This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Now it's an international matter of national security. Let's go world, time to de-americanize your tech.
Yes, but, from the article: ”GrapheneOS also says governments and banks are increasingly adopting these verification systems for things like payments, digital ID apps, and age verification services.
“Instead of governments stopping Apple and Google from engaging in egregiously anti-competitive behavior, they’re directly participating in locking out competition via their own services,” Graphene said."
Exactly, it's not only about fighting Google, it's also about setting a better, more open standard for the rest of the market.
Recently my bank has rolled out a new mobile app now relying on Google wallet for NFC payment. I was able to use NFC payment on GrapheneOS on the old app, I can't on the new one. The online banking stuff still works (for now) but no more mobile payment for me. I didn't sign a fucking contract with Google, why would I hand over my payment data to them !
You need to call your bank and the media. Word has to get out.
I mean, a bank is a bank, they are all very similar. Unless you have an extremely good interest rate on it, I would just close the account and go elsewhere. Make sure to tell them on the way out that's why.
Alternatively you can just transfer funds to another app and keep using their bank and use the other account as the NFC payment one but, that's too complicated for my tastes.
How would I know which bank to go too ? It's comes down to the details of how they implement their phone app. I don't think you would find this information anywhere.
I mean, I know a lot of people don't like doing it anymore but calling and asking has a fairly decent chance of working if online gives no details.
Personally I'm unsure how a bank could even force NFC to go through a specific provider, mine has always just issued virtual card numbers whenever I enrolled, And if the bank itself didn't support the provider automatically, I always called the bank to manually approve getting the virtual number. it's a little confusing to me that your bank even blocks the ability to in the first place. I would have thought you would have been able to use any mobile wallet that works on Graphene OS. Being said those are limited last I knew
edit: rereading it. I see what you mean. You mean through your bank's app as a native solution. Yeah, you're just gonna have to call the banks for that one. I would assume that customer service would definitely know whether or not it's through Google Pay or through their own system.
Yup, unless we decouple the incentives behind these all our systems and products the end result will always be: Hey Everyone, meet the new boss! Same as the old boss!
Yep, my own government (UK), have rolled out a digital ID app that only works with Play Services intact, so I had to jump through hoops to prove my ID so I could renew my driving licence. It's bullshit.
alot of countries have fully bought into the surveillance thing, UK is planning to give NHS full acces to its patient database to PALANTIR.
Here's a list I had compiled of non Google/Apple alternatives.
Where do we find another furious person to start the equivalent of SKG, but this time against Apple Google duopoly, to get a hearing before the EU parliament?
The fact that national governments and banks require Apple / Google device attestation in the current geopolitical situation is a damn sabotage.
I just made the switch to Graphene a few days ago and I found it fitting that my government's digital id app couldn't be installed on my phone anymore. Oh well.
I hope every de-googled os goes completely open source supportive. And i hope people choose these os's over google or any other closed source/centralized company
Well, yeah, we're well into the stage where it's not quality that sells Google products and services.
This is the Pillaging Stage of Google's business: as they screw both customers and users (Google's customers aren't their users) for short term "growth" they can only hold market share by taking advantage of market barriers to entry, networking effects and their current market share to force both customers and users to keep on using Google products and services.
Please consider donating to PostmarketOS to build up a pure mobile Linux alternative that is completely free of Google's influence. It's the best long-term option we have.
How does this compare to Graphene? You can also be Google free using it
It's still ultimately downstream of Google code, though
GrapheneOS is great, and it's what I currently use, but it is ultimately a hardened Android fork. One downside of that is it is completely reliant on manufacturer updates to continue to support a phone. Once a manufacturer drops support, the Graphene team must also drop support, as they are reliant on the closed source GPU/hardware drivers that are tied to specific android kernel versions.
