApp on the stock vendor OS. But then again... I live in South Africa, so the police are more focused on violent crimes (both enforcement and perpetration)

[–] qqq@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can unlock the bootloader on a Pixel in about a minute.

I can understand some people finding the whole process a bit daunting, but it's not actually that difficult with Graphene.

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[–] Amberskin@europe.pub 6 points 1 week ago

Feds???? WTF!

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