PostmarketOS is not based on Android whatsoever, it's a Mobile focused Linux distro using the mainline Linux kernel. It uses open-source drivers for the GPU and hardware which can be maintained and supported for decades, and is completely independent of Google's influence. However, it's still currently rough enough around the edges that it isn't ready as a daily driver, which is why it'd be so helpful for us to donate to it so they can hire more developers to polish it up, as they recently did to improve the audio support of Qualcomm devices.
Graphene is Pixel only and aims for privacy and security.
PMOS aims to bring Linux to the maximum amount of devices (phones, Chromebooks, tablets, QEMU) to give them a life beyond the manufacturer's support.
I would compare PMOS to LineageOS over Graphene.
That’s an American thing, not just Google. They only believe in a free market when it’s their products and services. Theft is fine as long as it’s only them.
When a Capitalist says “free market” what they mean is “free to monopolize.” It’s about keeping the pathway to feudalism free and open. The US is its temple, but Capitalism is a global cancer.
this is just capitalism thing.
In a true Capitalist society a competitor would be fighting for same sales. What we see is lobbying of government to favour one monopolistic company.
No not really, this is how capitalism is supposed to work.
No, In a true free market competition drives prices down as each company aims to grab you as a customer and it forces efficiency in the manufacturing or development to cut costs. Since lobbying has taken over, there is no free market, it is manipulated to favour the bigger donor or other backend deals to eliminate competition.
For example in Canada we have a giant grocery chain that also has a property company, the property company will only lease to themselves, and they have agreements that no other stores can open a certain distance from them. It means that we overpay on all food
final goal of capitalism is to generate profits and thats what leads to lobbying and monopolies, thats why I said this is real capitalism.
The current US government is strongly in favor of corporations screwing over individuals, so we aren't likely to get any help there. The EU and China are the only organizations that might be able to intervene. Unfortunately, they both seem more interested in the surveillance opportunities than in the good of their citizens.
We seem to be heading toward a two-tiered internet. One that will be accessible to everyone, but will be limited in terms of commerce and possibly content. One that will only be accessible to people who are willing to give up their privacy. That might actually turn out to be a good thing. Buying from the corporations could easily end up limited to the later group, which would encourage more people to shift their buying to other sources.
I completely agree.
...and as soon as OpenNIC takes their SSL/TLS Cert generator out of experimental and into something stable - we can start.
Privacy concerned people can start to rebuild the internet based on the original principles of "sharing information and ideas", rather than " maximizing engagement ".
edit: a word
I may start keeping a cheap device that lives in a Faraday cage that obeys the corporate rules and only comes out when I absolutely need it, and then a graphene device of sorts as my daily driver. Ive almost completely de-googled otherwise.
was looking at phone options recently and, honestly, fairphone has become the only choice as a daily driver. I am now absolutely fine with the limited fairphone specs as a trade-off for a device I control as my own.
will keep older phones for any corp BS that I am forced to deal with. hopefully we can legislatively minimize the interactions.
I've done this ever since banking/financial apps became the norm. Something about carrying a small easily lost/stolen device containing access to every penny I own as well as possible credit/loans worth several years salary didn't seem like good finsec. If it can touch money, its on my sim-less stock old android that lives in a Faraday bag for 99% of the year.
Maybe the EU can slap some fines on that? It's anti competitive and against the DMA i assume
You're so out-of-touch if you believe that the EU is against this.
It's especially weird coming from an apparent German. You know all that rhetoric about how the internet is no "wild west". That means locking everything down. Only the properly licensed professionals are allowed to do stuff with properly regulated tools. That's how it goes in Germany.
This stuff is what Google is supposed to do.
This is a matter of anti-competitive behavior and market manipulation. And historically, the EU has always been against that (especially if it’s detrimental to them, of course).
They’re in favor of regulation, but definitely not of individual companies handling it.
No. That's not what these words mean.
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. These laws are formed to promote healthy competition within a free market by limiting the abuse of monopoly power.
It’s exactly what these words mean.
